勿洛大火的反思

Bedok - pasar malam fire

Fire at Bedok

Slow response to Bedok fire

REDHILL BLAZE Young children trapped as neighbours sramble to free family

The heat from the blaze was so intense it warped the flat's grille gate.

Ms Siti Zakariah with her 9-month-old daughter (in arms) and niece outside her flat. --Picture: Joyce Lim

ELECTRIC NEWS

REDHILL BLAZEYoung children trapped as neighbours sramble to free family
They fight fire with pails of water, but...
By Joyce Lim
January 13, 2008

AS an HDB corridor fire swept into their three-room flat in the early hours of Sunday morning, a Redhill family may have an explosion to thank for saving their lives.

The sudden blast roused the family of seven from deep sleep in the 11th-storey flat at Block 55, Lengkok Bahru around 2am.

They jumped out of bed to find a fire engulfing the front of their flat, blocking their only escape route.

The scorching heat warped the flat's grille gate and thick black smoke quickly filled the flat.
Fortunately for the family, which included three toddlers, the explosion also woke up their neighbours, who rushed to their aid and helped put out the blaze.

The fire, which may have been started deliberately, had caused a mini-freezer left outside on the corridor to explode.

Luckily, a gas cylinder, which was also outside the flat, did not explode. The empty tank had been left outside by the family.

Ms Siti Zakariah, 19, recalled: 'I was woken up by the explosion. I grabbed my baby and rushed out of my bedroom.

'I saw that my elder brother and sister were already in the kitchen, trying to fill pails and pots with water.'

Ms Siti's elder sister, Ms Yan, was sleeping inside the room next to the corridor with her 6-month-old baby and 2-year-old child.

SMOKE AND FLAMES

The 26-year-old operations supervisor said: 'I woke up and saw thick smoke and fire coming into the flat. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a pot and filled it with water.

'I threw the water at the fire. It didn't help as the fire was too strong. I ran back to my room, grabbed my two children and called the police on my handphone.'

Ms Siti, who is currently unemployed, added: 'Our neighbours were outside our flat, working hard at putting out the fire. Luckily, some of them had fire extinguishers.

'They were shouting our names, calling us to get out of the flat.'

Housewife Syafiqah Garnell, 28, who lives three units away from MsSiti, said: 'I went out and saw that my husband was trying to put out the fire with an extinguisher.

'Many people had come out of their homes to watch and they were shouting, 'Fire! Fire! Burn! Burn!'

Thanks to the quick reaction of the block's residents, the drama was over in 15 minutes.

A Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) spokesman told The New Paper that they received a call at 2.31 am and firefighters arrived at the scene in five minutes.

A Rhino and a fire engine were activated.

The spokesman said: 'When we arrived, the fire had been put out by members of the public.
'The corridor walls, window frames and part of the unit were blackened.'

The police received a call around the same time.

No one was injured, police spokesman Assistant Superintendent Stanley Norbert said.

The police are investigating the cause of the fire, he added.

Ms Siti said firefighters had found shattered glass from a bottle which she believed could have contained a inflammable liquid.

'After the incident, my neighbours told me that they had seen two men loitering suspiciously outside my flat.

SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS

'And after the explosion, another neighbour, who was sitting outside a closed coffeeshop below the block, saw two men fleeing on a motorbike.'

Mr Lashman Singh, 34, a forklift operator, was watching a movie on TV when he heard the explosion and shattering glass.

He immediately ran out to help.

'I soaked my towel with water and threw it at the fire. Even our neighbours living on the second storey rushed upstairs to help put out the fire.'

The Zakariah family is grateful for their neighbours' help.

Ms Siti said: 'Besides the freezer, we also had an empty gas cylinder outside the flat.

Fortunately, it was empty and did not explode.'

Ms Yan said: 'Our neighbours have been very supportive. We know that they are curious about the cause of the fire and they have not blamed us.

'We suspect that one of my brothers may have offended some people who could be behind the fire.'

Ms Siti has seven siblings. Her parents are divorced.

She lives in the flat with her daughter, Ms Yan and her children, two other brothers, and her mother.

Her mother is still unaware of the incident as she is on holiday in Australia.

Ms Siti said: 'We don't intend to tell my mother as we want her to continue to enjoy her holiday. We will tell her when she gets home next week.'

Kitchen fires a major concern, says SCDF

DOVER ROAD FIRE - Requests to clear furniture were ignored

Dec 11, 2007
By Carolyn Quek

FRUSTRATED residents of a block of HDB flats on Dover Road complained for a week about a pile of discarded furniture outside the building's third-floor lifts.

But their pleas fell on deaf ears. That was until early Sunday morning when the pile went up in flames, a blaze police have classified as mischief.

'The furniture had been lying there for so many days, yet no one came to clear it,' said Mr Khoo Pek Tee, 68, a retired driver.

The fire, which broke out at about 12.20am, roused many residents of the block, which contained 182 two-room rental flats.

Many on the third floor - especially the units near the heart of the blaze - were trapped in their homes by the flames and thick smoke, which blanketed the corridor.

Five residents had to be taken to the National University Hospital for smoke inhalation, said the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).

One of them was Madam Zainub Ibrahim whose flat was closest to the lift landing.

The 44-year-old hotel chambermaid told The Straits Times that she was asleep in the living room with her 10-year-old daughter when she heard people shouting.

But the flames were too intense for mother and daughter to flee by the main door. They escaped by climbing down a ladder placed against their kitchen window by firefighters.

'It was very hot, I could not breathe,' Madam Zainub recalled. SCDF paramedics took her to the hospital that night but she left at 8am yesterday even though doctors had asked her to stay.

Her health, it seemed, was not as much of a concern as cleaning up the damage the fire had caused. It destroyed her curtains and corridor window while the smoke blackened the walls.

Two television sets and a DVD player in the living room were also damaged.

A West Coast-Ayer Rajah Town Council spokesman said the town council would 'expedite' repairs to common areas of the block.

She said residents are reminded periodically to not dump their unwanted items in the common areas. Cleaning contractors are also told to remove garbage during their daily rounds.

There is also a free service to remove bulky household trash, she said.

All this did not satisfy Madam Zainub's 21-year-old son Sufiyan Jumali, who was not at home at the time of the incident.

He said he was upset and disappointed, especially because he had asked a cleaner to clear the heap of cupboards, cabinets and mattresses last week.

'A fireman asked me if the space at the lift landing was a room because of the amount of furniture there,' he said.

Mr Khoo added: 'I had been meaning to complain about the discarded furniture to the authorities, but I kept putting it off. Then the fire happened.'

According to the SCDF, 205 fires were set deliberately in the first half of this year, a slight decline from 2006.

Fires in residential buildings have also fallen by 27 cases, to 1,613, in the first half of this year.
However, fires involving rubbish - including Sunday's - have increased. They formed the bulk of residential fires.

Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings.

杜佛路组屋火患 电梯口杂物狂烧

早报 - 071210

　　杜佛路一座组屋昨天凌晨发生火患，大火狂烧被丢弃在电梯口的杂物，使滚滚浓烟弥漫整个走廊。居民受困屋内，必须等民防部队人员利用云梯救出。

　　这起火患在午夜时分发生，从杜佛路第4座组屋的3楼电梯口烧起。民防部队于12时20分接获通知，派出两辆消防车、一辆红犀牛轻型消防车、两辆消防电单车、两辆支援车和两辆救护车到现场施救。

　　民防部队人员在7分钟后抵达时，发现火势非常猛烈，走廊上的呛人浓烟也让屋内的居民无法逃出来。民防部队人员只好在组屋后架起云梯，让最靠近大火单位内的两名马来女子从厨房窗口逃生。

　　此外，由于大火导致电流中断，民防部队人员也得强行撬开两架电梯的门，把受困在内的一名马来男子和两名华族女子救出。

　　一名邱姓居民（69岁）受访时透露，自己原本关着门听收音机，根本不晓得有火患，直到停电后才到客厅打开门探个究竟，结果看到熊熊烈火在外头燃烧，冒出大量浓烟。

　　他说：“烟很呛，手电筒根本照不到前路，我只好走到厨房呼救。”他过后也由民防部队人员利用云梯救出。

　　尽管火势在10分钟内扑灭，为了安全起见，民防部队还是将2至7楼的住户疏散，事后有5人因吸入大量浓烟，被送往国大医院接受治疗。失火原因还在调查当中。