Two fires break out in separate Orchard Road incidents on Tuesday

SINGAPORE – Fires broke out in two Orchard Road hotels about 14 hours apart from each other on Tuesday (March 16) – one on a roof of Marriott hotel at Tang Plaza and the other in a kitchen in Mandarin Orchard. Subsequently, on Wednesday morning, a fire also broke out in a coffee shop in Bangkit Road.

While about 100 people were evacuated in the morning Tang Plaza fire with no reported casualties, five people were injured in the Mandarin Orchard fire that broke out about half an hour before midnight.

About 350 hotel guests were evacuated to the nearby open area at *SCAPE before the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) arrived at the scene with two fire engines, two Red Rhinos, four support vehicles and two ambulances.

A 69-year-old Caucasian man suffered injuries on his head and left arm and was sent to the Singapore General Hospital, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said.

The other four suffered minor injuries. They were attended to by paramedics at the scene, but declined to be taken to the hospital, the SCDF said.

The SCDF added that the fire involved the contents of a kitchen on the hotel’s sixth floor and was extinguished by firefighters using two waterjets within 30 minutes.

The earlier Tang Plaza fire was spotted at about 9.10am outside the building’s third storey roof by a security staff who immediately alerted the hotel’s Fire Command Centre. The in-house firefighting team then fought the fire untilthe SCDF arrived with two fire engines, two Red Rhinos, two fire bikes, one ambulance and three support vehicles.

(Photos: Channel 8 News)

The fire was extinguished by the SCDF within 20 minutes using a waterjet and two hosereels.

The causes of both fires are still under investigation.

At 10.30am on Wednesday, another fire broke out at a coffee shop at Blk 257 Bangkit Road. No one was injured the SCDF said, adding that residents from the first two storeys of the block were evacuated as a precaution.

(Photo: SCDF/Facebook)

(Smoke billowing from the coffee shop at Blk 257 Bangkit Road. Photo: Adnan Anuar via Channel NewsAsia)

The fire was extinguished with two waterjets within 20 minutes of the SCDF’s arrival.