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Plan in place to douse chutes to fight home fires

SINGAPORE — The authorities have come up with an idea to cut down on the number of fires that start in rubbish chutes and bins, which have accounted for more than half of all residential blazes here: Spraying water down chutes at least three times a day.

Causes of residential fires

Causes of residential fires

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SINGAPORE — The authorities have come up with an idea to cut down on the number of fires that start in rubbish chutes and bins, which have accounted for more than half of all residential blazes here: Spraying water down chutes at least three times a day.

A trial of such a system could start by July at 10 Housing and Development Board blocks across the island, including in Hougang, Jurong, Ang Mo Kio and Pasir Ris.

The National Fire and Civil Emergency Preparedness Council and the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) recently called a tender for possible designs for systems that can store at least three preset timings to douse chutes and bins, using existing water flushing systems in blocks.

Plans are for the trial to be carried out at 10 central refuse chute systems and 16 individual refuse chute systems, the tender notice said.

The idea was revealed yesterday, when the SCDF released annual statistics on the total number of fires last year.

“This serves to prevent the refuse from being easily ignited by a heat source, such as charcoal embers, lighted cigarette butts, sparklers or incense materials that are indiscriminately disposed into the rubbish chutes,” said the SCDF.

“The amount of water released will be kept to a minimum.”

For the first time since 2009, the number of fires increased. There were 4,724 incidents last year, 14.2 per cent higher than in 2013, with fires in rubbish chutes and bins also jumping by nearly one-third to 1,514 cases.

The main reason for the spike, however, was a more than four-fold increase in vegetation fires (852), largely due to the dry spell that spanned from January to March, said the SCDF.

And with the National Environment Agency noting recently the early onset of the dry phase of the North-east Monsoon this year, which will continue into February, patrols have been stepped up at fire hot spot areas, said the SCDF.

In the first half of this month, the force responded to 20 vegetation fires, it said in response to TODAY’s queries.

Meanwhile, the number of residential fires, which accounts for three out of five fires here, dipped 2.2 per cent to 2,888 last year. This was largely due to a decrease, by nearly half, of fires involving discarded items, said the SCDF.

There were more fires in shopping complexes, however — 58 versus 38 in 2013. Most of these were minor accidents that originated from electrical sources, such as electrical appliances, lighting and circuit breakers, among others.

Overall, there were casualties in 81 incidents (47 smoke inhalation cases and 64 fire injuries), half of that in 2013. Most of the fire injuries were first degree or superficial burns.

The number of fatalities, however, doubled to eight. Two of these were from the blaze at Marina Bay Suites in January. One came from a residential fire at Woodlands Crescent in June, while another was a factory fire at Sungei Kadut Street 6 on Aug 17. The shophouse fire at Lorong 4 Geylang last month claimed four lives.

Separately, the SCDF said it also stepped up enforcement checks on fire safety infringements, conducting a total of 13,903 enforcement checks in 2014, up from 12,832 checks the year before.

The more intensive checks also saw SCDF issuing 3,348 Fire Hazard Abatement Notices (FHAN), which was 43.4 per cent more than in 2013, as well as more Notices of Fire Safety Offence (NFSO) — 3,069, compared with 2,403 in the previous year.

FHANs serve as warnings to building owners and management to remove fire hazards, while NFSOs are issued when fire safety violations are of a serious nature and warrant heavier penalties.

 

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story reported that 83.1 per cent of ambulance calls were responded to within 11 minutes last year, up from the 79.2 per cent in 2013. This is incorrect. The Singapore Civil Defence Force has clarified that the 2013 figure is 78.2 per cent.

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