SINGAPORE — Six years after a fire burnt down most of her house, Ms Sharon Su and her family religiously checks that every single appliance in their home, from the kitchen to their bedrooms, is switched off after use. 

Ms Su does not want history to repeat itself. “I was at church with my family. It seemed like a normal day,” the 48-year-old project manager recalled.

Then she received a call from her neighbour: “Is that your house on fire?” 

The family rushed home and watched helplessly as their unit went up in flames. Some 80 per cent of their house was gone, she estimated.

The fire started in the master bedroom when an overcharged power bank exploded and spread to the rest of her unit. Ms Su’s two sons, who were in secondary school and junior college, had all their study materials turn to ash.

They had just renovated the Chua Chu Kang condo before the fire happened and it had all gone to waste, she recalled matter-of-factly. 

But a family’s struggles do not just end when the flames are put out. Ms Su recalls walking through the hallways filled with soot, trying to scavenge whatever pieces of belongings she could find. In a sense, victims of house fires spend months, if not years, putting the pieces of their home back together. 

Residential fires are on the decline over the years, going from 2,657 fires in 2017 to 935 in 2022, according to the SCDF. Out of these, the most common causes of a residential fire are unattended cooking, electrical reasons and discarded items.

Several fires have made the headlines this year. On Jan 9, a fire along East Coast Road damaged six terrace houses, in an incident where firefighters had difficulties removing the cover of a fire hydrant. About a week later, a blaze in Bedok Reservoir resulted in 20 residents being evacuated from their homes.

Power assisted bicycles, including personal mobility devices (PMD) and electric bicycles, are a growing concern, with the number of PMD incidents peaking at 68 in 2020. 

Beyond these numbers, however, are the financial and emotional scars the fires left on families. The three victims whom TODAY spoke to indicated a range of issues, including their jobs being affected, having to purchase all their belongings that got destroyed like furniture, and finding alternative accommodation. 

“We moved to my sister-in-law's place for three months, while the house was redone,” Ms Su said. In those three months, Ms Su did not go to work.  

“Almost every day, we would go back to our unit and take stock of the damage, for us to file our insurance. But even then, it was so overwhelming because we did not know how to go about it.” 

Her family, with the help of insurance agent friends, managed to claim 60 per cent of the damages from her insurance provider.

For Ms Wei, whose house experienced a fire just a month ago in February, things were much tougher. The 37-year-old, a mother of two primary school age children, had to quit her job in order to take care of her children as they continued to live in the flat while renovations were ongoing. 

When TODAY visited Ms Wei’s residence in Clementi, the kitchen was still covered in soot. She was preparing the family’s dinner, chopping vegetables over a bucket in the living room.

In between, she would carry the bucket to the toilet to wash vegetables, as the kitchen still did not have a source of water.  

“In the weeks after the fire, I would take half the day off, on no-pay leave,” said Ms Wei, who declined to give her full name.

This was so that she could supervise the construction happening in her home and clean up all the grime and soot. “When the firemen came in, they left large boot stains that you have to clean up afterwards,” she said.

Eventually, balancing work and the additional housework proved to be unsustainable, and Ms Wei tendered her resignation. She is currently serving her one month notice, but is concerned about her future financial prospects.  

“We’ve spent maybe S$30,000 to S$40,000 on renovations after the fire,” said Ms Wei. “We haven’t started on insurance claims yet because renovation is still ongoing, but that will be an additional burden for us to complete.

“All these things that we have to deal with have been so exhausting... it is huge psychological stress."

Ms Wei’s nine-year-old daughter, who was at home when the fire happened, ran out of the flat with no shoes on. “Now when my children sleep, they can’t sleep alone sometimes. My younger son (who is in Primary 1) will have to sleep together with me and clings to me a lot now,” said Ms Wei.

For Dan, 23, the fire that broke out at his home in MacPherson has jeopardised his earnings as a food delivery rider. As he has a leg injury, he relied on his modified PMD for his deliveries.  

“Actually, a lot of my friends (who also have modified PMDs) have experienced fires before, or their PMD just went boom. But I always thought that it wouldn’t happen to me, maybe,” said Dan, who declined to give his full name. 

He recalled looking through the wreckage and seeing his destroyed Fiido PMD seat in the rubble. Never again, he decided.

“I’ve been there, you know, riding on the roads at a very high speed. But this is not worth it, I’ve told my friends that if they want to modify their PMDs, sure, but you will pay the price.” 

Dan now uses a bicycle to deliver his orders, but can only ride at a slow speed due to his injury. The number of orders and his efficiency has plummeted, leaving him at the mercy of food delivery apps’ algorithm. 

Apart from the additional burdens that victims of house fires have to deal with, the experience of surviving a fire looms large on them. 

Dan was asleep when his PMD exploded at around 6am in the corridor, and he was trapped inside his own home as the smoke began to fill his flat. 

“I remember sitting there, being like, should I jump out?” Dan recalled. Eventually, he almost passed out due to smoke inhalation, and he remembered being lifted out of the flat in the arms of a firefighter “like a princess”. 

He soberly reflected on how sleeping restfully is now a challenge. “Sometimes when I sleep, I’ll wake up at midnight, and then at 2am, and then at 4am. I still remember the heat, the smoke, because I was trapped inside my house when it happened.” 

A 'CONSTANT REMINDER' 

The trauma of experiencing a house fire can weigh heavily on victims. Dr Praveen Nair, a psychologist and senior consultant at Raven Counselling & Consultancy, told TODAY that while a traumatic event might take time to heal, additional aggravating factors might make it more difficult to cope with the primary trauma.

"For example, if you have to stay with family members or friends, you need to think about financial burdens," he said.

"What it's actually doing is making it very hard for you to heal from the primary trauma of the fire, because it's a constant reminder in your life on what happened."

It is only when pressing challenges like insurance claims, finding a roof over one's head, paying off the renovation costs are settled that the victim then has time to heal.

"Most people will feel better after the first month since the traumatic event, and the next window is three to six months. This is when post-traumatic stress disorder is diagnosed," Dr Nair said.

"Of course, this is all dependent on how the individual's memory works, because trauma is an event that we cannot process.

"However, if the person has reached a level of functioning like the day-to-day living is reasonably back to normal, they are not having sleep disturbances, eating disturbances, then I would say they're quite reasonably on the way to recovery and may not necessarily require a professional intervention."

Mr Raymond Ong, the chief executive officer of Etiqa Insurance Singapore, said that the financial challenges include ascertaining the extent of losses and costs associated with rebuilding the home.

“It is important to note that insurers will pay the lower of the sum insured or total cost of reinstatement if there is complete destruction of the property,” he said.

“Where there is only partial loss, the payment will be pro-rated according to the proportion insured.” 

Residents who experience a house fire should contact their insurer as soon as they have ascertained there is damage to the property.

Other than filling in a claim form, the insurer will appoint a loss adjuster to look into the circumstances of the loss and investigate the claims.