'You must take fires seriously'

Her flat was on fire, she told her brother.

Fearing the worst, he rushed to the scene.

Fortunately, it turned out that the blaze was outside her flat and no one was injured.

A fire broke out at about 7.30am yesterday on the 10th storey of Block 70, Circuit Road.

Cabby Sulaiman Abdul Kader received a call from his sister at about 7.50am.

The 53-year-old rushed to the scene in his taxi to make sure that she was okay.

"When it comes to a fire, you have to take it seriously," he said.

Mr Sulaiman saw Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers preventing people from using the staircase for safety reasons.

He went to the back of the block and, from there, confirmed that his sister's flat was not affected by the blaze.

"I was so relieved," he said.

An SCDF spokesman told The New Paper that they were alerted at 7.30am.

Firefighters arrived in five minutes and the blaze was extinguished with a water jet.

There were no casualties and investigations are ongoing.

TNP understands that discarded items like mattresses, pillows, cardboard boxes, furniture and trolleys had been left on the 10th-storey landing and were burned in the incident.

PREVIOUS CASES

That there were 595 fires involving discarded items last year, down 15.8 per cent from the 707 cases in 2012.

Clutter is one of the main causes of fires in Singapore.

Last October, a fire started from a discarded item in the loading-and-unloading area behind Peace Centre.

No one was injured and the blaze was put out in 10 minutes.

Last September, a fire at Jalan Berseh also involved discarded items.

The blaze occurred on the third-storey lift lobby of Block 25 and involved clutter such as shopping trolleys, a sofa and small cupboards.

Twenty people were evacuated and there were no casualties.

This article was first published on July 25, 2014.
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