Central Fire Alarm System for All HDB Blocks

2 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Home Affairs (a) whether the Ministry will consider installing a central fire alarm system for all HDB blocks; and (b) if not, why not.

Mr K Shanmugam: Central fire alarm systems, as opposed to standalone smoke detector systems, provide early warning to all occupants within a building in the event of a fire, in order to facilitate mass evacuation.

The Housing and Development Board (HDB) blocks are designed such that each HDB flat is a fire compartment. Any fire outbreak within an HDB flat is usually contained within that flat and there has usually been no need to evacuate all residents from the block. Residents from adjacent flats are sometimes evacuated.

Since June 2018, we have also required all new residential units, and existing residential units undergoing works which impact fire safety, to install Home Fire Alarm Devices. These are standalone smoke detectors that provide early warning of a fire to the occupants of the affected unit.