Spate of Home Fires Related to Electrical Appliances and Devices

13 Mr Liang Eng Hwa asked the Minister for Home Affairs (a) among the recent spate of home fires, whether there are increasing cases of electrical related fires; and (b) what further preventive measures can be put in place to tackle fires related to electrical appliances and devices.

The Minister of State for Home Affairs (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim) (for the Minister for Home Affairs): Mr Speaker, with your permission, may I take Question No 13 and also a Parliamentary Question filed for a subsequent Sitting by Ms Denise Phua¹.

Mr Speaker: Please proceed.

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: The number of fires in residential premises has been steadily decreasing, from 1,235 cases in 2018, to 934 cases in 2022. The main causes of these fires were unattended cooking, the indiscriminate disposal of lighted materials, such as cigarette butts, and fires of electrical origin that could be caused by faulty electrical appliances or wirings.

The number of residential fires of electrical origin has remained constant from 2018 to 2022, ranging between 250 and 300 cases annually.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), in partnership with the People's Association, the National Fire and Emergency Preparedness Council (NFEC) and the Community Emergency and Engagement Committees, has been organising a series of Community Resilience Days in the heartlands to raise the level of fire safety awareness among residents.

SCDF has also been working with the NFEC and HDB to educate new homeowners on fire safety and emergency preparedness through the MyNiceHome Roadshows.

After a residential fire, SCDF will conduct door-to-door engagements with the residents of the affected block to share fire safety tips. This includes distributing brochures which advises on preventing battery and personal mobility device (PMD) fires.

SCDF regularly reviews the Fire Code, which stipulates the fire safety requirements for buildings in Singapore. For example, since June 2018, SCDF has required all new residential premises to be installed with Home Fire Alarm Devices (HFADs).

Homeowners also have a critical role to play. They can prevent household electrical fires by only using electrical equipment that are certified safe such as UL2272 certified PMDs and plugs bearing the safety mark, switching off appliances when not in use and ensuring that wires are in good condition. For residential premises built before June 2018 and therefore not mandated to install HFADs, homeowners are encouraged to install them nevertheless.

SCDF will continue to work with partners to increase public awareness of fire prevention and how residents may stay safe in the event of a fire at home.

Mr Speaker: Mr Liang Eng Hwa.

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Bukit Panjang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister of State for sharing the data from 2018 to 2022. I do encounter a few of these fires in my constituency and quite a number were electrical related. So, perhaps, the Minister of State can share a little bit more about some of the numbers that he mentioned, specifically, details of the causes of the fires for those incidents.

We know every household fire, besides the casualty, was devastating to families, to neighbours and also to firefighters and first responders. I would like to ask the Minister of State how can we significantly raise the awareness amongst households on the likely fire risks? And also, how can we make our homes and neighbourhood more fire safe?

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Sir, I thank the Member for the supplementary questions. I will share more details about the numbers, year by year.

The number of residential fires, for 2018, as I shared earlier was 1,235. For 2019, 1,168. For 2020, 1,054. For 2021, 1,010. For 2022, it was 934. So, it was on a decreasing trend.

However, for the number of electrical fires, it has remained stable over the years. For 2018, it was 288. For 2019, 293. For 2020, it went down further to 253. For 2021, it was 261. For 2022, it was 257.

These are the details. Indeed, we agree with the Member that even though we saw the numbers decreasing, every fire would cause disruptions to lives and some lives have been lost.

We continue to work together with the community, as well as from the professional angle, we want to make sure that we continue to review and put in place fire safety standards. At the same time, our SCDF officers will do their best to go and respond as fast as they can and put out the fire.

We will also continue to enhance and raise awareness on fire safety.

We have developed post-COVID-19 Community Resilience Days. So, I hope that we can get more and more people to be on board to be part of this. But above all, I think it is the personal responsibility. How we, the Members of the House including myself, as well as well fellow Singaporeans, can play our part: one, to not be complacent about fire safety; and second, how we can make our home safe in terms of our daily activities.

For the data over the years that I shared earlier, the reasons and the causes of fires remained similar, such as unattended cooking and the appliances that we use, there may be overloading. But most importantly, some of the things that we should do are: do not leave cooking unattended; keep stove tops, cooker hoods and ovens clean and free of grease; and also, we should not throw burning embers or cigarette butts into rubbish chutes without first fully extinguishing them; and do not leave batteries or devices to charge unattended.

Today, we travel a fair bit and we are able to do many online shopping. Some of these devices that we use in Singapore, we also must take upon our ownership to see whether they are suitable for use here, and also, how we can make sure that if left unattended, that they do not give rise to fire risk.

So, while the community, organisations and agencies continue to enhance fire safety standards and raise awareness, I hope this is something that we have come together for. We can see some of the reports that we have seen about fires. So, even though numbers have been going down, I think it is important for us to bring the message home and each of us has a role to play in this. We want to get more and more people to be aware, to be conscious and put our concern into actions so that we can keep the fire risk as low as possible.