Fire at Hillview Park (06/07/2007)

I believe that I already had a very intersting day so far, but it has just gotten a bit more interesting...

At around 12am today, I was kinda tired and was half-sleeping and half-awake on my sofa in front of my computer when I heard a tangled mass of shouting. At first, the shouting had not made any sense at all to me, and I dismissed them as some football fans cheering for all their worth when someone scored a goal.

After the shouting failed to cease after quite some time, I decided to take a look outside the window, and what I saw had an effect much greater then 10 cups of coffee or green tea added together, taken with whatever you want that will wake you up. There was a large fire on the 6th floor on the opposite block. Ok, that sentence did not do justice to what I had saw just now... so...

The fire had started at appoximately 0010 at Hillview Ave, Hillview Park. Blk 19-A, 6th floor. This place is near the ministry of defence.

Ya, as you can see, the fire was pretty big and it basically was burning like crazy. Black smoke was simply just pouring out of the house. When I saw the fire, the time was about 0015 hours. As the fire progressed on, you could hear the glass panes shattering into pieces as they fall off from their window frames. Looking closely, you could see the frames of the window melting and the glass pane just dropped out of the window and fell all the way to the ground.

Admist all the chaos, shoutings of "FIRE!!FIRE!!" could be heard, and people from my block were trying our best to wake everyone up with our shouting so that everyone can evacuate as fast as possible from the block opposite ours. At this point in time, the fire was spreading quite rapidly and the SCDF isn't there yet. The SCDF has already responded, but their fireman has yet to arrive.

At around 0030 hours, the fireman started arriving, and at the same time, the fire spread to the 7th floor of the same block.The balcony on the 7th floor was the first to burn along with some of the household items being placed there. The fireman that has arrived were hacking intensely into the door on the 6th floor and they were running up and down the stairs trying to evacuate as much people as possible. People that has refused to respond to the calls of "FIRE!!FIRE!!" and to run for their lives.

At around 0045 hours, the fire on the 7th floor was put out, and efforts could be seen to control the fire on the 6th floor. Slowly, the fire on the 6th floor slowly became smaller and more controllable.

However, things were not over yet...

At around 0100 hours, about 1 hour into the start of the fire, explosions could be heard from the house, accompanied with a sudden increase in brightness in the fire of the house on the 6th floor.

The was followed on with about 5 more explosions, in which each time, the house became brighter for a brief period of time. The fire on the balcony area has became smaller and thus we were able to see what was going on inside the house a bit more clearly. From what we could see, it seemed that the rest of the house, particularly the corridor are all in flames, and we believe that the explosions could be due to the fact that the fire had reached the kitchen of the house and was setting off the gas there.

Around that time, we could see blue flames, characteristics of gas, present inside the house as the house is burning away. After awhile, the 7th floor balcony caught fire again, albeit a small and controllable one this time, and it was soon put out easily by the fireman.

During this period of time, firemans could be seen continually progressing up and down the building and making sure that everything is alright and ok.
At about 0145, the fire on the 6th and 7th floor was completely put out, the police had been called in, and there has been a police tape erected at the first floor of the block.

Based on sources, the fire was an electrical fire, and was started when probably, a electrical appliance overheated and started burning, causing the curtains near the appliance to burn as well. This caused a chain effect, and soon enough, the entire house was on fire.
Currently at 0209, investigations are underway to determine the exact source of the fire and necessary precautions are being taken. People who have been evacuated from the block that was on fire are still waiting at the ground level for further instructions while the other people from the nearby blocks have all returned back to their houses.

It has been 12 years since our condominium was first built, and this was our first major fire. It sent a jolt through me when I first saw it, and at that time, shouts of "FIRE!!FIRE!!" had already been going on. The fire alarm came on after some time, but it was the "FIRE!!FIRE!!" that probably saved many people's lives from the deadly fumes that were being emitted from the 6th floor.

It was also noticed that the only escape route for many of the people was the single fire stairwell. Everyone had evacuated from that stairwell. Some people on the upper floors however, refused to evacuate from their homes for some reasons and people on the opposite block was frantically shouting at them, hoping that they would realise what is going on, and start evacuating.

The entire condominium was awake in a matter of minutes and everyone was gathering around and trying to alert everyone to the fire that has occurred...

We will continue to bring you updates on the fire in hillview park as the events after the fire progress.

Discmon