Traumatised Henderson Road residents relocate after blaze that led to firefighter's death

SINGAPORE: Hanimeilisa Haron was eating at home after an overnight work shift when she heard cries of “Fire, fire!” outside her flat at 91 Henderson Road on Thursday (Dec 8).

It was about 11.10am, and a fire was raging in her next-door neighbour’s flat. The blaze would eventually lead to the death of a 19-year-old firefighter.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. When CNA visited on Friday, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was still working at the scene.

The fire started in a fourth-floor flat occupied by 21-year-old Muhammad Azri Ramlan, his wife, their child, his parents-in-law and two of his wife's siblings.

Mr Azri said he saw a “really big” fire blazing “near the socket” at the window of the bedroom where they were napping.

He immediately woke his wife, as well as his sister-in-law, who was sleeping in the living room, and rushed them out of the house. None were hurt in the fire.

Mr Azri said he then told his neighbours about the fire and called SCDF. The family was relocated to an unoccupied flat on the 10th floor of the same block on Thursday night.

EVACUATION

Ms Hanimeilisa, 23, said the situation escalated quickly and that she felt “very, very scared”. At home with her mother at the time, she said that “everybody was panicking”.

“The first thing we did was to just grab our cats,” she said. Her family was able to save two of their three cats, but their 10-year-old feline died in the fire.

Ms Hanimeilisa and her mother then waited downstairs with other residents. They did not know at the time that two neighbours living on the fourth floor were still in their flat.

The neighbours – one of kindergarten age and an 18-year-old – were unable to get out as their parents had locked the door and gate before leaving for work, said Ms Hanimeilisa.

She eventually saw them flee their flat accompanied by SCDF firefighters about an hour later.

Another resident of the fourth floor, Durga Ramasamy, 33, was not at home when the fire started. Her six-year-old daughter was in childcare.

Returning from the temple around noon, Ms Durga saw smoke coming out from her block, many uniformed personnel and a cordon around the area.

Told to stay downstairs as she could not return to her flat, she ended up waiting until 7pm.

While waiting, the smell of smoke was “very terrible” and caused her to vomit, said Ms Durga. She also developed a rash under her nose.

She added that an elderly woman living on the second floor was also carried out and evacuated by emergency services because she felt giddy.

Ms Durga returned home in the evening to find that her flat, located at the other end of the corridor from where the fire started, was not affected.

Residents CNA spoke to on other floors said that they did not smell or detect anything wrong until people shouted that there was a fire. One man said he slept through the cries and did not leave his flat.

AFTERMATH

On Friday morning, Mr Azri's in-laws returned home to salvage belongings such as clothes and passports from the charred and wet debris.

The area just outside their home was blackened and flooded. Workers were also removing cables from along the corridor.

About five units adjacent to and opposite their flat appeared to be empty or evacuated. One of them was Ms Hanimeilisa’s home.

For now, Ms Hanimeilisa's family, including her parents and younger brother, have been relocated to an unoccupied flat on the eighth floor of the same block.

The threadbare flat has no furniture, stove or refrigerator, but was stocked with a fan, a mattress and some basic foodstuffs brought by volunteers from the nearby We Love Learning (WeLL) Centre.

Volunteer Donabel Manzaniro, 36, said about five households have not been able to return home. Volunteers offered support such as cleaning flats, buying meals and providing donated goods that the families need.

Ms Hanimeilisa said her family has been designated to stay in the new flat for two months while investigations into the fire continue.

But she did not wish to return to her family’s rental flat, where they had been living for 12 years, after the “very traumatic” experience.

“My mum doesn’t want to go back there because she says she’s traumatised. She doesn’t want to look at the unit anymore.

“Everything happened so fast. Then if you come here, you just think about everything that happened, that moment.

“I have already cried the whole night,” she said, adding that the firefighter who died was “a friend of a friend ... so it really hits me”.

Ms Hanimeilisa said she was “quite upset” with her next-door neighbours over the fire, adding that they had given her family “no apology, not anything”.

“They’re known for their carelessness, the whole neighbourhood knows about that. So it’s not shocking that this happened,” she said.

Those wishing to help or donate can reach out to the Henderson Community Club at 6271 0168, Member of Parliament for Henderson-Dawson Joan Pereira posted in a Facebook post on Friday.