Fire in the neighbourhood

2 weeks of indolence, we finally found the courage to exercise in FRIM. After I reversed my car out from the driveway, I notice a neighbour, 4 houses away; upper storey was spewing black smoke. Mee Peng exclaimed the house was on fire and told me to stop the car.

We got out and saw an elderly Malay lady running across the road towards the opposite house screaming for help. When we got to the main gate, we could see a fire has broken on the left side of the master bedroom window. Since the design of the house is identical to ours, I suspect judging from the initial flame location, the air-cond 15A starter could have short-circuited causing ignition.

4 other persons emerged from the house: a teenager who guided an elderly man in his 70s and 2 young children probably 5-6 years old. Mee Peng took the 2 kids to safety, to the elderly lady who turned out to be their grandmother. Both their parents were not at home.

While the teenager went back and forth the house to salvage belongings, I asked the elderly man if there was anybody else inside the house. He mumbled something which I could not comprehend and wanted to go back to the house but we held him back.

I tried to look for the owner’s garden hose but could not find one.

In a matter of minutes, the house was in an inferno. The roof was completely ablaze and later collapsed.

There was a Proton Satria car parked on the lane just beside the house. The teenager probably in his late teens said it was his. Mee Peng asked me to drive his car away as she said he can’t drive.
I was very apprehensive because the house was an end-lot. The car is just next to a high vertical wall which is blazing from the top. I was afraid the wall may collapse on the car.

In the end I took his car keys and fumbled with the manual transmission as I have not driven one for months coupled with the fear of the wall falling on my head! I managed to reverse the car to safety.

The residential security guard came, bravely stood on top of the house pillar and used the adjacent neighbour’s garden hose to spray whatever water he could muster from the little water pressure.

By now a crowd had gathered and we were trying to contain the fire from spreading to the next house.

I have no experience of this sort and was in disarray as to how to douse the fire. I used the next neighbour’s garden hose to channel the water upwards but it was quite useless. The water pressure was simply inadequate.

Finally 2 fire engines and a TNB pick-up truck arrived. The powerful water hoses doused the fire in a matter of minutes.

The occupants were very lucky to escape injury.

The grandmother relayed to Mee Peng that one of her grandchildren was actually locked inside the bedroom upstairs and that was what got her terrified. With the help from a neighbour, the door was barged open and the child was rescued just before we arrive.

This incident shocked many of us residents as we have never thought a linked house could burn so easily and rapidly in a dry hot weather.