Neighbours rush to fight Toa Payoh flat fire with bottles, pails of water
He was watching YouTube videos on the sofa yesterday morning when he heard a bang, followed by people screaming.
But Pierce Ng ignored it and continued watching his videos in his seventh storey flat at Block 235, Toa Payoh Lorong 8.
Pierce, who is waiting for his O-level results, said he "did not think too much of it".
"But when my helper went out, she saw a big fire," the 17-year-old told The New Paper. As he stepped out of his flat, he saw the fire had engulfed a unit on the sixth storey.
With his father, Mr Daniel Ng, 40, a property agent, and their 28-year-old domestic helper Cherry, they rushed over with bottles and pails filled with water to put out the fire.
Said Pierce: "We grabbed the bottles of water we use for our plants and filled pails with water."
He also called the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).
An SCDF spokesman told TNP that it responded to the incident at 8.52am and that the fire had broken out in the living room of the unit.
Another resident, Mr Ricarte Vicente, 42, an embalmer, said he saw the windows shattering at the flat.
Pierce said: "Two men used two fire extinguishers to help put out the fire."
He added that a neighbour took a wooden pole to lift up some dangling wires to help a resident escape from his flat, which was next to the burning unit.
The SCDF finally extinguished the fire with a water jet.
No one was in the unit at the time, and the SCDF confirmed there was no reported injuries.
The cause of fire is under investigation.
A resident on the seventh storey, Madam Tee Bee Lian, 57, was cooking when the fire broke out. She said: "Our place has always been peaceful. I have lived here for 17 years, and this is the first time something like this has happened."
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now