‘Kampung spirit’: Admiralty Grove residents band together to put out fire at HDB corridor

SINGAPORE - The neighbourly, communal spirit of residents in Woodlands’ Admiralty Grove was on display on Sept 14, when they managed to put out a fire in the corridor of an HDB block before fire-fighters arrived.

Resident Faith Chong was having dinner at home at around 9.35pm, when a series of audible mini explosions came from outside her family’s eighth-floor flat.

Realising it was a fire at the corner flat four units away from their own, she and her husband decided the first thing they had to do was try to help their neighbours.

“I shouted ‘Fire! Fire!’... then I called my neighbour (in the affected flat) because I knew she was at home with her mother-in-law and two young kids,” said Chong.

Her husband, Jeffrey Lim, 36, sprang into action, taking along a fire extinguisher they kept at home to fight the flames, she said.

His efforts managed to douse the flames long enough for the affected unit’s occupants to escape the flat through its front door, only for the fire to reignite.

Soon after the extinguisher was depleted, a group of boys from the estate showed up, said Chong, 30. Unreeling the floor’s communal fire hose, the boys and another man helped put out the fire.

“I was just using my logic,” Lim, a civil servant, said on what guided his rescue efforts, despite having no experience fighting fires before this. He also went back to his flat to get a wet towel so the boys could use it to reduce smoke inhalation amid the fumes.

In a series of videos Chong posted, residents were also seen gathering water pails to assist with the fire-fighting efforts.

The fire involved a shoe rack in the common corridor on the eighth floor, said officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Forces (SCDF), confirming that the fire was put out before they arrived.

There were no reported injuries, and the cause of the fire is under investigation, added the SCDF.

The police said they received several calls for assistance at 9.35pm that day, with investigations ongoing.

Photos taken by residents showed the charred ceiling and walls outside the affected flat. An exercise bike placed outside the flat was also damaged in the fire.

In the face of danger, Chong said, she was moved by the concerted actions and “kampung spirit” of her Admiralty Grove neighbours coming together to keep their estate safe.

Asked what made her decide to help her neighbours instead of evacuating from the block, she drew upon the words of Lilo, of the Disney series Lilo & Stich.

“We are quite closely knit, like a family,” said Chong, a ventriloquist.