Firefighter and another person taken to hospital after Defu Lane fire; second industrial blaze in a night

SINGAPORE: A firefighter and another person were taken to hospital after a fire broke out at an industrial estate in Defu Lane early Wednesday morning (Apr 3), just hours after a blaze in Eunos.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was alerted to the incident at Block 30 Defu Lane 9 at about 12.20am. The industrial estate is not far from Paya Lebar Air Base and the Kovan residential area.

The fire involved the contents of a two-storey industrial building, which houses a vehicle workshop on the ground floor and an office on the second floor.

Five people had evacuated before firefighters arrived at the scene, said SCDF in an update on Facebook at about 2.35am on Wednesday.

Two people were assessed for smoke inhalation, with one of them taken to Sengkang General Hospital. The other declined to be taken to hospital.

In the course of the operation, a firefighter experienced heat exhaustion and was taken to Sengkang General Hospital "as a precautionary measure", said SCDF.

There were no other reported injuries.

A total of 19 emergency vehicles and about 70 firefighters were deployed to the incident. Four water jets and two unmanned firefighting machines were also used to tackle the blaze.

Members of the public were told to avoid the area. A message urging people to stay away from the Defu Lane area was sent to SGSecure mobile app users, as well as M1, StarHub and Singtel mobile subscribers within the immediate vicinity of the fire.

The fire was extinguished in about two hours, before SCDF started damping down operations.

This refers to pouring water on burnt surfaces immediately after a fire has been put out, so as to ensure that deep-seated embers are fully extinguished to prevent any rekindling of the fire.

This was the second industrial fire in a night. The first broke out at about 9.15pm on Tuesday at Eunos Avenue 6, which is about 5km from Defu Lane industrial estate.