Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Fire Fatalities over the Last Five Years and Extension of the Home Fire Alarm Device (HFAD) Assistance Scheme

Question:

Mr Murali Pillai : To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) in each year of the past five years, how many fire fatalities were there; (b) of the reported deaths, how many of them were due to fires at residential premises; (c) whether SCDF will consider extending the Home Fire Alarm Device (HFAD) Assistance Scheme, which involves the installation of HFAD in all 60,000 HDB public rental flats, to all other HDB residential units.

Answer:

Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law:

1.    The number of fire fatalities has remained low over the past 5 years. All the fire fatalities, except one in 2017, were due to fires in residential premises. Table 1 shows the number of fire fatalities from 2017 to 2021 and the breakdown of fire fatalities at residential premises.

Table 1: Number of fire fatalities

2.    As the fire safety situation in residential premises is stable, the Ministry of Home Affairs is not extending the Home Fire Alarm Device (HFAD) Assistance Scheme. Instead, the Singapore Civil Defence Force is encouraging unit owners to voluntarily install HFADs as it will provide them with early warning of fires. The Fire Code was also amended in 2018 to require all new residential units and existing units that are undergoing fire safety works to be installed with HFADs.

3.    Out of the 22 accused persons who were ‘couriers’ but did not provide substantive assistance, the Court imposed or upheld the imposition of (as the case may be) the mandatory death penalty on 14 persons. The other eight were sentenced or re-sentenced (as the case may be) to life imprisonment as the Court found that they were suffering from an abnormality of mind within the meaning of section 33B(3)( b ) of the Act.