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Ministry of Home Affairs

Ensuring civil defence and emergency preparedness

The Singapore Civil Defence (SCDF) provides firefighting, rescue, emergency medical services and hazardous materials mitigation. It also formulates, implements and enforces regulations on fire safety and civil defence shelter matters.

Last updated 1 February 2026

What we do

The role of the SCDF is to provide:

  • Emergency Response -24-hour firefighting, rescue, mitigation of hazardous incidents and emergency medical services

  • Fire Safety and Public Protection - formulating and enforcing regulations on fire safety and civil defence shelter matters

  • Community Engagement - enhancing the resilience and emergency preparedness of the civil population, and promoting community first response

Person doing CPR on a training dummy, watched by others in uniform; fire extinguisher nearby.

Legislation

Our laws on fire safety, civil defence and emergency preparedness include the following:

  • The Civil Defence Act provides for the raising, maintenance and discipline of a civil defence force and for the exercise of the functions and powers of the Force during national emergencies and day-to-day operations

  • The Fire Safety Act makes provisions for the fire safety of buildings and to give SCDF the necessary legislative levers to maintain regulatory oversight over relevant stakeholders and take enforcement action against infringements

  • The Civil Defence Shelter Act relates to the provision of civil defence shelters for use during a state of emergency and for matters connected to it

Two firefighters in full gear with orange helmets holding a hose near a damaged building.

Initiatives

Civil Defence Shelter Programme

Building up our nation's civil defence preparedness, the programme protects the civilian population from weapon effects during a war emergency and is under the SCDF's umbrella of Total Defence.

MyResponder

The community plays a key role in SCDF’s Tiered Emergency Response Framework as our partner in delivering life-saving interventions to casualties. The MyResponder mobile app crowdsources lifesaving by alerting members of the public to nearby medical cases. These alerts will be further expanded to include fire cases.

Save-A-Life (SAL)

Launched in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, People's Association and Singapore Heart Foundation, the SAL initiative builds a network of community first responders who are trained in performing CPF and operating AEDs to respond to cardiac arrests in their immediate vicinity.

How you can do your part

If you are interested in civil defence, head to the SCDF website to find out how you can take precautions during peacetime and war time emergencies. You can also learn how to adopt fire safety measures and how to be a Community First Responder.