Fewer fires
reported, more emergency medical calls made in Singapore in 2015:
SCDF
SINGAPORE: Fewer fires were reported in Singapore last year, the
Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) announced at a press
conference on Thursday afternoon (Feb 18).
The SCDF responded to 4,604 fire calls last year, down 2.5 per
cent from 2014.
Dropped light cases, involving ignition sources such as
cigarette butts, remained the highest contributing cause of fires,
accounting for 54.9 per cent of all fires in 2015. Rubbish fires
continued to form the bulk of fires at residential premises at 53.3
per cent of 2,898 reported incidents.
To remind the public of fire hazards, SCDF has been stepping up
fire safety enforcement checks. A total of 16,165 fire safety
checks were carried out last year, an increase of 16.3 per cent
from the previous year.
MORE EMERGENCY CALLS MADE IN 2015
More Emergency Medical Services (EMS) calls were also made last
year, continuing an upward trend over the last five years. This was
an increase of 10,072 calls compared with 2014, up 6.5 per
cent.
The number of EMS calls have increased steadily over the last
five years as Singapore's population ages. To cope with this, the
SCDF will adopt a data-driven, tiered and differentiated frontline
response model to optimise its limited resources to respond more
effectively to critical cases.
Despite the increase in the volume of calls, the SCDF responded
to 84.3 per cent of cases within 11 minutes, a 1.8 per cent
improvement from 2014.
Mobile applications such as SCDF's myResponder app could help
with this, tapping on the general public to help save
lives.
- CNA/dl