Yesterday night, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) spent more than 14 hours fighting an inferno that was the size of about one and a half football fields, and 5 storeys in height. A person suffered burn injuries from the blaze and was conveyed to Singapore General Hospital.

SCDF's elite Disaster and Assistance Rescue Team (DART) was deployed to work hand-in-hand with the firefighters to penetrate and gain access to the seat of the fire.

The immense fire, which engulfed two warehouses at Tuas Avenue 13 and 18, needed 180 firefighters and 45 emergency vehicles to contain. Firefighters had been working tirelessly from 9.45 PM last night till this afternoon to battle the blaze.

As of 11 AM today, SCDF said that the fire was brought under control, and is currently surrounded by 12 foam jets.

The warehouses were filled with drums of flammable substances such as diesel and cleaning agents as well as electronic items and paper products, which posed quite the challenge to the firefighters.

They needed to battle a tower of fire as the flaming drums had been stacked vertically up to 5 storeys. In addition, they had to navigate cautiously between narrow aisles of shelves in heavily smoke logged and near-zero visibility conditions. These impeded their quick access to reach the deep-seated pockets of fire, said SCDF.

Passerby Muhammad Arif Dollah caught scenes of the raging fire, including flames spreading across the drains, which he uploaded to Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/ariefdollah/posts/2917472238315913

Firefighters had to use 6 handheld jets, 3 monitors and 2 Unmanned Firefighting Machines (UFMs) to control the fire. An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was also deployed to conduct aerial monitoring of the incident and pinpoint the most intense fire location.

Their video showed an unmanned firefighting machine being used to spray a high-pressure water mist and clear the smoke for the firefighters.

SCDF has cautioned members of the public to stay away from the area as it is heavily filled with smoke.https://www.facebook.com/40555400582/posts/10156620033785583/

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Top photo from SCDF/Facebook