March 17, 2019, 12:17 PM 
Seven Geylang Road shophouses were engulfed in flames early Sunday morning, March 17.
In a series of posts on Facebook, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) shared that they had responded to a fire at 643 Geylang Road at 1:10am.
The fire had spread quickly, fully engulfing five shophouses while an additional two shophouses were alight.
Thankfully, no one was hurt.
Three hours to extinguish
A final update at 4:48am reported that it took three hours to extinguish the flames and that damping down operations was being carried out.
Damping down is a term used by SCDF to describe the application of water to wet burnt surfaces immediately after the fire gets put out.
This prevents any potential rekindling of fire from the hot burnt surfaces.
The fire was attended to by 17 emergency vehicles and about 60 firefighters.
Photo via SCDF’s Facebook page
Photo via SCDF’s Facebook page
At one point the SCDF deployed nine handheld jets and three water monitors from the aerial appliances to bring the fire under control.
The fire had spread quickly due to the structure of the shophouses, which share a common roof, as well as the high density of furniture and other combustible materials stored in some of the units.
This latest fire comes after reports of more scorching days ahead.
About two weeks ago on March 4, firefighters had spent 13 hours putting out a vegetation fire near Lim Chu Kang Chinese cemetery.
Top photo from Singapore Civil Defence Force Facebook
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