1,990 fires reported in 2024, nearly half occurred in residences

The overall number of fire phone calls for 2024 increased by 1.8 per cent, or 36 calls, to 1,990, from 1,954 calls in 2023.

According to a press release by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), the number of residential fires accounted for 48.6 per cent of all cases, at 968 phone calls. This was a drop of 0.2 per cent, or 2 phone calls, from 2023.

Meanwhile, the number of fires at non-residential premises increased to 415 by 11 phone calls (2.7 per cent), from 404 in 2023.

The number of fires at non-building premises also increased by 27 (4.7 per cent) to 607, from 580 in 2023.

In addition, fires involving Active Mobility Devices (AMDs) increased by 12 phone calls, or 21.8 per cent, to 67 for 2024, compared to 2023.

AMDs include Power Assisted Bicycles (PABs), Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs), and Personal Mobility Aids (PMAs).

Majority of fires involving AMDs occurred in residences

Fires due to unattended cooking and fires due to electrical origin remained the top two causes of fires in residential premises.

While fires due to unattended cooking decreased by 49 calls (12.8 per cent) to 335 calls, it remained the top cause of residential fires.

Residential fires due to electrical origin increased by 23 calls (8.3 per cent) to 299 calls.

Of the 299 residential fires that had an electrical origin, 44 involved AMDs which is an increase of nine calls (25.7 per cent) from 35 in 2023, the SCDF highlighted.

The other causes included faults in electrical wiring or electrical appliances, or due to the overloading of electrical sockets.

For the remaining 23 AMD fires, five occurred at non-residential premises and 18 occurred either on the roads or at open spaces.

As for the breakdown of fires by specific AMD types, the SCDF reported that fires involving PMDs increased by seven calls, or 38.9 per cent to 25 calls in 2024, compared to 18 calls in 2023.

Fires involving PMAs increased by six calls, or 120 per cent, to 11 calls in 2024, compared to five calls in 2023.

Fires involving PABs decreased by one call, or 3.1 per cent, from 32 in 2023 to 31 in 2024.

Vehicle fires formed the largest proportion of non-building fires

For the 607 fires at non-building premises, vehicle fires accounted for the largest proportion with 220 cases.

This is an increase of five cases (2.3 per cent) from 2023.

Of the 220 fires, only one fire involved an electric vehicle. The primary cause of vehicle fires in Singapore is due to ignition sources such as overheating and electrical faults within the engine compartment, SCDF said.

The second largest proportion of non-building fires involved vegetation which accounted for 180 cases.

This is an increase of 47 cases (35.3 per cent) from 2023.

As for fires involving discarded items, the third largest proportion of cases, these decreased by 9 calls (-8.5%), from 106 in 2023, to 97 in 2024.

SCDF did not report on the causes of the remaining 200 cases.

Responded to more than 245,000 medical emergency phone calls

SCDF also stated in its press release that it responded to 245,279 calls for emergency medical services (EMS)  in 2024, or an average of 672 EMS calls daily.

This was a 0.6 per cent decrease compared to 2023.

However, the number of EMS calls remained much higher than the pre-pandemic daily average of 525 calls in 2019.

Of these, 228,838 (93.3 per cent) were emergency calls, 10,728 (4.4 per cent) were non-emergency calls, and 5,713 (2.3 per cent) were false alarm calls.

Of the 228,838 emergency calls, 79.5 per cent were medical-related, involving issues such as chest pain, breathlessness, unconsciousness, and cardiac arrest, 16.3 per cent were trauma cases, involving industrial accidents, falls, and assaults), and the remaining 4.2 per cent were

road traffic accidents.

SCDF also highlighted that EMS calls involving seniors, aged 65 and above, constituted nearly half of all EMS calls, at 49.2 per cent.

SCDF added that while demand for emergency medical services has alleviated slightly following a significant spike in 2022, it is observing a general upward trend over the past five years.

"We expect the increase in demand to continue beyond 2025, given the ageing population in Singapore," SCDF wrote.

Top photos via SCDF/Facebook