A Narrow Escape

This evening, I happened to be at a public apartment doing my community work when suddenly there was a strong burning smell, but it was hard to tell where it came from. As I continued my work, and when I was in front of one of the apartment units, I could see against the corridor lighting, small amounts of white smokes momentarily emerged from the window frame of the neighbouring unit. I began to pay closer attention and ascertained that that was the source of the smell.

I knocked on the door but apparently no one was at home. So, I knocked on one of the neighbours' door but there was no response. I tried the other one, and a gentleman opened the door and I communicated with him the incident. However, he did not have the contact number of the neighbour and after some deliberation, we decided that the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) be called in.

In less than 10 minutes, the firemen arrived and after some quick assessment of the situation, they decided to break the window glass and forced open the window grilles so as to get into the house. The entire house was filled with smokes, including the bedrooms. Fortunately, there was no fire.

Later, when I finished my work, I believed the owner should be back home by then, so I went up to the unit and talked to the owner and she told me it was due to unattended cooking by a family member who had left the house perhaps in the evening, while she was still at work.

She was appreciative of what we did, and she said, "Thanks for being civic-minded". At that very moment, the neighbour who had helped earlier happened to open the door, and she thanked the neighbour, too.

I observed that the other two neighbours learnt fast, they began to exchange their contact numbers, just in case.

I have always said, mistakes are caused by either a lack of knowledge or a lack of attention. This is obviously a case where the mistake was caused by the latter.