+ Neighbours | Carpark Arson

Court View Carpark On Fire 3-Dec-2005 3:30am

I woke up at about 3:25am this morning from the smell of burning rubber.

Quickly checked all the appliances in the kitchen, bed rooms and living room to see that these were all alright. I followed the smell and was the strongest when I opened my living room window.

From my window, I could see black smoke coming towards our block. Could not see where the smoke was coming from, but it got thicker by the minute.

My wife and son woke up and joined me at the window. Saw a couple coming out into the courtyard pointing out to the multi-storey carpark as they approached it.

Not five minutes laters, we heard sirens from the Singapore Civil Defence Force or SCDF fire truck. By then, the smoke was too thick and kind of choking when we breathe in.

My wife closed the window, while my son and I took both of our cameras and out we went to the carpark.

At the void deck on Block 728, we could see 2 police patrol cars, and two fire trucks - Fire Pumper and Light Fire Attack Vehicle already busy laying out the fire hoses, while the small fire truck went into the ground floor of the carpark and onto the 1st floor.

The fire could be seen blazing out on the 2nd floor with loud banging of metals and small explosions.

My immediate guess was the parked motobikes would be in flames as I took photos of the burning carpark.

By then there were already many residents lining up the edge of the void deck with the police cordoned the area. Good thing that it was drizzling, so many residents did not go nearer and made the policemen job alot easier.

Within 5 minutes, the fire was put out. A tribute to the SCDF Fire Fighters who keep us and our properties safe.

Many of the residents who had parked their cars had their car keys in their hands, anxious waiting to save their cars, but the policemen kept them at bay until it was safe to enter, but the lights in the carpark were off.

We went home when the "action" was over. My son suggested that we went back to the scene first thing in the morning to take a closer look and get more pictures.

His enthusiam woke him up at 7:30am this morning and he persuaded me to go along with him. We both took our cameras again, now to the 2nd floor of the carpark.

Not surprised to see a few residents, like us with cameras to take photos of the where the fire broke-out.

Many of them I think taking the photos for insurance claims purpose, but not us. We were just curious onlookers. My son had a better term for what we were doing there - "investigative jounalism".

Not surprised either that the motobikes were the victims of fire, arson may be at play here I told my son.

But it was a total surprise when my son called out to me to show another motobike parking lot not 10 metres away on the same floor was also on fire that same time too. This was a definite arson.

There were 3 men taking photos and busy talking on their cell phones, most probably from the town council and their engaged contractor to clean-up the mess and damages the fire had done.

Always seen such dreadful events on TV or read it up in newspapers, never real life and up close before until this morning.

As I am writing this now, my son is busy writing his first time experience of fire up-close in his blog too.