Jurong West Kopitiam Reportedly Catches Fire, 10 People Self-Evacuate Before SCDF Arrive
While many Singaporeans were snoozing in their bed on a Sunday morning, some Jurong West residents may have smelt smoke.
That’s because a kopitiam caught fire in the wee hours of Sunday (30 Oct) morning, causing four stalls to be razed.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
The blaze was believed to have been caused by employees frying eggs.
Jurong West kopitiam that caught fire is near MRT station
The incident happened at about 5am on Sunday (3o Oct) morning, reported Shin Min Daily News.
The burnt-out kopitiam is in Block 651 Jurong West Street 61, next to Pioneer MRT station.
According to Google Maps, there’s a large Kimly Coffeeshop at the location.
Source: Google Maps
Cause of fire believed to be excessively high oil temperature
A noodle stall employee named only as Mr Huang told Shin Min that at the time, there were four employees present in the unit shared by both the noodle and fried bee hoon stalls.
Two employees were preparing food for the fried bee hoon stall, one of whom was frying eggs.
The 38-year-old believed that the temperature of the oil in the wok was too high, so the wok caught fire.
The flames then spread to the cooker hood above.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
Fire spread to other stalls in 5 mins
Since the adjacent stalls share the same cooker hood, the fire soon spread there too.
The flames spread within five minutes, said Mr Huang, adding that it was the first time he’d encountered such a situation in five years of working in the F&B industry.
Fortunately, he managed to escape in time while alerting those in the other stalls to evacuate.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) confirmed that they were alerted to the kopitiam fire, and used two water cannons to put it out.
About 10 people had self-evacuated from the premises before the SCDF arrived.
Source: Shin Min Daily News
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Power to premises cut off
After the fire, Shin Min noted that the interiors of the affected stalls had been blackened with soot.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
The floor was also covered with water stains, and workers were trying to clean up the mess.
An employee of the roast meat stall, named only as Mr Dong, said his stall would not be able to operate that day despite being unaffected by the fire.
That’s because the authorities had cut off the power to the premises, the 30-year-old added.
The stall would only reopen on Monday (31 Oct) — potentially losing more than S$1,000 in earnings.
However, that “can’t be helped”, he said.
According to Shin Min, out of 12 stalls in the kopitiam, only the drinks stall could operate while the rest had to pack up.
Hopefully, the affected stalls will be able to open as normal on Monday.
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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News on Facebook.
