It took 70 Singapore Civil Defence Force personnel about 7 hours to bring under control the blazing flames engulfing a cargo barge berthed at Sembcorp Marine’s Tuas Boulevard Yard on Monday. SCDF was alerted to the fire around 3.30pm, and kept the public updated through several Facebook posts as the day wore on.
Luckily, no one was onboard the barge at the time of the “deep seated fire”. In what was described as a “complex firefighting operation”, the SCDF had to cool the exterior of the barge while battling the blaze within the 200m by 50m barge.
“At the height of the operation, the raging fire within the barge not only affected Deck 4 but it was deep seated burning in several cabins of Deck 3 too,” said the SCDF in a Facebook post. “As most of the internal wooden structures of the cabins had collapsed, this posed a severe challenge to SCDF firefighters in penetrating these cabins to swiftly mitigate the fire.”
At around 10.30pm, the SCDF reported that the fire was well under control; the operation was winding down, and the flames were extinguished by midnight. One firefighter sustained a minor leg injury as a result of scalding from hot run-off water and steam, and was brought to the National University Hospital. The cause of fire is under investigation.
Kudos to the brave ones involved in this operation.
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