Bukit Ho Swee fire

The Bukit Ho Swee fire was a conflagration that broke out in the squatter settlement of Bukit Ho Swee, Singapore on 25 May 1961. This fire resulted in 4 deaths and injured another 54. It also destroyed more than 2,800 houses around the Bukit Ho Swee area, leaving around 16,000 people homeless. The cause of this conflagration was never established. The Bukit Ho Swee fire was the biggest outbreak of fire in Singapore's history.

The fire was a pivotal point in Singapore's contemporary history. The scale of the destruction sparked an emergency project to swiftly construct accommodation and resettle the people affected by the disaster. This first public housing project, led by the newly formed Housing and Development Board (HDB), would eventually lead the way to the development of national public housing in future decades.

After World War II, many low-income Chinese families were forced to move out of Singapore's city centre. Coupled with the rise in the number of Chinese immigrants escaping from strife such as the Malayan Emergency, the situation created a huge demand for wooden housing built illegally on the fringes of the city-centre by profit-seeking contractors. As such, during the 1950s, urban kampongs became commonplace on the Singaporean landscape; one was located in Bukit Ho Swee. This kampong, seen by the People's Action Party (PAP) as "an insanitary, congested and dangerous squatter area", saw its population increase drastically from 2,772 people in 1948 to 19,017 people in 1957.

Meanwhile, the British colonial government in Singapore, through the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), embarked on the biggest public housing development project in the British Empire to support Singapore's industrialisation process. However, urban kampongs had to be cleared to free up land for the construction of public housing units, whose high rents, small size and acute shortage made them unpopular with residents of urban kampongs. Many kampong residents chose to remain, making relocations politically difficult. Relocations often had to be done under police escort; the city ultimately had to retract its demolition policy in 1955 and designated some kampongs as "attap" areas. However, relocations still took place outside of these designated areas. This public housing development project was later adopted by the Housing and Development Board when a PAP-led Singapore achieved self-governance under British rule.

There were many fire hazards lurking within kampongs. These included improperly disposed rubbish, burning of joss sticks and paper in religious rituals and the use of firewood for cooking. As such, major fires often broke out in kampongs. Prior to the Bukit Ho Swee fire, fires had already broken out in Kampong Bugis, Geylang and in nearby Kampong Tiong Bahru. Kampong Bukit Ho Swee itself had experienced a massive fire on 8 August 1934 when fires destroyed 500 houses in the area.

Despite the ever-present threat of fire, the firefighting team in Singapore was ill-prepared to deal with the threat. The firefighting force only had 25 officers, 37 subordinate officers and 370 firefighters to fight fires in the whole of Singapore. They were equipped to deal with fires in permanent structures rather than the temporary shelters that characterize urban kampongs. Traffic congestion in the city also delayed the brigade's response to any fire. Residents distrusted the fire service, which was notorious for pilfering from fire sites. They also associated the fire service negatively with re-development. Thus, people began sabotaging the fire brigade's job and belatedly inform them about fires, which diminished their effectiveness in putting out kampong fires.

However, the fire brigade was not totally inept. It had purchased water tenders which could draw water from sources such as wells and ponds and could safely navigate through narrow kampong roads. Volunteer firefighting squads, consisting of kampong residents and aided by the fire brigade and political parties governing the area, were formed. These squads were credited with helping to put out 15 fires in 1961 alone.

Such incidents of kampong fires provided opportunities for the government to rehouse kampong residents and redevelop the land. In the aftermath of these fires, the Singapore Improvement Trust often rehoused some victims in its flats as a form of emergency housing. However, these attempts at redevelopment were half-hearted in nature, and the challenges of obtaining the necessary land for redevelopment eventually stalled these programmes. In addition, the general kampong population did not buy into such resettlement plans as they did not consider such emergency housing to be any different from the wooden housing that they are accustomed to.