Three PMD-related fires in a day
Three electric scooters went up in flames in less than 10 hours yesterday, highlighting again the danger of personal mobility devices (PMDs) catching fire.
The first fire broke out in an HDB unit at Block 114, Pasir Ris Street 11, at 1.40am yesterday.
An hour later, another PMD-related fire occurred at Sembawang Park.
No one was hurt in both incidents, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said in a Facebook post yesterday.
At about 11am, the SCDF was alerted to a third fire at Falcon PEV, an e-scooter store at Delta House on Alexandra Road.
SCDF officers put out the fire, and two men were taken to the Singapore General Hospital with minor burns.
TNP understands that the men, aged 28 and 49, are employees of Falcon PEV.
The SCDF said all three incidents occurred while the PMDs were being repaired.
Investigations are ongoing.
According to SCDF, there were 38 cases of fires involving PMDs from January to October this year, compared to 25 over the same period last year.
Many of the fires occurred while the PMDs, many of them e-scooters, were being charged.
Last month, a deliveryman was hospitalised with second-degree burns after his two-week old scooter exploded while being charged and set fire to his room in a 10th-storey Yishun flat.
In October, a family with a five-day-old baby had to escape through their bedroom window after an electric bicycle caught fire while being charged overnight in the common corridor of a Bukit Batok block.
Experts have said that cheap batteries, which tend to be of inferior quality and to overheat, could have caused such fires.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
