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. 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. saw its population increase drastically from 2,772 people in 1948 to 19,017 people in 1957. 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, 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. As such, major fires often broke out in kampongs. The firefighting force only had 25 officers, 37 subordinate officers and 370 firefighters to fight fires in the whole of Singapore.

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. 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. The inferno soon engulfed the kampongs situated along Beo Lane, including Bukit Ho Swee, up until Havelock Road. This area, the most densely populated and developed area of the whole kampong, was where the fire inflicted the most significant damage. The fire spread to the Delta Circus area, An hour later, the fledgling local military forces and British Army personnel were also called in to assist the police with maintaining order.

The Bukit Ho Swee fire peaked around 8 pm; by then, 22 fire engines had been deployed. The fire was eventually extinguished around Delta Circle at around 10pm.

Death and destruction

Despite the scale of the fire, only four people were killed. The Nanyang Siang Pau even commented that "The word 'homeless' is inadequate to describe the seriousness of this fire disaster". The schools in the area became temporary relief centres for approximately 8000 victims of the fire. By 10 June, all victims had moved out of temporary shelters. In 1968, the new settlement caught fire again, rendering 3,000 people homeless. Some eyewitnesses reportedly saw "young Chinese men" throwing flaming torches onto the roof of an attap house. By early June, the Department had questioned over 10 eyewitnesses regarding the fire. The cause of the fire has remained a mystery to the present day. It was suggested that because the government faced difficulties in persuading residents to move out from their kampongs, it deliberately started this fire to forcibly move residents out. Others have dismissed this theory as "wild talk". Interviewees regarding the fire were wary about speculating on the reason of the fire, and distanced themselves from directly alleging arson, preferring to accept "due process of the law over the words between neighbours". Rumours about the causes of the Bukit Ho Swee fire remain a sensitive topic for decades. The sheer speed of construction at Bukit Ho Swee, with 3.5 housing units completed per day, demonstrated to the population that the party was able to deliver. It used photographs of the newly completed public housing flats to showcase the progress of Singapore, demonstrating to both locals and the international community how Singapore had transformed a place filled with dangerous settlements into a modern development that could provide immaculate and safe housing for its people.

thumb|center|600px|Bukit Ho Swee in 2006. From left to right: Hendersonville Housing Estate, [[Gan Eng Seng School and Bukit Ho Swee Housing Estate. River Valley lies in the background.]]

Channel News Asia aired a documentary about the Bukit Ho Swee fire as part of its "Days of Disaster" documentary series on pivotal disasters in Singapore history.

The Bukit Ho Swee fire became the subject of works by several Singaporean artists such as Koeh Sia Yong in the 1960s. Channel 8, a Singaporean free-to-air Mandarin broadcaster, used the Bukit Ho Swee fire as a backdrop to its 2002 television series Bukit Ho Swee. The 29-episode drama revolved around the themes of neighbourliness and social danger, depicting a love story juxtaposed against a society where gangsters harass the socially-marginalised residents of the village.

Notes

References

  • Bukit Ho Swee Fire Documentary by Channel News Asia
  • A Personal Account of the Bukit Ho Swee Fire on the Singapore Memory Project