Turn Down the Heat

Problem

Residential fires account for nearly 50% of all fires in Singapore. Notably, 68% of these fires were preventable.

These are often caused by:

• unattended cooking (~40%)

• electrical origin, such as electrical faults in wiring or appliances, overloaded sockets, and active mobility devices (~28%)

Despite extensive fire safety advisories disseminated by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) through mainstream media, social platforms, and People’s Association Community Emergency and Engagement Committees (PA C2E), preventable residential fires remain a pressing issue.

Example of a social media post by SCDF to alert netizens of a recent residential fire.

Goals

We aimed to address the following challenge:

Vision

A Singapore where every community is empowered to prevent fires through knowledge and awareness

Mission

To transform fire incident data into actionable insights that protect homes and save lives by:

1. Making fire safety information accessible and relevant to every neighbourhood

2. Helping residents learn from past incidents to prevent future ones

3. Encouraging residents to take practical prevention steps

Research and approach

We conducted several rounds of research using different methodologies.

Survey

We surveyed around 70 people on how they view fire safety at home.

They demonstrated generally good awareness of fire risks, but there was a gap in translating that knowledge into effective preparation and response capabilities.

Stakeholder interviews

We interviewed 4 SCDF officers with experience in community engagement and emergency preparedness (EP). We learnt that:

1. People are more likely to…

   • Take action when incidents happen close to home.

   • Learn EP skills when presented as simple and accessible.

2. Community engagement works best when…

   • Interactions are personal.

   • Messages are consistent across multiple touchpoints.

   • Members of the community can clearly gain value from the experience.

Immersions

We conducted walk-the-mile immersions by participating in the Pasir Ris-Punggol Community Resilience Day and a post-fire blitz in Hougang to better understand how the SCDF and PA C2E engage and educate the public about fire safety and emergency preparedness.

We visited the Pasir Ris-Punggol Community Resilience Day on 12 Jan 2025.

We participated and observed a post-fire blitz at Hougang on 22 Jan 2025.

Solution

Turn Down the Heat is an interactive community map that allows users to access first-hand information on residential fires in Singapore attributed to preventable causes from 2022 to 2024.

Key features

• Map-Based Exploration: Users can visualise fire incidents geographically.

• Postal Code Search: Users can find fire incidents occurred near their homes.

• Filters: Users can view data by cause of fire and year.

• Incident Details: Users can learn about each fire and relevant safety tips to keep their home safe.

• Interactivity: Annual fire statistics are now visualised in an interactive format instead of a static PDF.

Impact metrics

1. Engagement Tracking: Analysing site visits, time spent, and search queries.

2. Community Adoption: SCDF and grassroots leaders using the tool in outreach programmes.

3. SCDF Integration: Testing the replacement of static reports with interactive dashboards.

User feedback

We tested our minimum viable product with users and received valuable feedback.

Map interface & navigation

Users appreciated the familiar Google Maps-like interface as it was intuitive. They also found the postal code search functionality easy to use and that the filtering options were clear.

Incident information display

Users were more likely to skip long text descriptions. As such, we re-designed the interface to provide short-form content:

• Cause of fire

• Where the fire happened

• Extent of damage (or what the fire involved)

Users also said they would like to see more photo/video content and know how many people were evacuated or injured.

Safety tips

Users liked that fire safety tips were immediately shown below the incident information so that they can learn how to prevent something similar from happening to them.

User motivations & triggers

Users said they would more likely interact with our product when:

• there is a recent fire near their home

• they want to check on loved ones' neighbourhoods

• referred by news articles about fires
  

What's next?

The current prototype can be used by SCDF and PA C2E as part of their public education efforts on fire safety and emergency preparedness (EP). It can be accessed here: https://go.gov.sg/turndowntheheat-hack25.

Potential improvements

• Build map layers for

  • community resources (e.g., public fire extinguishers)

  • EP activities in various constituencies (e.g., Community Resilience Days)

  • aggregated risk scores of residential buildings or estates

  • vulnerable populations

  • impact of community first responders

• Enable shareability and embedding on websites so that any interested public user or stakeholder (e.g., media) can access the most updated information about residential fires from SCDF

Long-term vision

• Turn Down the Heat becomes an official fire safety resource for the public.

• Integrate crowdsourced data (e.g., photo/video) from public users and real-time updates from SCDF about ongoing incidents.

• Expand into predictive analytics to help SCDF, PA C2E and other community-based resources identify high-risk areas.

Team

Syafiq Ong | Ajayraj Singh | Felicia Wee | Manida | Neath | Farabi