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SINGAPORE – A man who died in a fire that could have been caused by carrying a personal mobility device (PMD) had left his place of refuge in a bathroom to try to save his dogs in the living room.
Goh Keng Soon, 40, was initially in the master bedroom bathroom with his wife during the fire, according to an investigating officer with the Singapore Police Force (SPF), who testified in a coroner’s investigation into the death. Goh on Friday (Oct 23). He asked his wife to stay in the bathroom while he left to save the two barking dogs in the room, the officer said.
The device had previously been left for charging in the living room while Goh and his wife retired to bed around midnight.
Due to the intense heat and smoke from the fire, Goh hid in the common bathroom where he later collapsed. He was later found by the Singapore Civil Defense Force (SCDF), which responded to a call from a member of the public reporting the case of an electric scooter on fire at Goh’s Bukit Batok unit at around 12:41 a.m. . M. From July 18 of last year. .
Goh died of multiple organ failure after a heart attack and had thermal burns and coronary artery disease, SPF inspector Muhammad Eszham Sabtu said, referring to an autopsy report.
The SPF determined that the cause of the fire was overheating due to the charge of a PMD that was found at the scene of the fire. The PMD may have been overloaded, due to a lack of an effective battery management system and a faulty adapter.
Investigations by a senior SCDF fire investigator, Huang Weikang, showed that the fire was mainly caused by resistor overheating localized to a two-pin plug and charging port during charging of one of the three PMDs in the scene.
Only one PMD was charging at the time of the incident, the same one that had proved faulty.
“According to the investigation, the probable cause of the fire was accidental in nature and electrical in origin and that the lithium-ion battery cells were the primary ignition fuel,” Major Huang told the state coroner Kamala Ponnampalam. He added that the other items in the living room were secondary ignition fuel. Damage to the furniture in the room also indicated that the fire had started in that area.
The SPF investigator added that there was no suspicion of foul play or that the fire was deliberately started. Fire from embers or smoking material was unlikely and there was no evidence of prayer or smoking activity in the unit, and no indications of flammable liquids involved, the SCDF investigator noted.
As a result of the incident, three victims were taken to hospitals, Goh, his wife and a neighbor who suffered cuts.
When SC Ponnamapalam asked if Goh was successful in saving his pets, the SPF investigator said it was unclear, but both dogs survived and were later placed under the care of a neighbor.
An independent expert, Edmund Ng of Matcor Technology and Services, testified that there was overheating in three locations connected to the charging PMD: the charging port, between the two-pin plug and plug adapter, and the PMD’s battery pack. The expert could not pinpoint which of these contributed to the fire, but said all three could have contributed to the fire.
Due to overheating, the temperature of the device rose and any nearby combustible materials could have caught fire, the expert said.
State Attorney Daphne Lim asked if the PMD’s battery management system met UL2272. UL2272 is an electrical standard required for the fire safety compliance of certain electrical components. The standard ensures that there are protective circuitry with the Battery Management System (BMS) to prevent overcharging or a rise in temperature within the system.
However, the expert said that he was unable to determine if the BMS met the requirements as it was burned by the fire. If the BMS were working and compliant, a rise in temperature would have caused the power supply to be cut off so the PMD would stop charging.
The overheating could also have been caused by a loose connection between the two-pin plug and the adapter, Ng said.
The matter was postponed to a later date.
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