IN HER haste to leave her Woodlands flat on Wednesday morning, Madam Aziza Ismail forgot all about the pot of chicken curry she was heating up on the kitchen stove.

The curry was meant to be lunch for her son Muhammad Rahim, 20, who was asleep in the living room.

About an hour later, at round 9am, she called her son to chat, only to learn that a fire had broken out in her kitchen.

The 52-year-old Madam Aziza, who works as a cleaner, said: 'I have not been feeling well the last few days and almost fainted when I heard what had happened.'

According to statistics released by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) earlier this week, her plight is far from unique.

In the first half of this year, there were 271 household fires caused by unattended cooking, a slight drop from the same period last year.

Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.