Hotel security officer Poad Ashik, 57, was about to turn in at 9am yesterday after a night at work when he smelled something burning.

He looked down from his kitchen window and saw smoke billowing out of the unit directly below.

A fire had broken out in a 12th-floor unit in Block 217, Marsiling Crescent - the second fire in the estate this month.

Mr Ashik called the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), which dispatched two fire engines, one red rhino, one ambulance and three support vehicles.

When they arrived, SCDF officers forced open the door to the flat and extinguished the fire with two water jets within 10 minutes. No one was in the unit.

The SCDF said five people from the 13th floor were evacuated and there were no casualties. The SCDF is investigating what caused the fire, which was confined to a bedroom.

When The Straits Times arrived at the scene yesterday, there was broken, charred glass along the corridor outside the affected bedroom.

Inside, plaster had peeled off the walls and ceiling, which were scorched black. Cables dangled from the ceiling.

While furniture in the living room and the kitchen did not appear damaged, the floor was wet with puddles of water.

In Mr Ashik's bedroom, the floor still felt warm from the fire when The Straits Times visited his unit.

Soot had dirtied parts of the walls close to the window as well as his bed linen.

He said: "I will mop the room and sleep outside… the heat is still there (in the room)."

Ms Joey Lin, 33, who was evacuated from her boyfriend's unit on the 13th floor, said: "I was a little shocked. I couldn't see anything in the corridor, it was shrouded in smoke."

Jeremy Koh