Loh Kah Seng – The Bukit Ho Swee Fire Part 4: The Other Great Fires | Chronicles of Old Singapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Dr Loh Kah Seng traces a history of seven calamitous fires in urban kampongs before the 1961 Bukit Ho Swee inferno. These paved the way for emergency housing the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) built for fire victims in the 1950s. Such semi-permanent housing – many being 1-room flats with shared kitchens and toilets – has mostly been forgotten. But it was to play a key role after the disaster at Bukit Ho Swee. Part 1 | https://youtu.be/gfItIHDwjSA Part 2 | https://youtu.be/hTsdQ4k9ZZ0 Part 3 | https://youtu.be/juGDEJU00Wg Part 4 | https://youtu.be/9pI3QbR76XQ Part 5 | https://youtu.be/1mNjqU7UTAM Part 6 | https://youtu.be/5CQqsV2PX_E 00:00 Introduction 00:34 Recap 02:40 Seven Forgotten Fires 06:13 The Fire Risk 14:06 Bukit Ho Swee 1934 15:04 Kampong Bugis 1951 17:27 Geylang Fires 1953 19:09 Emergency Housing as Slums 20:33 Tiong Bahru 1955 22:02 Kampong Koo Chye 1958 26:04 Tiong Bahru 1959 31:38 Further Research 34:39 Outro My book, Squatters to Citizens: https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/squatters-into-citizens I’m Dr Loh KS, the people’s historian. I’m interested in the history of Singapore and the lives of its people. In Chronicles of Old Singapore, I speak to people about their memories of Singapore before it became a global city today. We discuss three topics: 1. People and places. 2. Change and continuity. 3. The importance of heritage. As a historian, I try to stay true to the oral history method on a video format and social media platform. I let the interviewee speak, as the ‘voice of the past’ as Paul Thompson put it. No clickbait, no BS, no posturing. The aim is to canvas a wide range of voices on various aspects of Singapore history and heritage – physical, social, cultural, economic. Do like the video, share your memories below and subscribe to the channel for future episodes. Write to lohkahseng@chroniclesresearch.com if you have any of these stories to share: • Old places or kampongs. • Communities – their way of life & culture. • Childhood & schools. • Work or business. Support Chronicles of Old Singapore on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore Follow the channel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551786759344 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lks992002 Chronicles Research & Education is my research consultancy on the history of Singapore: https://www.chroniclesresearch.com/ Caveat: this is above all a podcast based on personal memory. As has been well-documented in oral history, memory is not always reliable and what is recalled here should not be taken as fact. However, as Alessandro Portelli noted, the subjectivity of oral history is also its great strength, and what is inaccurately remembered may point to how deeply meaningful the past is to people. #singaporehistory #memory #heritage #nostalgia #oralhistory #socialhistory #history #singapore