In case of fire, land buffer can save lives
Grass patches prevent bush fires in forested areas from spreading to nearby buildings
Yeo Sam Jo, Straits Times 12 Mar 09;
A balance needs to be struck between maintaining the natural ecosystem and the prevention of bush fires. Apart from fire-breaking, land buffers are also useful for general land maintenance, such as preventing pest breeding and facilitating snake sightings.
BETWEEN a row of flats in Bukit Batok and a forested hill lies a wide patch of neatly trimmed grass.
To the average passer-by, it looks like any other open field, except this verge could end up saving lives. It is one of 123 land buffers created to control the spread of bush fires, said the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). The short grass ensures that any fire in the dense vegetation will not spread to the adjacent residential area.
Mr Chia Hwee Boon, SLA's senior manager of Land Asset Management Services, explained that because the grass is so short, the fire can 'burn only a bit before dying off'.
He added: 'SLA regularly trims and clears the vegetation on these land buffers, especially lallang, which easily catches fire during dry spells.'
The grass is trimmed at least twice a month and kept at no more than 7.5cm in height.
Such land buffers are found islandwide, including hot spots like Bukit Batok, Lim Chu Kang and Punggol where fires have been recurrent. More than one-third of SLA-managed sites have fire buffers. The buffers range from 2m to more than 30m in depth (the distance between an adjoining property and the existing natural terrain) and have proven effective.
When a fire raged in a field along Punggol Seventeenth Avenue last month, it stopped short upon reaching the 10m grass verge in place.
This year, the number of bush fires here has been on the rise. There were 339 blazes in the past two months alone, compared to 426 bush fires over the whole of last year.
Of these 339 bush fires, 77 of them occurred on SLA-managed state land.
Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) has attributed most of these fires to careless acts such as the littering of cigarette butts and the lighting of candles at makeshift altars.
SLA plans to re-examine each fire site, especially hot spots, and work with SCDF and the Housing Board (HDB) to determine if land buffers need to be created or widened.
About 70 per cent of hot spots on state land managed by SLA and its HDB agents have buffers already.
But buffers cannot be created everywhere. Mr Chia said that factors such as the cause of the fire, its location, and accessibility all have to be considered.
The hill on Bukit Batok West Avenue 3, for example, was the site of a series of bush fires last month, but widening the current land buffer of 2m might result in soil erosion, given the steep incline of the hill, he explained.
Instead, other measures such as paving access paths between the vegetation and installing dry hydrants to facilitate fire rescue efforts might be more appropriate. These measures are currently in the pipeline for other hot spots like Changi Coast Road.
A balance needs to be struck between maintaining the natural ecosystem and the prevention of bush fires. Said Mr Chia: 'Ultimately, we have to bear in mind not only safety, but also cost, practicality and the environment.'
Apart from fire-breaking, land buffers are also useful for general land maintenance, such as preventing pest breeding and facilitating snake sightings.
