How slums fires can quickly get out of control
on A Serendipitous Journey (Kenya), 29/Aug/2009 17:12, 34 days ago
This afternoon, we were outside on the terrace at our neighbour’s baby shower and heard fire truck sirens, then saw a huge cloud of smoke billowing from behind our building. I went over to see what it was and saw this:In the slums behind our building, a fire had broken out and was quickly burning out of control. From our rooftop terrace, we watched the fire truck arrive, followed by a relatively weak stream of water, which seemed to be having little impact due to the strong winds.Everyone feared it was going to spread throughout the entire slums area.Houses within the slums are often built within a metre of each other and are often filled with flammable materials like gas canisters for cooking and mattresses. So when one starts in one home, it can quickly take out as much as an acre. To make matters worse, just by nature of being a slums area, there is little to no access for the fire trucks.When the fire starts in the middle, those structures in the way are demolished by bulldozers as crews try to get access.Luckily, this one had broken out on the edge, and although the trucks still couldn’t get complete access, they had some. As the fire crew battled the massive flame with a single stream of water, young men ran from roof top to roof top trying to demolish the homes surrounding the fire to stop the spread. Meanwhile a steady flow of residents carried out their prized possessionsout of the area and away from danger.Fortunately, it was out within about an hour, and although the damage was substantial, it could have been a lot worse.