Fires sweep through places such as schools, markets and homes and many of them do not adhere to safety protocols.
One Thursday at about midnight, CAT my social media time line was occupied with traffic of a fire in Rwanda.
The fire happened at woodshops in Gisozi, a sector in the district of Gasabo in Kigali province, destroying two blocks of the market and properties worth Rwandan francs 300 million and RWF500 million respectively.
This tragedy reminds me of similar fires but with different consequences. First was at the home for autistic children in Kigali and a fire in Gasabo that took the lives of Emmanuel Sebatware and his two children, Blaise Mugisha (12) and six-year-old Unejeje Grace.
Rwanda’s neighbours — Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania in the Great Lakes region — have also experienced terrible fires.
Most fires happen in low cost urban rental homes and public utilities such as schools, markets and shopping centres, causing loss of lives and properties, permanent injuries, economic setbacks and trauma.
A fire broke out in the Salama school for the blind in Uganda’s Mukono district, killing 11 children.
In 2008, 20 children died and others were permanently injured when a fire engulfed Buddo Junior School in Uganda.
In Kenya, at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri County, 17 students died when a fire broke out in a dormitory.
The fire in the home for autistic children was linked to electrical faults while the cause of the Gasabo tragedy remains speculative, blamed on business rivalry.
The causes of fires vary from negligence, improper waste disposal and unsafe storage of flammable materials, poor infrastructure and electrical practices.
The implementation of occupational health and safety policies and guidelines also leaves a lot to be desired. Regular inspections also do not take place.
It is only when we adhere to prevention strategies and following building guidelines will we stop losing lives and property.
For instance, the business owners in Gakikiro are also partly to blame for improper waste disposal and electrical mishandling.
In the Buddo Junior School, the house mother piled old pillows on unoccupied beds in the dormitory and at Hillside Endarasha Academy a watchman closed the emergency doors from outside preventing people from being able to leave the building. This negligence and institutional noncompliance is killing people.
Let communities, public utilities and learning institutions must adhere to the precautionary measures, regulatory safeguards and guidelines to help prevent fires.
The governments of countries in the Great Lakes region should follow the International Labour Organisation’s guidance on occupational health and safety standards.
They must review the laws, policies and guidelines to make them more efficient and followed by strict enforcement.
Other efforts to mitigate fires could include surveillance cameras, toll free lines and monitoring gadgets, as well as protective equipment.
The installation of safety signs and conducting regular risk assessments in areas such as kitchens, dormitories, laboratories and stores must be mandatory, as should be the supply of first aid kits. Each area needs fire engines and ambulances to respond when there is a fire.
We need to prevent fires through the enforcement of occupational health and safety policies and guidelines in the Great Lakes countries.
Robert Kigongo is a sustainable development analyst.