FOCUS
Safety inequality Danielle Antonellis believes that reducing deaths,
injuries and losses from fire worldwide depends on fire safety investment for marginalised communities
F
IRES CAUSE more than 130,000 deaths globally per year. Put in perspective, that means that twice as many people die
from fi re than all natural disasters put together. But this global fire problem does not affect everyone equally. According to the World Health Organisation, burn deaths and injuries are more common in people of lower socio economic status. In the UK, a child from the lowest social class is 16 times more likely to die in a house fire than one from a wealthy family1
. Furthermore, less developed countries
experience a higher risk of death from fire. Social development index (SDI) is a metric used to measure development and compare health outcomes between countries. In 2016, approximately one fi fth of the world’s population lived in low/low middle SDI countries, but almost half of the world’s deaths due to fi re occurred in those countries.
Informal settlements
Those most affected by fi re are the one billion people living in informal settlements (slums, favelas or shanty towns) and camps (such as refugee camps). By their very defi nition, informal settlements are not in compliance with local
42 MARCH 2019
www.frmjournal.com
planning and building regulations, and are typically unplanned. Informal settlements come in a range of shapes and sizes, and physical factors such as high density of buildings and the use of combustible construction materials – including plastic tarpaulins, bamboo, timber and even cardboard – can cause rapid fi re spread. Fires in informal settlements are most commonly caused by open fl ame sources (for cooking, heating, and lighting) and overloaded or poorly maintained (and often illegal) electrical connections, which means there is a strong relationship between fi re risk and energy poverty. A fi re in an informal settlement can affect thousands of people. Fires take lives, cause serious injuries, destroy property and have long term impacts on livelihoods. Recovery is a long and diffi cult process, which can be exacerbated in informal settlements where fi nancial instability, insecure tenure and a lack of insurance are common. But this global fi re problem remains largely neglected.
Extensive risk
Fire events in informal settlements are rarely reported in international media, even
Photo copyright: Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town
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