NFPA Journal - November/December 2020 - 63

practical limitations, and this data often
stays with the city government and isn't
reported nationally or internationally.

their work. One of the responses we got
was that fire is everybody's problem and,
therefore, it's nobody's problem.

What makes refugee camps or
informal settlements prone to fire?
As with the wildland/urban interface,
fire risk in these places is a function
of complex interactions between the
built environment, the natural environment, and people. The high density of
dwellings is one factor. The fact that
combustible construction materials like
timber, plastic, cardboard, and bamboo
are used in such close proximity is
another. Then we have open cooking,
issues with lighting and heating, and
poor electrical connections. Flashover
inside a dwelling can happen in less
than a minute, and it can quickly
spread to adjacent dwellings and evolve
into large conflagrations.

What happens when there's a fire
in one of these locations?
There might be a local fire brigade
that responds, or there might even be
some efforts by humanitarian actors
to support response, but what's pretty
much always true is that the residents

How do refugee camps differ from
informal settlements?
From a physical perspective, there are
similarities. Both are usually quite
congested. Informal settlements are
inherently not planned or regulated, so
you can see a bit more organization in
a refugee camp as far as the layout and
homogenous tent structures. But some
camps have dwellings built of local materials, similar to informal settlements.
On the occupant side, I would expect a
greater mix of cultures in refugee camps.
In Moria, for example, you had people
from Africa, Syria, and Afghanistan.
In terms of regulation and response
to fires or emergencies, informal settlements usually fall under the umbrella
of the regulatory system of the city or
community they're located in, so you
would have local approaches to fire
safety and a fire brigade response to
fires. In camps for refugees or displaced
persons, though, oversight is coming
from a mix of non-governmental humanitarian organizations, community-based
organizations, and, potentially, the
government, depending on how much
involvement and acknowledgment they
have of these places. In 2018, I hosted a
workshop at Arup and asked attendees
about how significant fire safety was in

There's a long history
and legacy of fire safety
codes, standards, and
practices being copied
and pasted from one
place to anotherwithout
being contextualized.
We know that's not
effective.

are the first responders. People may
shout to warn each other of the fire,
help each other evacuate, grab their
belongings, remove fuel from the path
of the fire to create fire breaks, or even
fight the fire directly with water, sand,
or a fire extinguisher. People are often
desperate to stop a fire because they
can lose everything-loved ones, all
their belongings, and even their identification records, which are particularly
critical for refugees.

What steps is Kindling taking to
address these problems?
Firstly, we are focused on advocacy.
We are raising the profile of these firesafety issues within the humanitarian
sector and trying to bring stakeholders together to learn from past safety
experiences and fires. For example, we
are co-hosting a session, "Strategizing
Fire Safety in Shelter and Settlements,"
with Save the Children International
at the upcoming Global Shelter
Cluster meeting (sheltercluster.org).
We are exploring how we can support

humanitarian actors, such as by collating lessons from past fires, developing
an overview on the current state of fire
safety in the humanitarian sector, and
by supporting capacity building in the
sector through fire safety training and
development of evidence-based tools
and resources. Ultimately, we aim to
develop best practices to reduce deaths,
injuries, and losses from fire in humanitarian contexts through interagency
and inter-cluster coordination.

Has work like this been done
before?
Yes and no. There have been some
exciting projects on fire safety carried
out in specific camps and contexts,
such as in refugee camps in Lebanon.
Operation Florian, a UK firefighter
charity, did an expert opinion-based
assessment of fire risk in the camps
and made recommendations to Save
the Children Lebanon. Many of these
recommendations were implemented
by an interagency working group established to improve fire safety. They
focused on fire safety education and
training of refugees and humanitarian workers, as well as distribution of
fire response equipment like fire extinguishers and fire beaters. Firefighters
have also carried out risk assessments
in Thailand, Bangladesh, Kenya, and
South Sudan, and worked with humanitarian agencies to improve fire safety in
the camps that were assessed.
But while there are case studies of
proactive fire safety work to learn from,
I am not aware of any international or
global coordinated efforts like the ones I
described. This will be the first time the
fire safety industry and humanitarian
sector strategically collaborate to tackle
these complex fire challenges head-on.
What's your hope for the future?
My hope is to inspire our best minds in
the fire safety industry to engage these
seemingly intractable problems, and to
support local actors and innovations to
address them. The fire-safety sector can
play a really critical role in addressing
these issues. I know that, together, we
can save many lives.
N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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NFPA Journal - November/December 2020

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