chapter 4 - DRK

Strictly under embargo until Wednesday 22 September at 00:01 GMT (02:01 Geneva time)44CHAPTER 2of urban risk calculations, yet have a devastating effect on households affected by thefire. It also offers an unprecedented opportunity for a better understanding of a city’srisk profile and is an extremely useful resource for defining priorities for risk reduction.Most of the fire incidents in the database are localized small and medium events, withover half destroying ten houses or less. Nonetheless, it is estimated that the fires affected40,000 people in informal settlements over the period in 8,554 events. The cost of thesesmall events is also considerable, not only for the households which lose their house andbelongings in the fires, but also for the emergency and social services of Cape Town. Forexample, in Joe Slovo, an informal settlement of Cape Town, it was estimated that thefires in 2000 cost 702,989 South African rand (worth US$ 91,000 in February 2010).Two-thirds of these losses represented direct losses to the households and the rest wereborne by fire services, social services and the South African Red Cross Society.Historically, devastating fires were common in cities – fires destroyed much of Londonin 1666, Chicago in 1871 and Thessaloniki in 1917, for example – but large fires inresidential areas are no longer commonplace in cities in high-income nations. Fires figureprominently among the disasters that take place in informal settlements – althoughmost may not get recorded, in part because there is no emergency fire service or, if thereis one, it will not serve informal settlements or cannot access them. The reasons forfires are obvious: the use of candles and kerosene lamps for lighting (due to a lack ofelectricity); the use of wood-, charcoal- or paraffin-fuelled cookers; overcrowded housesmade of flammable materials; the high density of population within settlements; thelack of firebreaks; and, frequently, the lack of piped water supplies to help fight fires. Itwas found that fire incidents in Cape Town peak over the summer and holiday monthsof November, December and January due to hot, dry and windy summer conditionscoupled with holiday season activity such as increased alcohol consumption and peopletravelling away from home. Fires also peak again in the winter month of August due topeople bringing stoves inside to warm their houses. Box 2.2 gives the example of a firedisaster in an informal settlement in Hout Bay (close to Cape Town) and explains whyserious fire disasters are commonplace in many informal settlements.Box 2.2 Fires and fire risks in Imizamo Yethu, Hout Bay,South AfricaA fire in February 2004 in Imizamo Yethu,an informal settlement in Hout Bay, destroyed1,200 homes and left some 5,000 peoplehomeless. The settlement was created in1990 when forestry land was converted intoan 18-hectare site for 429 housing plots withservices. Imizamo Yethu means ‘through ourcollective struggle’. It is a mix of brick housesand shacks. It has piped water, mostly throughpublic taps – but the supply is irregular and atthe time of this fire, there had been no waterin the piped system for the previous 24 hours.The fire brigade was called but only half anhour after the fire started (many people did not