East Africa Gazette
Kampala
The Executive Secretary the National Building Review Flavia Bwire has said despite the guidelines put in place by the government to address devastating fire outbreaks since 2008 only 13 percent of the dormitories were found well within the occupancy limits.
Bwire said on average 3 fire incidents happen daily in the country and since 2009 despite a reduction in the fire outbreaks over 200 cases are reported annually.
In 2008 on 14 April fire gutted a dormitory that resulted in the death of about 20 children.
Bwire said Fire incidents are contributors of the economic and ecological damages worldwide and failures to consider these factors will affect more of our people and loss of properties.
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She made the remarks during the release of the finding of a study that was conducted from May 2022 and May 2023 at their head offices in Kampala 29 Jan 2024
The study was conducted in five regions of the country in 120 schools inspected with 50 percent government for both secondary and secondary. The study was to assess the status quo and make recommendations on the way forward.
Bwire said though the schools visited were accessible by the fire tender, some of the buildings with some school could only be accessed with difficulty. Only three schools had carried out a fire safety assessment by the time the survey was conducted, only 10 percent had hydrants in place simply because they had experienced a fire outbreak.
None of the schools visited has a fire hydrant on site for emergencies because the trucks coming are not supposed to carry water. The highest level of firefighting preparedness was 62 percent.
In a bid to address the gaps in short time, the NBRB has developed an online safety-assessment kit to facilitate in assessing fire safety readiness and fire risk management of the buildings in the schools. This web tool will give instant feedback. https://firesafety.nbrbgo.ug.
She said as a way forward, the building committee and building control officers should ensure that all the school buildings within their jurisdiction are inspected and issued with certification as provided for under the Reg 36 of the Building Control regulation, 2020.
She advised schools and employers to ensure they train Manson to know how to operate the fire extinguishers and be alerted where to run in case of a fire. She alluded that in schools the deckers are compacted so that there is little space for them to move out in case there is a fire outbreak.
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The school administration should endeavor to implement the Basic requirement and should implement the basic requirement and minimum standards of the ministry of education and sports in addition to a security circular and safety guidelines issued by the Inspector General of Police.
Causes and consequences of the Fire outbreaks
Since 2020, they have investigated a number of fire outbreaks and 52 percent occur in commercial buildings, 35 percent in schools and 13 percent in residential buildings.
Some of the recent cases are as follows
New Crest Kibedi school had a fire on 15 January in 2022 and 4 children, Salaama school for the blind, Mukono 12 children died and 4 were admitted with serious injuries 25 October 2024. And lastly Kasana Junior school Neyendo, Masaka City 7 children died and 5 were injured.