Fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...

is a serious hazard in shack settlements in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. It has been argued that "On average in South Africa over the last five years there are ten shack fires a day with someone dying in a shack fire every other day." In 2011, 151 were reported to have been killed in shack fires in Cape Town. It was reported that in 2014, 2,090 people burned to death in the

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

province, "many of them in shack fires that sweep through informal settlements".

Causes of shack fires

Shack fires are often termed accidents but this has been contested by shack dweller's organisations. Martin J. Murray argues that by "recruiting human frailty or sheer accident to their cause, key city-builders have been able to rationalize municipal policy-choices that have accomplished little toward changing the circumstances under which the urban poor—who bear the awful brunt of these continuing cycles of death and destruction — tend to invariably find themselves in harm’s way." Matt Birkinshaw lists the key reasons for shack fires as lack of land, lack of housing, denial of access to electricity, adequate water and to adequate emergency services.

Responses to shack fires

The charitable

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

'Children of Fire' offers support for victims of fires, and in particular to children. The shack dwellers' social movement

Abahlali baseMjondolo Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, , in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which organises land occupations, builds communes

has campaigned against what it perceives as the failure of the state to address the problem of shack fires and organised people to connect themselves directly to the electricity grid."Where there is fire, there is politics": Ungovernability and Material Life in Urban South Africa
Kerry Chance, ''Cultural Anthropology'', 2015

Notes and references

{{reflist, 2 Slums in South Africa Housing in South Africa Human rights abuses in South Africa Society of South Africa Urban planning in South Africa Fires in South Africa

Causes of shack fires

Responses to shack fires

See also

Further reading

Notes and references