An epidemic of school fires in Kenya

A devastating school fire killed 21 boys and left many more injured in Kenya on September 5, 2024. The fire happened at a dormitory that housed over 150 boys, ages 9 to 14, at Hillside Endarasha Academy, a private, mixed day and boarding school with an overall student population of over 800, located in Nyeri County.

Two days after the fire, Kenya’s president, William Ruto, declared three days of mourning nationwide and instructed relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate the horrific incident. He also assured citizens that those responsible for the incident would be held to account.  

Shockingly, another fire  broke out on September 7 at a girls’ boarding school in Central Kenya, and on September 8, a dormitory in Nija High School in Meru County also caught fire. Luckily, although three girls were injured in the fire at Nija High School, no lives were lost in either  incident. 

Now Kenyans are demanding to know what is behind all these fires, especially at Hillside Academy, where 21 boys died. 

Initial media reports and speculations blamed Kenya Power for the fire at Hillside Academy. However, in a press release dated September 10, the company denied the allegations, stating that its team immediately switched off the power supply to the school when news of the fire reached them, that a preliminary analysis shows that the lines supplying power to Hillside are low-voltage, and that the power supply to the school was stable at the time of the incident. Furthermore, all power installations in the school were intact, and the fire did not affect two prepaid meters within the larger school. As such, the fire’s cause could not be linked to them, according to the press release.

A deadly trend

In fact, serious school fires are not new in Kenya’s boarding schools. 

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In 2001, 67 boys died when two 16-year-old students started a fire in a dormitory at Kyanguli Mixed Secondary School, Machakos County. Nine years later, two boys died in another school fire at Endarasha Boys Secondary School, Nyeri County .In 2017 at Moi Girls High School, Nairobi, 10 students were killed in a fire. And an 18-year-old girl was sentenced to five years in jail in 2022 for the arson attack that she carried out at the age of 14. 

Between September and November 2019, two fires were recorded at Musinga High School, Kakamega North Subcounty, and under a year later, in October 2020, another fire broke out in its 500-student capacity dormitory. 

In 2021, a fire occurred at a dormitory in Buruburu Girls Secondary School located in Nairobi, which left many students hospitalized. Another dormitory in western Kenya caught fire in 2022 and several students were arrested in connection with the fire. Between April and September 2023, two schools in Kakamega and Kisumu counties were affected by dormitory fires, and several students were arrested. 

Before this September’s fires, a dormitory housing 100 students in Karia Boys School, Kirinyaga County, caught fire in July – all lives were spared. Another incident occurred at Igoji boarding primary school in Meru, eastern Kenya. On September 15, a fire broke out that affected two dormitories and left 13 students injured at a school in Machakos County.  

And these incidents are the ones that are reported – many people believe they represent a tiny fraction of the actual incidences of school fires in Kenya. Research by Kenya’s National Crime Research Centre revealed that leading causes of school fires –particularly arson – are peer pressure, fear of exams, poor student-teacher relations, drug and substance abuse, student indiscipline, and an overall poor response on the part of schools to student concerns. 

Overpopulation and negligence

Overcrowding and negligence on the part of school and government authorities are believed to play significant roles in Kenya’s epidemic of school fires. George, a teacher at a boarding school in Kenya, agreed to speak with Amjambo Africa on condition of anonymity. He believes that overcrowding at Hillside Academy may have resulted in a stampede as scared students ran in different directions trying to escape the fire. 

“Kenya is operating a competency-based curriculum. As a result, most parents are now pushing their children to study in boarding schools that admit students beyond the required capacity. With excess students, the infrastructure is usually not in place to handle fire incidents and the Ministry of Education often fails to inspect the schools,” said George.

Hillside Academy’s owner, David Wambugu, recently said that the number of boarders in the school will be reduced as the school prepares to resume academic activities. The statement could be taken to mean that overcrowding was indeed a causative factor in the deaths at Hillside.

In addition, according to George, the matron of the affected dormitory was not present at the time of the incident, which meant that young students were alone in the dormitory without adult supervision. This was confirmed by multiple online sources. “The boys were in that dormitory alone and they must have been terrified. Being young learners, maybe they weren’t taught what to do in situations of fire outbreaks or how to use fire extinguishers if the school had any,” George said. 

Reacting to the epidemic of school fires in Kenya, the country’s Ministry of Education blamed some schools for not adhering to measures and guidelines contained in the Safety Standards Manual for Schools in Kenya, aimed at ensuring learners’ safety. 

A statement from the ministry reads, “The recent incident at Hillside Endarasha Academy, Nyeri Country, in which 21 innocent learners lost their lives as a result of a fire tragedy, has underscored the need for the government and school managers to firmly enforce school safety guidelines at all times if we are to avoid a recurrence of similar cases in the future.”

Clearly, judging by the number of school fires in the country over the past few decades, Kenyan governments have not done enough to fully address the issue. 

Averting future occurrences

The Ministry of Education should inspect boarding schools regularly to ensure strict compliance with safety standards and students should be taught how to use fire extinguishers, George said. Meanwhile, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations of Kenya’s National Police Service has begun DNA testing to help identify bodies of deceased Hillside Academy students who were burned beyond recognition. 

A national memorial service was held for all 21 students on Wednesday, September 25. And for other students, George suggested that, “The government should provide free psychological services to surviving students of Hillside Academy because they are young learners who have lost friends and witnessed a terrifying event. They need counselors to encourage and help them heal from the trauma.”