Arup has published guidance for mitigating fire safety risks at refugee camps and other informal settlements.Based on three years of extensive research, the Framework for Fire Safety in Informal Settlements will help NGOs, aid organisations and governments approach fire safety holistically and offers recommendations on how communities can protect themselves.
More than one billion people – nearly one seventh of the global population – live in slums or refugee camps. Countries at the low to low-middle end of the socio-demographic index, which are home to many of the world’s informal settlements, account for nearly half of the 130,000 deaths resulting from fire globally each year.
“Fire safety is often not incorporated in wider disaster planning, despite being recognised as a significant risk.” Danielle Antonellis, fire safety engineer, Arup
Over the course of three years Arup’s fire engineering and international development team visited informal settlements and interviewed community leaders, fire and rescue services, NGOs, academic institutions and social businesses. They also reviewed technical and academic literature to better understand the nature and scale of fires in informal settlements.
The Framework for Fire Safety in Informal Settlements, whose release coincided with the UN International Day for Disaster Reduction, offers practical guidance to help NGOs, aid organisations and governments across four stages of the fire disaster cycle:
“The global problem of fire safety in informal settlements remains largely neglected,” said Danielle Antonellis, fire safety engineer at Arup. “It is often not incorporated in wider disaster planning, despite being recognised as a significant risk.
“Our research highlighted a major gap in fire safety knowledge, experience, assessment tools and construction guidance for these communities and the organisations which support them. This framework is an initial step to closing that gap and building resilience.”
Said Jo da Silva, leader of Arup international development: “With informal settlements, including slums, refugee and internally displaced persons camps, continuing to grow exponentially now is the time to empower these communities with fire safety knowledge and resources so they can become more resilient. Fire represents as a significant risk to lives and livelihoods, and needs to be considered in the context of other shocks and stresses vulnerable communities face.
“A holistic approach is needed that include hazard-specific action to reduce risk, alongside action to strengthen the resilience of communities to multiple hazards. We hope that this framework will support the incorporation of fire safety within decision-making on upgrading informal settlements as well as disaster planning. ”
Informal settlements have several characteristics that make them especially vulnerable to fire and other health and safety risks: they’re often densely-populated, inhabitants lack security of tenure, housing is usually poor-quality, supporting infrastructure is limited, and access to services like healthcare and emergency services is limited.
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