Honduras Prison Fire 1 Year On

Just over a year after 360 inmates of a Honduras prison and two visitors were killed in a fire, there is still no justice for the families of those who died.

On 14 February 2012 a blaze tore through the Comayagua jail where more than 800 people were held in a facility designed for around 500. Over half of the inmates held that night were still awaiting trial, according to a report sent to the United Nations by the Honduran government and seen by the Associated Press.

Despite promises in the immediate aftermath of a full and transparent investigation, and international shock at the scale of the loss of life, the investigation into the fire remains open, with no criminal charges of negligence brought against prison or government officials.

Reports at the time highlighted how firefighters were unable to gain access to the fire as they didn’t have keys to get past the prison bars.

A report last week from the Associated Press on the anniversary of the fire highlighted the scale of the errors that led to so many perishing.

Prosecutor German Enamorado explained some of the findings of the Government’s Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. He said that the fire began with

…a flame in one of the cells that spread in a few minutes… But there was negligence on the part of authorities in charge of prison security, whose actions could have avoided a death toll of this magnitude…

There was no mechanism to extinguish fires, no evacuation plan. The firefighters were not allowed to get there quickly and the guards, instead of acting appropriately, only fired shots in the air, supposedly because that is the established procedure in case of escapes.

In a video report from Al Jazeera we are shown the shower facilities in which 80 people all perished — it is presumed they were trying to seek shelter from the fire under the shower heads.

Any compensation for relatives of those who died in the Comayagua jail fire is only likely to be paid after the official investigation has concluded its report.

Prison fire safety policies
The duality of prisoner safety and prison security is something that we’ve written about previously with the Ministry of Justice in the UK telling us last year that it has “robust measures” in place to deal with prison fires.

While prisons are justifiably unwilling to comment on their specific arrangements, government advice documents detail the types of measures that prisons are supposed to take in order to be compliant with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

Recommendations include aligning the fire safety policy of a high-security facility with health and safety policies by making it the responsibility of the health and safety officer.

The guidance also identifies prisoners as “people who are especially at risk” alongside young people, parents with babies, the elderly and infirm, and people with disabilities.

The risk assessments and guidance should be reviewed annually and whenever there is an outbreak of fire or a failure of any kind in the fire detection systems used.

There is also additional guidance for procedures should a fire break out in a cell, including that people should “carry out a dynamic risk assessment before entering a cell where a fire is in progress and the information from this assessment used to make decisions on appropriate action.”

There is also specific advice on the use of breathing apparatus or a smoke hood, presumably envisaged for prison officials to use when checking a burning cell for inmates.

These systems are evidently rigorous, but the scale of the Honduran tragedy came about chiefly as a result of chronic overcrowding — a problem that prisons the world over are facing.