Another fatal Gikomba fire an indictment on city managers

In what is becoming a yearly ritual, a section of the Gikomba market in Nairobi caught fire yesterday morning. By close of the day, 15 people had been confirmed dead. While being interviewed by the media for the latest news on the tragedy, one of the senior policemen leading the rescue operation intimated more bodies could be found in the burnt out structures. Concerted rescue operations had to be put on hold for the safety of rescuers since gas cylinders could be heard bursting in a nearby building, intensifying the risk of more fire.

It would seem getting to the root cause of the fires that occasion great losses to traders at Gikomba is beyond the scope of the Nairobi County Government, and it stands indicted. As with previous fires, the refrain has been that fire engines could not get to the location of the fire because the scene was inaccessible and water points either don’t exist or are dry. While the experience from previous fires should have given the authorities a fairly accurate picture of dealing with a repeat situation, clearly, no lessons have been learnt.

Thousands of shoppers visit Gikomba market any given day making it a high risk area that requires proactive measures to forestall such calamities. The government cannot continue subjecting individuals who toil day and night to put food on the table to such gargantuan losses because of its ineptitude.

The question of poor disaster response and inadequate fire fighting engines continues to haunt Nairobi residents who live in perpetual fear of fire outbreaks because the county fire department is uinspiring and cannot be relied to act promptly in case of fires.

Former Nairobi County Governor Evans Kidero launched 12 motorcycle fire engines in 2013 and set aside Sh100 million for fire engines. What happened? Where are they? In 2011, President Mwai Kibaki launched four modern fire engines that were taunted to have the capability to handle fire outbreaks within Nairobi. To date, given the incidences of fire across Nairobi, their impact is yet to be felt.

While it behooves the county government to improve its disaster preparedness, the matter of illegal power connections should be investigated and stopped. More importantly, fire engines must be operational and hydrants should have enough water for such occurrences.