Abstract: Slums are increasingly becoming a feature of urban crisis which is now a major concern to disaster managers and generally the humanitarian stakeholders globally. It’s a human settlement pattern widespread in the urban areas of many developing countries where statistics show is a home to over 70% of urban settings. The livelihood levels and options of most slum dwellers make them more susceptible and vulnerable to many forms of disasters including fire. This study examined nature of fire hazards, a common element in urban disasters using selected locations of Kibera slum, one of the largest informal settlements in Africa. Mixed method design was used and the sample size was 225 with households being principal respondents. Questionnaires, FGDs, observation check-lists and in-depth interviews with key informants purposively selected from Government officials and land owners aided data collection. The study established that nature of fire hazards in Kibera slums was mainly as a result of physical and social dimensions of vulnerability and that the level of fire risk to communities in Kibera slum was high due to illegal electrical connections, material used for construction that were inflammable in nature, and high population density resulting in sharing a room as a cooking area as well as a living room. The study recommends up scaled efforts not only on public education on fire hazards but also to subsidize residents particularly with regard to social dimension of their vulnerability. This will improve their coping capacity and resilience to fire and secondary disasters thereof.
Keywords: slum, fire, hazard, vulnerability.
Title: Analysis of Nature of Fire Hazards in Selected Locations of Kibera Slums of Nairobi County, Kenya
Author: Koome, Agnes Enid K, Wakhungu, Jacob W, Omuterema, Stanley O
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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