Fire spread analysis for the 2017 Imizamo Yethu informal settlement conflagration in South Africa

Kahanji, Charles; Walls, Richard; Cicione, Antonio

doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101146

Cited by 49 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In April 2014, in Valparaı´so, approximately 2500 homes were destroyed by a fire, leaving 12,500 people homeless [10]. In 2017, approximately 2200 homes were razed, affecting approximately 9700 people in the Imizamo Yethu informal settlement in Cape Town [11]. These fires do not just cause loss of life in these communities, but significant morbidity with over 10 M disability adjusted life years lost each year due to fire, and loss of belongings (such as official documents, educational material) and livelihoods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This work forms part of an overall project to understand fire behaviour in informal settlements. Previous work has focused on results from preliminary single dwellings experiments [5], results from multi-dwelling experiments considering inter-dwelling spread [19], the development of a simplified FDS model to describe the aforementioned multi-dwelling experiment [20], analysis of large-scale spread in a real fire disaster that affected over 2000 homes [11], and the appraisal of fire safety interventions to be used in such settlements [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Full-Scale Informal Settlement Dwelling Fire Experiments and Development of Numerical Models

et al. 2019

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Full-Scale Informal Settlement Dwelling Fire Experiments and Development of Numerical Models

et al. 2019

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“…SANS 10252-1:2012 (SABS, 2012) stipulates the same value. • To improve the efficiency of firefighting within the City of Johannesburg, especially considering the potential devastation that could occur due to increasing instances of water cuts and low pressures (Kahanji et al, 2019), EMS should focus on acquiring pumping appliances with sufficient capacity and volume (minimum of 6.6 kL) to extinguish fires. Based on the findings of this study, future research may investigate:…”

Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of the primary South African standard and guideline for the provision of water for firefighting

Bean

Ilemobade

2019

WSA

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In South Africa, as is mostly the norm globally, national legislation and guidelines specify that potable water distribution networks maintain the capacity to provide specified quantities of water for firefighting. This paper addresses the question: is the South African standard and guideline pertaining to fire-flow provision appropriate for firefighting and do these ensure the most efficient balance between providing sufficient fire protection and promoting sustainable water use? In answering this question, this study: (i) reviewed national and international design standards and guidelines; and (ii) captured and analysed 10 years of billable fire incident reports representing 3 859 fire events within the City of Johannesburg. Highlights from the study include: inconsistencies in categories when comparing the SANS 10090 and The Red Book fire tables and violations (in The Red Book) of stipulated Minimum Fire Flows; over the 10 year period, 75% of fire incidents within the City of Johannesburg were extinguished using less than 6.6 kL of water – less than the capacity (6.9 kL) of the City’s conventional pumping tanker during the period; 99.9% of fire incidents within the City were quenched using an average fire flow rate of less than 1 200 L/min, which is the minimum hydrant flow rate for the lowest fire risk category in SANS 10090; and peak fire occurrence did not correspond with typical peak residential water use. Recommendations are proffered in respect of the above.

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“…Housing rarely complies with current planning and building regulations, and is often situated in geographically and environmentally hazardous areas [5]. Fires can spread very quickly in informal settlements with multiple households in a community potentially losing their homes, eroding community resilience to disaster as social support networks are disrupted in a single event [6,7]. What is more, building dimension, building-to-building separation and construction methods, which are very complicated in informal settlement, will significantly affect the fire spread rate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, BR 187-External Fire Spread, Building Separation and Boundary Distances [15] has been the main reference for determining the required building separations in the UK, and similar requirements are included in for example NFPA 80A [16]. From a previous case study in South Africa, it is generally accepted that in informal settlements increasing the separation distance between dwellings or blocks of dwellings in process of 'reblocking' a settlement is anticipated to reduce the risk of fire spread [6]. Local residents are prone to construct dwellings close together due to competition for the limited land in such settlements, thus the balance between the dense living conditions and fire safety needs to be carefully considered, particularly as the implementation of fire safety codes and regulations is extremely hard in these areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determination of Critical Separation Distance Between Dwellings in Informal Settlements Fire

et al. 2021

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Approximately one billion people across the globe are living in informal settlements with a large potential fire risk. Due to the high dwelling density, a single informal settlement dwelling fire may result in a very serious fire disaster leaving thousands of people homeless. In this work, a simple physics-based theoretical model was employed to assess the critical fire separation distance between dwellings. The heat flux and ejected flame length were obtained from a full-scale dwelling tests with ISO 9705 dimension (3.6 m × 2.4 m × 2.4 m) to estimate the radiation decay coefficient of the radiation heat flux away from the open door. The ignition potential of combustible materials in adjacent dwellings are analyzed based on the critical heat flux from cone calorimeter tests. To verify the critical distance in real informal settlement fire, a parallel method using aerial photography within geographic information systems (GIS), was employed to determine the critical separation distances in four real informal settlement fires of 2014–2015 in Masiphumelele, Cape Town, South Africa. The fire-spread distances were obtained as well through the real fires. The probabilistic analysis was conducted by Weibull distribution and logistic regression, and the corresponding separation distances were given with different fire spread probabilities. From the experiments with the assumption of no interventions and open doors and windows, it was established that the heat flux would decay from around 36 kW/m2 within a distance of 1.0 m to a value smaller than 5 kW/m2 at a distance of 4.0 m. Both experiments and GIS results agree well and suggest the ignition probabilities at distances of 1.0 m, 2.0 m and 3.0 m are 97%, 52% and 5% respectively. While wind is not explicitly considered in the work, it is implicit within the GIS analyses of fire spread risk, therefore, it is reasonable to say that there is a relatively low fire spread risk at distances greater than 3 m. The distance of 1.0 m in GIS is verified to well and conservatively predict the fire spread risk in the informal settlements.

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Fire spread analysis for the 2017 Imizamo Yethu informal settlement conflagration in South Africa

Cited by 49 publications

References 9 publications

Full-Scale Informal Settlement Dwelling Fire Experiments and Development of Numerical Models

Full-Scale Informal Settlement Dwelling Fire Experiments and Development of Numerical Models

An evaluation of the primary South African standard and guideline for the provision of water for firefighting

Determination of Critical Separation Distance Between Dwellings in Informal Settlements Fire

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