Nairobi Fire in Upper Hill - 15 June 2009

My apologies for the poor quality of this video I shot it with my phone. A Military Police residential building is burning in Nairobis Upper Hill suburb. The fire has been burning for at least 30 minutes. In this time a single fire engine (from a private company) arrived. It leaves every 10 minutes or so, its tanks empty, its water being used to try to control the spread of the fire as residents throw their positions out of the windows of the building. A second arrives but with empty tanks. An excited crowd is rapidly turning into an angry mob angered by the poor response from Nairobis fire department, angered by the lack of water and angered by the losses happening right before their eyes. The heat is immense and occasional explosions rock the building causing shouts of fear from the gathered crowd.

Shortly after I stop filming the riot police arrive wearing helmets and carrying sticks and tear-gas guns one hopes they wont use them, but I move back from the front lines afraid more of the stampede than the police. The police push the crowd back, but it keeps growing (now hundreds). About 45 minutes after I arrive on scene the first Nairobi fire department truck arrives along with additional water tankers.

When I left the scene the fire in the front portion (visible in the video) was mostly under control, however the back portion of the building was completely engulfed in flame probably being left to burn to the ground!

Now back in my office, there is a steady stream of water tankers heading towards the scene a block away. Water is scarce in Nairobi, and no fire hydrant system is available. This makes fighting fires very difficult. This coupled with the chaotic traffic means that if a fire breaks out it can take more than an hour for a proper response to arrive.

The streets are chaotic getting home this evenings going to be unpleasant!

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Nairobi
• Fire
• Upper Hill
• Police
• Kenya
• 150609
• 15062009

[tomlfb92]

Do you know what the private Fire company is called?