Fire is a serious hazard in shack settlements in South Africa.^[1] It has been argued that "On average in South Africa over the last five years there are ten shack fires a day with someone dying in a shack fire every other day."^[2] In 2011, 151 were reported to have been killed in shack fires in Cape Town.^[3] It was reported that in 2014, 2,090 people burned to death in the Gauteng province, "many of them in shack fires that sweep through informal settlements".^[4]

Causes of shack fires

Shack fires are often termed accidents but this has been contested by shack dweller's organisations.^[5] Martin J. Murray argues that by "recruiting human frailty or sheer accident to their cause, key city-builders have been able to rationalize municipal policy-choices that have accomplished little toward changing the circumstances under which the urban poor—who bear the awful brunt of these continuing cycles of death and destruction — tend to invariably find themselves in harm’s way."^[6]

Matt Birkinshaw lists the key reasons for shack fires as lack of land, lack of housing, denial of access to electricity, adequate water and to adequate emergency services.^[7]

Responses to shack fires

The charitable NGO 'Children of Fire' offers support for victims of fires, and in particular to children.^[8]

The shack dwellers' social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has campaigned against what it perceives as the failure of the state to address the problem of shack fires^[9] and organised people to connect themselves directly to the electricity grid.^[10][11]