NFPA Journal - Winter 2021 - 34

and push civilians out of the way to open the bay doors and
get their trucks out of the station, said Don Bliss, who as
NFPA's former vice president of field operations visited fire
stations around the world. " The traffic in Dhaka is so bad, it
can take the fire department up to three hours to travel just
a few miles to respond to a call. " -Jesse Roman
II.
FAVELA, SHANTYTOWN, SLUM
Social context and the growth of
informal settlements
With few exceptions, the cities expected to grow the most
vigorously over the next three decades also happen to be
some of the world's poorest. Most of the people relocating
to these mega-cities will be unable to afford formally built
housing, and many will end up living in slums or other
informal settlements, which the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development defines as " unplanned settlements
and areas where housing is not in compliance with
current planning and building regulations. "
According to the World Bank Group, about 1 billion people-a
quarter of the world's urban population-currently
live in informal settlements, from the favelas of Sao Paulo
to the shantytowns of Cape Town to the sprawling slums of
Mumbai. That figure could be closer to 3 billion by 2030,
according to the UN, and would account for a quarter of
all the people on the planet. That added concentration of
impoverished newcomers will
further stress a population
already beset by overcrowding,
disease, violence, and neglect.
While little comprehensive
research has been done to examine
the fire problem in informal
settlements, smaller studies and
an abundance of anecdotal evidence
demonstrate that fire is
one of the largest threats to life
and property. In South Africa,
studies have shown that as many
as 15,000 fires a year occur in
informal settlements. With structures
improvised out of scraps
of highly combustible wood and
NFPA.ORG/
ULTRAURBAN
Watch a short film about
a 2017 fire that destroyed
thousands of homes in
Imizamo Yethu, an informal
settlement in Cape
Town, South Africa.
Listen to a podcast and
read an NFPA Journal
article about a project to
install smoke alarms in
an informal settlement in
South Africa.
Read an interview from
NFPA Journal about preventing
fires in informal
settlements and refugee
camps.
plastics, and with little or no official infrastructure such as
water mains and fire hydrants, those blazes can start quickly
and spread rapidly, routinely leaving hundreds or thousands
homeless.
Experts agree that fires in informal settlements are a problem
that will only get worse and that they warrant special
A slum in Mumbai. The projected growth of such informal
settlements in the coming decades will present public safety
officials with an array of challenges, from disaster preparedness
to fire safety. PAL PILLAI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
34 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2021
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2021

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