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Kenya woke up to shocking news of a fire that broke out or was maliciously set in a school dormitory.Leading to 16 fatalities and over 80 plus students injured in the fire.Unfortunately this is no isolated case but folklore that the country has continued to give ear to for some time now. In total,Kenya has lost at least 160 students over time when fire broke out in the dead of the night in Bombolulu,Hillside Endarasha,Moi Girls,Utumishi and Kyanguli secondary schools where 67 students died in a single dormitory fire emergency.

Market fires are another fire incidence whose recurrence begs the question of why not much is being done about the malignancy of the issue.Remarkably, Gikomba market the biggest open air market in E.Africa domiciled in Nairobi. Has had 15 megafire fires from  2018.To mean a big inferno if not two in a year that leads to massive destruction for property and loss to human life too.Again there seems to be no meaningful action being taken to nip these crises in the bud. No matter ow many times this recurrs.

Fire in informal settlements are also exceedingly common.There hardly passes a fortnight or month before all sirens are heading towards the informal settlements.In the Mukuru Sinai informal settlement inferno 120+ lives were lost including upwards of 150 persons escaping with minor to severe injuries.

If you ask me the lack of fire investigation frameworks is hugely to blame for this unfortunate scenario.As a trained fireman myself I have not met any certified fire investigator in the country.I remember even posting a question on our national first responders WhatsApp group demanding to be pointed to any available investigator.And surprisingly there was no response.The few I was pointed to are fire inspectors and auditors who have no knowledge of how to process and reconstruct a fire scene for insight into possible cause and origin.Our institutions of higher learning that offer fire related programs including the university I went to also are not teaching this.Nor are fire fighting academies doing it anywhere in the country.

Notably Kobi Fora and Chesowanja archeological sites in Kenya house evidence of early man's discovery and use in the prehistoric fire.So our land has really dealt fire and been with fire for a long time to lack investigations capability, pun intended.

If we had investigators  able to work professionally and with access to laboratories and other such facilities.The likes of Gikomba Market Traders Association would easily contract them for investigations that would lead to closure and lead to possible solutions to these market fires which continue to cause huge economic losses year in year out for our traders.

Only the National Police Service DCI unit has a small team of Investigators with know how around fire investigations.The team is offcourse overwhelmed by a big margin with the innumerable number of fire emergencies that would require their attention.They only investigate a few high profile ones with most of the fires remaining investigated hence the recurrence.

We hence should as a nation.Think towards filling this lacuna.And availing fire investigators to our brigades and first responding teams including to working on private capacity in tandem with the police service and the judiciary .Failure to which we remain sitting ducks awaiting the next school ,residential and market fires.Lacking necessary contingency plan to inquire and begin to provide solution.