Hillside Endarasha Academy Fire: What (Possibly) Went Wrong and How We Can Prevent Future Disasters

21 children aged between 9 and 13 years old lost their lives two days ago, on September 6th, in a dormitory fire at the Hillside Academy School in Endarasha, Kieni Constituency, Nyeri County, Kenya. The tragedy is the latest in a long line of boarding school dormitory fires in Kenya, over the last few decades. In this article, we set out to analyze what could have gone wrong, why children so young were in boarding school in the first place, what the government could have done better, and what can be done to avoid such incidences in the future.

A Note of Condolences to the Families: Before we get started, as Mania Africa and myself, we want to send our deepest condolences to all the affected families. We pray that God gives them strength to cope with this tragedy of immeasurable proportion and we pray for comfort and solace for them as they navigate this tragedy. There is nothing that is as painful as losing a child and we want to share our heartfelt condolences as we console with them as a country. May God’s love and light be with the entire Hillside Academy Community. God grant them peace and may the children Rest in Eternal Peace and Light. Amen. ❤️🕊️🙏📿

Disclaimer: The events of the Hillside Academy Endarasha fire tragedy are highly sensitive and it has taken a lot of thought and reflection on whether, as Mania Africa, we have the expertise, knowledge, or skills to write on the topic and do it objectively. We want to make it clear that this article is not intended as a formal indication of what has really happened or why it happened and as such, it should not be taken as a be-all end-all or as a primary source of information. Simply put, we do not have the authority to inform the families or the general public of how events unfolded and we are writing only in speculation and going on the scant information the authorities have provided this far. As such, for actionable information on the tragedy, please reach out to the Kenyan government, the Red Cross Society of Kenya, and reputable news organizations in the country. We appreciate the sensitivity of this matter and do not take it lightly that children lost their lives in this terrible tragedy.

Hillside Academy Endarasha Fire Tragedy: Key Takeaways and Future Safety Measures

What We Know: Numbers of Those Dead and Those Still Missing

The Hillside Academy Endarasha fire has so far claimed 21 children’s lives according to government spokesperson, Isaac Mwaura. As of the evening of September 7, Mwaura indicated that of the 156 children who were sleeping in the raised-down dormitory, 139 have been accounted for, thus far, and 17 are still missing.

Nyeri school fire: 21 pupils dead

Death toll from the dorm fire tragedy climbs to 21
Police continue combing Hillside Endarasha Academy

Mwaura: We are yet to account for the missing 17 pupils
Police have moved the 19 charred bodies to the morgue#CitizenWeekend @OBurrows pic.twitter.com/VQlQu343bW

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) September 7, 2024

Of the 139 accounted for, 21 lost their lives in the fire, 19 of whom were burnt beyond recognition, and 3 who died while receiving treatment in various hospitals. Of the latter three—Mwaura shared—one died at KNH, and another at the Mary Immaculate Hospital.

At the school compound today, DCI officers, working together with other agencies, and in the presence of the government chemist, Mr. Oduor, collected the bodies of the dead children, which were moved to the Naro Moru Hospital Mortuary.

According to the government chemist, the identities of the bodies are yet to be known and starting Monday next week, affected families will gather at the Naro Moru Hospital where the government will collect DNA samples from them, to compare with the DNA samples of the bodies. DNA sequencing of the remains will take place over the next week or so—approximately—and it is then that the families will be informed whether their kids were part of the 21 known to have lost their lives in the fire.

As the situation stands, parents whose children are still missing are either part of those who died or part of the 17 missing. Therefore, it is crucial to note that it is not guaranteed that if a child is missing they died, and it is also not guaranteed that since some children are still missing, any parent or guardian can be certain or assured that their child did not die in the fire.

Schoo fire: Pain of parents

Police collect bodies from Hillside Endarasha Academy
Distraught parents camp at the school for the second day

Focus shifts to forensic analysis to identify the bodies
Murugu: DNA sequencing will start on Monday #CitizenWeekend @OBurrows pic.twitter.com/jchPXJrNIK

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) September 7, 2024

So far, the government has not informed any of the parents whose kids are missing whether their children are deceased or not, and it is very crucial that all affected parents try to remain as calm as possible; as it is still unknown whether their kids are still alive or not, according to the authorities.

You can get more information on Reuters and on the BBC article below.

Hillside Endarasha academy fire in Nyeri county Kenya leave almost 20 school children dead - BBC News Pidgin

Fear dey say di death toll fit rise as dem don carry more dan a dozen odas wey get serious burn go hospital.

BBC News PidginBBC News Pidgin

What Could Have Happened in the Hillside Endarasha Academy Fire Tragedy?

Based on reports by the Kenyan authorities, we will try to consider several scenarios that could have led to the fire. Note that we are just speculating and do not intend this information to be taken as fact.

Witness Accounts: The 'Exploded Bulb' Theory

A Parent's Account

According to Citizen TV Kenya’s reporting, a parent of one of the kids who survived the fire alleged that the fire started at the main entrance of the dormitory, just on top of where one of the kids was sleeping: in the top bed of the double-decker (bunker) bed. According to the parent, who made the allegations anonymously, the bulb atop the bed exploded, and its sparks ignited the fire on landing on the boy’s bedding. The boy frantically woke up 2 or 3 of his colleagues and rushed to try and get a bucket of water to douse the flame. He, however, couldn’t get it and together with the other boys, unsuccessfully tried to extinguish the flames. Remember, the boys are aged between 9 and 14.

When they were unable to extinguish the fire, the parent says that they rushed and woke up the matron, who was sleeping in an adjacent room. By the time the matron and other teachers—who she alerted—were getting to the scene of the fire to try and put it out, it was too late and the fire had spread to a size that they couldn’t control.

Inside dormitory fire

Pupil links Hillside Endarasha Academy fire to electric fault
Survivor narrated to his parents how the tragedy occurred

Parent: He told us a bulb exploded & started emitting sparks
Ill-fated dormitory was housing over 150 pupils #CitizenWeekend pic.twitter.com/8nyE1GdCUz

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) September 7, 2024

According to media reports, the dormitory had 3 doors, a main door near where the fire started, and a second door on the wall adjacent to where the boy was sleeping; but down the hallway about halfway the length of the column. The dormitory was shaped like a T with the boy’s bed at the left top curve. The matron’s room was behind the wall with the second door, with the grade 8 sleeping area down the right of the length of the middle walkway, where a third door was situated. The grade 8 sleeping area also had a door connecting it to the main walkway the ‘handle’ of the illustrative T or |. So, one door is *-|, the second is -*-| and the third is |.,. The matron’s room is at the top end of the column |, but on the left side of the walkway and behind the boy’s sleeping position. So the wall where the bed of the boy was vertically touching, was the wall separating the dorm to the side the matron was sleeping.

Witness Accounts by the School's Neighbors

A neighbor of the school who appeared on Citizen TV on Sep. 7, yesterday, alleged that he was woken up by screams, at around 11 PM on the 6th, and rushed to the school to see where they were emanating from. On getting there, he found the school’s dormitory ablaze, with a huge fire bellowing. Another neighbor reported that he was on the south side of the dormitory and that the fire had spread so much with a lot of smoke that he could not see the people on the north side, where he says most people were; taken to mean that most of the school’s neighbors who responded to distress.

Endarasha night of horror

Neighbours were woken up by screams from the pupils
Villagers rushed to the school and rescued some pupils

Waweru: We tried to rescue pupils who were trapped #CitizenWeekend @OBurrows pic.twitter.com/NqAb3goAW1

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) September 7, 2024

The second neighbor said that along with others, they tried to use buckets of water and sticks to douse the flames but the fire had already spread too much. He also says that he saw a number of the children be rescued, with most rescued from the door on the side where the flames had not yet reached. This side he referred to, we speculate, could be the grade 8 sleeping area’s door, as the fire started on the opposite and horizontal cross-section of the dorm. So, if the fire started here *-| then the door could have probably been the grade 8 sleeping area one here |.,.

Debunking: Inconsistencies and What Doesn't Add Up in the 'Exploded Bulb' Theory

Something that really doesn’t add up about the ‘exploded bulb’ theory, though it makes sense as electricity faults are known to cause fires, is that the school was using solar energy. We do not know whether they were using solar energy throughout the entire school, or in conjunction with electricity, or only for the dormitory. As such, it’s important to account for what we do not know as we try to think this through.

What we can say, for certain, is that the dormitory had a solar panel on top of it, and the same can be confirmed by footage from Citizen TV. As per our knowledge, solar energy uses DC (current) or direct current while electricity uses AC (current) or alternating current. DC (current) cannot become AC (current) without an inverter and it is probably the case that the school did not tap the solar energy in its raw DC form and used an inverter to convert it to electricity-like AC (current). AC (current) can cause fire and has a higher propensity to burn as compared to DC (current). DC (current) is mostly harmless, if not at high power levels.

Why Were 9-Year-Olds in Boarding School in the First Place?

Away from what may or may not have started the fire, I think the most fundamental question—for the contextualization of the incident—is why were 9 to 14-year-olds in boarding school in the first place? The media reports that parents have, in recent times—when the discussion has come up and often after school fires—indicated that families and parents face numerous challenges that force them to take their quite young children to boarding school.

As we understand this, it could be due to financial problems or being too busy with work, that they feel their child would be better taken care of and educated as a ‘boarder’. Now, I cannot claim to know what any or all of the families with kids so young in boarding school are going through, and I cannot judge them and say this or that. What I can give is my opinion and it is as follows.

Are 9-Year-Olds Too Young to be in Boarding School?: My Experience and Opinion

I, personally, only went to boarding school in high school back in 2011, and I was about 13 to 14 years old. Mind you, I was one of the youngest and luckily, I did not retake or ‘repeat’ a class throughout my education. I started nursery—I think—in 2001, and was in Class 1 in 2003 i.e., the first primary school class of 8. I did my Class 8 exams in 2010, and only then did I go to boarding school in 2011. The experience of boarding school can be very overwhelming especially since you all come from different backgrounds, and as a kid, you’ll meet kids brought up differently, those from wealthier or poorer families, and so on. Bullying is often one of the biggest issues in boarding school and there is a whole way to try and tackle that, and so on. That is beside the point, a sibling of mine went to boarding school in primary school and they were around 13 by then.

So, in my opinion, a 9-year-old is a little too young to be immersed in the boarding school experience but then my or my siblings’ experiences were at a different time and we cannot really compare eras much like apples and tomatoes. Therefore, what is it then that causes parents to decide to take the leap and entrust their children to boarding schools? View my reporting on the incident yesterday on our WhatsApp Channel.

One thing I think could be causing them to do so is the tough economic conditions Kenya—and the world—is currently going through. The expense and effort of feeding a child, preparing them for day school daily, probably providing packed lunch or snacks, and having them home on the weekends could be overwhelming and honestly, unaffordable to some families—all year round. For working parents, they may be too busy in their careers to commit themselves to having their kids home all the time. Others are often having to travel on business trips and therefore, would require hired assistance to babysit the children or provide meals, entertainment, and so on—something that would necessitate hiring a house help, an often unpleasant experience for many families in the country.

When a child is born, working parents will often be forced to hire a house help—in the absence of a sibling or female relative who can help with caring for the toddler. The experience of hiring a house help, most of whom are today hired via ‘agencies’, can be daunting as parents risk their kids being underfed, beaten, or neglected by the unstandardized and often untrained house help they may be getting. As such, you can see why a parent taking their 9 or 10-year-old to boarding school would see that as a better option and as them avoiding a world of trouble. What, then, could have the government done better to ensure that kids of all ages are safe in boarding schools?

What Could the Government Have Done Better to Ensure the Safety of Children in Boarding Schools

"The Butterfly Effect"

Ever heard of the ‘butterfly effect’—how a butterfly flapping its wings on one end of the globe could cause a hurricane on the other end? We speculate that is what has continually happened with school fires in Kenya. By the government (or Butterfly in this case) neglecting safety standards—its own standards it set in a 2008 manual—and neglecting enforcement of the same, numerous schools have witnessed fire tragedies over the years (the hurricane). Another way to look at it is that, if the government of Kenya fails to enact into law—something that they are now considering—measurable, actionable, and world-standard safety measures and standards in schools, then what is to prevent numerous fire tragedies?

The 2008 Government-Issued Safety Manual for Schools in Kenya

The 2008 safety manual stipulates, for instance, that the walkways of dormitories should be at least 2 meters wide and the space between beds (bunker or double-decker beds, or otherwise) should be at least 1.5 meters. The manual also stipulates that no dormitory windows should have grills or be permanently locked and that said windows should be able to fully open—with no bars or barriers—and do so providing big enough room for occupants of the dormitory to exit and escape any incidences—such as fires. The manual also directs that school dormitories should have big enough doorways and doors that open outwards—and the doors should comprise of two-door parts or two standard doors meeting in the middle—that on being open could provide enough room for students to escape without a stampede as they clamor at the doors.

The manual, as imagined and documented, is commendable. But then, what about safety equipment such as readily accessible water to extinguish fires, working and periodically serviced fire extinguishers, and the regular servicing and inspection of electrical equipment and installations? To its credit, the manual does mention some of these and also the materials that should be used to construct dormitories, which—I imagine—are materials that would be fire-resistant, non-flammable, and strong—as in roofing that won’t go ablaze and collapse in on the building, often causing as much—if not more—harm than the fire therein, if it were to break out.

Another thing, what of the height of the windows—it begs the question, would a nine-year-old climb a top bunker bed-high window to escape in case of a fire? I don’t think so. Why isn’t there direction—in the manual—that dormitory windows should be, let’s say, waist height for the average height of the occupants of the dorm? What is to prevent the government from indicating that all dormitories be built with scientifically proven fire-resistant materials?

Research On School Fires in Boarding Schools in Kenya

Unfortunately, a study by Usawa—a research agency—indicates that less than 45% of all dormitories in the country follow the 1.5 meters—between beds—rule. That is not even the worst of it, you will often find dormitories that are constructed out of bare wood where the bunker beds are crammed in such a way that you can barely pass between beds.

Death traps in schools

Report reveals half of boarding schools are death traps
Usawa Agenda: Schools do not adhere to the guidelines

Only 40.5% of schools have adhered to the guidelines
Migos: Standards were passed in 2020 as a safety measure#CitizenWeekend @OBurrows pic.twitter.com/yAVs0UoeXN

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) September 7, 2024

It’s puzzling to imagine how students who sleep on the top beds get there, and how they—and their lower bunk bed counterparts—would all be able to get out of bed as quickly as possible and rush to the exit—and leave the dormitory in case of a fire, leave alone if they were 9 year-olds to 14 year-olds. What’s even more shocking, is that some of these dormitories that, sorry to say, resemble wooden barns will have callous electrical wiring done in them—with some of the wires exposed—and the roofing so low that the students can reach the wiring and probably tinker with it—something that could cause a fire down the road or even immediate electrocution.

How the Kenyan Government Has Failed Its Children

Therefore, in this light—and nothing is illuminating about it—the government of Kenya has failed the children of this country tremendously. There are little to no inspections on the safety standards in schools—and especially in dormitories—and there have been numerous instances of children dying in school fires going back as early as the 1990s. Some cases of fires emanated from malice and arson—like a ‘90s fire at Nyeri High School where previously suspended students locked 4 prefects in a dorm room and set it on fire.

Or a case in a mixed school where the boys turned on girls and set a dorm on fire. Other cases have been due to student arson where disgruntled students would burn dormitories to air out their grievances and displeasure—something that school heads can probably do little to prevent but should stop all the same. As we speak, another fire was reported in Isiolo Girls High School yesterday night.

BREAKING: Isiolo Girls High school fire

Red Cross reporting that a dormitory is on fire #CitizenWeekend @OBurrows pic.twitter.com/dMMWiEe322

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) September 7, 2024

Even so, how would any government, aware that it has little children sleeping in dormitories that it has not inspected for safety compliance, sleep peacefully—having sent their kids to schools abroad, as they know the standards in schools in the country are murky in this sense—yet only show up to ‘offer sincere condolences’ after children have died. Doesn’t that defeat any sense of ‘sense’, accountability, duty, responsibility, and service delivery? Even more, is there anything more inhumane than letting the children of the people who elected you—and pay you via their taxes—die in a tragic school fire where parents will now be forced to take home the bodies of their young boys burnt beyond recognition?

The Inadequacy of Fire Fighters in Kenya

Another thing, why would a fire that allegedly started at around 10:40 PM—as per parents who said their kids had called them and indicated there was a fire at around this time—only be extinguished at 3 AM? I mean, let’s even say the fire started at 11 PM on September 6th; that is 11 PM, Midnight, 1 AM, and 2 AM before the fire was put out. Where on the Lord’s green earth were firefighters for a whole 4 hours as young innocent boys were screaming out of their wits burning with no one to rescue them?

Update: 12/08/2024: Apparently, the matron was absent at the dormitory, suspected to have been involved in an accident. The government has since also attested that all the pupils are accounted for, even as some parents are yet to see their kids. Most of the parents with kids still missing have given DNA samples for testing; to ascertain whether their kids were among the deceased pupils.

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