The Johannesburg fire
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18 September 2023
Gary Strong FRICS
Global Building Standards Director, RICS
On 31 August 2023, in one of the worst global fires in years, 74 people lost their lives - including 12 children – and a further 55 people were injured following a blaze in a five-storey building in the centre of Johannesburg, South Africa
The building, which was occupied by homeless people, is owned by the city of Johannesburg but had been taken over by gang cartels.
At a press conference, South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa said the incident needed to be investigated and lessons learnt to prevent future tragedies.
'It's a wake-up call for us to begin to address the situation of housing in the inner city,' he said.
Unfit properties
The building was formerly a home for abused women and children, but after the lease expired, it was 'hijacked', President Ramaphosa said.
A number of properties in the area where the blaze happened have been certified as unfit to live in. Many of these old blocks have been abandoned by their owners or the city authorities, but are full of families, often paying rent to criminal gangs who run them.
The buildings, which lack public services such as running water, toilets, or a legal electricity connection, are then said to have been 'hijacked'.
South Africa faces an acute housing shortage, with around 15,000 people estimated to be homeless in Johannesburg.
'We need to get on top of this and find effective ways of dealing with problems of accommodation, of housing, and services in the inner city,' President Ramaphosa added.
A spokesman for the emergency services, Robert Mulaudzi, said it was not clear what caused the fire.
He said that as the building was not properly looked after, makeshift structures and debris had made it difficult to search for and rescue people.
'Over 20 years in the service, I’ve never come across something like this,' he said.
There was an 'informal settlement' inside the building, he said. 'So there [are] a lot of informal structures inside the building. There is a lot of debris that we have to remove.'
Several other buildings in a similar state of neglect have caught fire recently. These include earlier in August when a fire went through the top floor of a building in the suburb of Yeoville, near the central business district, and in June two children were killed in a fire in Hillbrow. In July, a fire occurred on Lilian Ngoyi Street after an underground gas explosion.
RICS and other bodies offer supporting resources
Fire safety has never been so important, and we all need to continue to strive to ensure this sort of tragedy never happens.
RICS hosts a fire safety hub and chairs the International Fire Safety Standards (IFSS) Coalition of over 100 kindred bodies around the world, launched at and supported by the UN. RICS has also launched the IFSS Decade of Action for Fire Safety 2022-2032.
You can also sign up to newsletters from Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures (CROSS) UK, which are essential reading for any built environment professional, or become a contributor in your area of expertise to help educate and maintain competence across the profession.
Gary Strong FRICS is global building standards director and fire safety lead at RICS
Contact: gstrong@rics.org
