Nyambaria High School Students arrained in court over dormitory fire

Five students of Nyambaria Boys High School have been arrested for allegedly burning a dormitory at the institution.The students were taken to a Nyamira court Monday, but the presiding resident magistrate, Isabella Baraza, did not allow them to enter a plea on the charges they faced.Instead, she ordered them remanded at Manga Juvenile Home until Wednesday, when they will appear before Nyamira Principal Magistrate Nicholas Njagi.The students were represented by lawyer Charles Nyamwange.

They were accused that on July 24, 2014, at Nyambaria Boys High School in Kitutu North location of Manga District, jointly with others not before the court, they willingly and unlawfully set fire to Moi dormitory.During the incident, mattresses, textbooks, exercise books, beddings and students’ personal belongings, all valued at Sh3 million, were destroyed.

Courtesy: Daily Nation Newspaper

Mazeras Memorial Girls School Fire

Fire yesterday destroyed properties of unknown value at Mazeras Memorial Girls School in Kwale yesterday after a dormitory was burnt down to ashes. According to local daily reports, the school administration are waiting for police investigations to reveal the cause of the fire. The Kenya Redcross in their twitter update reported that 6 casualties had been evacuated to Coast General Hospital however there were no reports of loss of life.

This incident caused panic among the parents who only remembers very well the memories the school 16 years ago when it was then called the Bombululu Girls. Bombululu fire killed 26 girls and any parent who is conversant with the history knows well how serious that fire was. Recently, incidences of fire have been reported in secondary schools with some school of thouught blaming this on the on-going mock examination while others venting it on behaviour change that is left to the teachers only by the parents.

The ministry of education, through the then minister Prof. Sam Ongeri, introduced the Kenya Fire Safety Manual that was a fire safety standard that targeted establishment such as the schools, especially the boarding schools. In its introduction, Bombululu Girls Secondary School tragedy is mentioned as a reminder of one of the losses occurring due to fire tragedies in Kenya. This manual is and still remain one of the best document in scholarly fire service awareness among the public especially schools, the only question that remain is : did it ever reach the intended recipient? With the fires in schools and reports of non compliance with basic safety standards like grills on dormitory windows and blocked emergency exits, the stakeholders in schools needs to be involved in safety standard implementation in schools and especially the administrators of the schools require a forum where issues of safety are addressed.

The writer is an independent PhD candidate

Applying Blue Ocean Strategy for Kenya's Fire Industry

Fire industry in Kenya has come a long way since 1970’s when the first ever private fire services firm was established. The fire industry in Kenya for a long time has been occupied by the big multinational companies with footings in the three eastern African countries, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The enactment of the Health and Safety Act in 2007 and streamlining of fire safety services in industries through the fire safety rules under legal notice number 59 of 2007 paved way for more players to join the fire industry. If you asked the major players in recent days they would tell you times are not good as the market is “flooded”.  These flooding calls for various strategies by the players in market but most usually think that the most important strategy is the competing advantage strategy where you benchmark with your competitor in mind. But this should not be the case; it is high time the industry emulates Blue Ocean Strategy which has been with us for a long period of time.

According to Harvard Business review, Chan and Renee (2014) describe Blue Ocean strategy as creating an industry that is not in existence today. The duo also notes that there are two ways to create blue ocean i.e; creating a completely new industry that was not in existence and two, creating a new market from an existing market. The later is what we call, the red ocean which is the existing fire service market. At the moment red ocean strategy in Kenyan market involves sales of extinguishers and basic fire safety trainings coupled with inspections of the same items. According to their study, those who study the market and introduce blue ocean strategy benefits from it for between 10 and 15 years as the market leader in the product. Take for example the mobile telecommunication in Kenya, safaricom, airtel, orange, and YU are in the same market and only focusing on the competitive advantage does not usually produce the figures. One of the mobile operators, orange reduced its standard charges, but this has not translated in market change in terms of customers. Safaricom on the other hand, came up with a blue ocean market famously referred by name MPESA, all the other players have imitated this and introduced the same but the industry player remains Safaricom. How long has MPESA been in place? That’s for you to see and decide.

Therefore, in order to succeed in the fire industry in Kenya, there is need for the industry players to embrace this strategy to re-invent them. According the Harvard Business review, Blue Ocean strategy is not about technology innovation because the underlying technology is usually in existence. The challenge therefore remains with the fire industry players in Kenya.

The write is a PhD candidate on Fire Service Delivery