Historically less of a focus than veld or wildfire risk, structural fires are creating increasing risk to lives, property, and economic stability as our built environment evolves. A renewed approach to building fire resilience must be taken through stronger municipal capacity, skills development, risk mitigation and public-private partnerships.

This is according to Dr Moses Khangale, Manager Stakeholder Programmes, at Africa’s largest short-term insurer, Santam.

“Major incidents such as the Knysna fire of 2017, and the UCT/Table Mountain fire of April 2021 rightly saw an emphasis on veldfire risk in the recent past,” said Khangale, who was speaking at the inaugural Western Cape Structural Firefighting Summit held recently in Cape Town.

According to statistics shared in a recent government note, the most recent wildfire season saw upwards of 215 000 hectares affected by wildfire incidents across the Western Cape alone. More than 76 000 hectares of CapeNature-managed land were affected, with the Cederberg Wilderness Area alone experiencing its largest wildfire since 1997, with approximately 53 000 hectares burned.

Until now, Khangale says that the sheer scale of wildfire risk has seen structural fires garner less public focus.

“According to our own research, fires remain one of the key drivers of commercial claims. But strategic alignment on modern structural firefighting practices is now critical because of evolving fire behaviour, modern building materials, and increasing urban density,” says Khangale.

Central to the need for a renewed strategic approach to fire readiness are the shifts occurring in the build environment. Photovoltaic systems, battery energy storage, lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles present emerging risks for firefighters. In addition to this, Khangale says that rapid urbanisation also creates new considerations for fire risk preparedness.

“It is estimated that by 2035 more than 70% of the population will live in towns and cities. Concurrent to this, we will see an increasing focus on densification to maximise existing urban spaces via renewal, infill and multi-storey development. These trends go hand in hand with more widespread use of llightweight construction materials.

“All of these factors impact how a fire develops, its intensity, and critically how it is addressed because of impacts on smoke movement, access, evacuation, and firefighter safety,” says Khangale.

He explains that the added complexity has a real time impact on how fires are currently dealt with on the ground. “As the environment shifts, our responses need to adapt with it. And these changes filter into various aspects such as equipment, training and even legislation. This demands a centralised collaboration between private and public stakeholders,” says Khangale.

From an insurance perspective, Khangale says that the insurance sector plays a critical role in building a resilient economy through protecting economic and productive infrastructure from fire risk, stimulating the economy by transferring these insurable risks to the private sector, minimising the burden on the government fiscus, as well as providing expertise for increasingly complex fire-related risks, including for climate-induced disasters. “Furthermore, insurers provide thought leadership and advocacy to help society adapt to emerging climate risks and can play a significant role in mobilizing resources to build resilience and reduce disaster risks.”

He points to Santam’s Partnership for Risk and Resilience (P4RR) as a valuable example of the power of collaboration between government, fire services, academia and the private sector to strengthen firefighting readiness.

“P4RR drives the implementation of risk mitigation and resilience building initiatives in partnership with selected municipalities and other governmental agencies,” explains Khangale.

The programme has supported 110 municipalities since its inception in 2012, reaching 180k+ people with targeted community level disaster risk awareness and education, and having a downstream impact on 29.2 million people. “To ensure the sustainability of the initiative, we have also trained more than 1500 people in firefighting, safety, disaster management and related courses.”

Khangale adds that early warnings are an integral part of disaster risk reduction which need stakeholder focus as risks evolve. “The Sendai Framework – a United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction framework – has a target to Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030. To this end, Santam has supported the SA Weather Services to establish 9 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) across key provinces to maximise access to early warnings by vulnerable communities. These AWS have been integrated into SAWS weather observation system network and are providing critical weather data,” says Khangale.

Collaborative efforts reduce the risk protection gap and enhance the capacity and capabilities of beneficiary municipalities to effectively manage disaster risks in their areas of jurisdiction. “Building resilience is a shared responsibility that requires an ‘all of society approach’. By fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing, we can address skills gaps in structural firefighting operations and contribute to the reduction of fire damage, and critically, the protection of our people and communities,” concludes Khangale.