Incident Report and Analysis of the 2021 Cox’s Bazar Rohingya Refugee Camp Fire in Bangladesh
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Published:2023-04-28
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Volume:
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ISSN:0015-2684
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Container-title:Fire Technology
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Fire Technol
Author:
Flores Quiroz Natalia,Walls Richard,Chamberlain Paul,Tan Genevieve,Milke James
Abstract
AbstractAccording to the UN Refugee Agency, roughly 980,000 people live in the Cox’s Bazar region in Bangladesh, making it the largest and most densely populated refugee camp in the world. The number of fires in this settlement rapidly increased in 2021. On 22 March, a large fire event occurred, where 15 fatalities and 560 injuries were reported, and more than 9500 homes were affected leaving 45,000 homeless. This work seeks to reconstruct this incident based on firefighters’ statements, information found in the media, and satellite imagery. The study shows that (a) the fire spread extremely fast, with linear spread rates between 79 and 310 m/h and an average areal spread rate of 92,850 m2/h estimated, (b) the firefighters performed two main operations, firefighting and the creation of fire barriers, (c) the residents self-evacuated, deciding when and where to evacuate, and (d) the residents’ actions were similar to what has been observed in residential fires, with several people mentioning looking for missing family members. Fire spread is analogous to wildland fires where conflagrations spread across large areas of combustible material. This work can be used in planning for future large-scale fire incidents in tented camps, and proactively seeking ways of mitigating their impact. This is the first detailed documentation of such a large-scale refugee camp incident in the academic literature.
Funder
Lloyd's Register Foundation
Stellenbosch University
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality,General Materials Science,Building and Construction
Reference73 articles.
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