5 things we learnt from people who’ve experienced fires in London
Our team is discovering people’s unmet needs before, during and after emergencies like fires and floods. Read Jo’s blog to find out why this work is needed.
Three weeks ago we visited five people in London who had experienced house fires. Here are some of things we learned:
1) Once the threat to life has passed, people may be less motivated to help each other recover
One person we interviewed told us how they heroically sprang into action to help to save a neighbour’s life from a fire:
“I just saw smoke and thought that she might still be in there… I started trying to break down the door and eventually managed to smash the window”.
Using fire extinguishers that other neighbours were piling on the grass outside, two people were able to put out the blaze. Luckily, no one was in the burning room and the fire was stopped thanks to the concern showed for their neighbour’s safety. Yet when they were asked about how the victim was recovering in the following days, the saviour didn’t know:
“I heard she might have got kicked out because she weren’t allowed candles in her room.”
Once threats to life are gone, it may be possible that people are less concerned about the welfare and well-being of their neighbours affected by emergencies.
2) Spending months displaced from home
House fires can escalate quickly and damage homes to the point that they are unable to be inhabited. This displaces people for many months while their house is being repaired. One of people’s main priorities is to find a safe place to spend the night. This place is often in a hotel, and as we heard people can spend much more than one night staying in temporary accommodation.
“Aside from seeing my house burnt, that was the worst part, being out of my home and having to stay in the hotel for so long…we spent about two months in the hotel”.
In hotels, simple, daily routines like cooking or washing clothes become hard. Some people will depend on friends and family to meet their basic needs:
“We were lucky because we had aunties and uncles cooking for us every night, we couldn’t cook… there was no communal space, my mum had her own room and so did I, my sisters shared”.
Some people we spoke to struggled to find more permanent accommodation. It was either too small, too expensive or too far away from their home or children’s school.
“Finally they [insurers] gave us a £1,000 budget to choose our own place, we needed three bedrooms but we couldn’t find a place local that fit that budget, so we had to go for a two bed”.
It can be argued that people being displaced from their home by an emergency is made worse by a lack of rental properties. It also shows that having spare homes could form part of a community being resilient to emergencies like fires and floods.
3) A lack of mental health support
Struggling to access mental health support after a fire was a common theme we heard. People described several difficulties; trouble getting signposted to support, being on waiting lists for months, treatment that wasn’t right for them.
“I even went to a church but they told me they couldn’t help me because I didn’t live in that area…it feels like you’ve been chucked out on the street naked.”
For some people even if they do get support services, they are not right for their needs:
“It was so busy. I’m only just feeling it now…I’ve gone to my doctor about having trouble sleeping…I stopped group treatment it was so basic.”
Access to mental health support is hard at the best of times. Add this to an emergency situation like a large fire or mass flood, where people have had to leave their homes for months, a lack of mental health support makes it much more difficult for them to recover.
4) Keeping your emergency private — people are embarrassed
Something we kept hearing in interviews was the wish that people wanted t to keep their emergency private.
“I’ve always been a private person, we’re private [family] so we didn’t really want to tell anyone, I only told my boss because I had to take time off of work”.
People also described the reluctance and shame of getting support.
“Seeking help was humiliating. Felt like I was begging.”
This raises an important service design consideration; whatever we end up designing with people, it needs to be discreet to use. This need for privacy shows a possible barrier to people becoming more connected before, during and after an emergency.
5) Previous experience is not preparedness
“You don’t expect it [house fire] to happen, it’s something that happens to other people.”
Often, people didn’t ever expect they’d suffer a house fire. More surprisingly we heard even after experiencing a fire, some people still didn’t take action to reduce risk or improve preparedness for another fire. For example, one person who experienced a fire caused by a candle admitted:
“We still need to get fire alarms installed upstairs [almost a year after the incident]…the fire brigade can come round and tell you the best place to put your fire alarms… I just still haven’t got round to doing it”.
This raises some critical questions about how we can build a community’s resilience to respond to fires, as it is often assumed that raised awareness of risks and previous experience will increase a person’s willingness to take preventative action.
Keep an eye on our blog to read more about how our discovery is going and what we’re learning.
