16 pupils die in Kenya girls’ school dormitory fire

Sixteen pupils died after fire ripped through a dormitory at Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School in Gilgil, Nakuru County, leaving one of Kenya’s most painful school tragedies to be judged not only by the death toll, but by what happened before the flames spread.

The blaze broke out just after midnight and burned for more than two hours at the government-owned girls’ secondary school, which has more than 800 students aged 15 to 18. Authorities said 79 other students were injured, and 71 had already been discharged from hospital. The Kenya Red Cross deployed tracing and psychosocial support teams as the school was cordoned off and closed.

Survivors and witnesses described a chaotic escape from the dormitory. They said the doors had been locked from inside and keys could not initially be found, forcing some girls to flee by jumping from windows and balconies. Several injuries were reportedly sustained in those falls, a detail that is likely to sharpen questions about whether the building’s safety arrangements were workable in an emergency.

Police and education officials said the cause of the fire had not yet been established, but multiple survivors told first responders that a student had set a mattress on fire with a match. Investigators were also expected to examine whether the school’s fire safety manual had been followed, raising the more uncomfortable question of whether this was an isolated act or another sign of weak boarding-school oversight.

The school’s ties to the state give the case wider public significance. Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School is managed and sponsored by the Kenya Police Service, and many of the students are daughters of police officers. That connection is likely to intensify scrutiny of dormitory supervision, emergency access, and the practical enforcement of safety rules meant to protect children asleep inside crowded hostels.

The deaths also fit a grim pattern that has long shadowed Kenyan boarding schools. Kenya’s deadliest recent school fire came in 2001, when 67 students died in Machakos County. In 2024, 21 students died in a school fire in central Kenya, prompting President William Ruto to declare three days of mourning. In 2017, 10 students died in a Nairobi school fire, and a student was charged with murder. More than 100 school fires were recorded in Kenya in 2024 alone, underscoring how repeatedly the same warnings have gone unheeded.