A fire has been reported at one of the dormitories of Onjiko High School in Kisumu County.
The fire, which was reported on the afternoon of Monday, July 7, razed down the second floor of a dormitory building as onlookers watched helplessly.
Images and videos of the incident revealed the intensity of the inferno, with flames reaching the roof of the building and threatening to spread to surrounding areas.
At the time of publication of this article, no casualties or incidents were reported from the blaze. The school has a student population of over 1,000.
The cause of the fire also remains unknown, although there are suggestions that it could be another case of arson inside a high school since the inferno occurred when students were typically away from the dormitories.
Although there have been no reported injuries, the fire destroyed students' possessions, adding to the high school's mounting problems in recent years.
Given that the high school was recently given a three-year ban from playing competitive secondary school sports, Onjiko High School has been in the news lately for contentious reasons.
This was after a scandal during the Kisumu County Secondary Schools football tournament, where the school was found to have allegedly fielded individuals who were not officially registered students.
Notably, the months of June and July are notorious for fire incidents in Kenyan High Schools, with experts noting that the dates are always close to the examination period.
The Onjiko incident occurred barely 48 hours after a fire was reported in Embakasi Girls’ High School.
Weeks earlier, a dormitory at the Nyambaria Boys' High School, in Nyamira County, caught on fire in the early morning of Tuesday, May 27. The fire is said to have started at around 4am, when the students were attending the morning preps.
Incidentally, the Onjiko High School fire coincided with Saba Saba Day protests on Monday, where several businesses across the country were set ablaze by goons masquerading as protesters.
