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29 May 2026
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Kenyan girls’ school fire kills 16 students, injures 79
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A fire tore through a dormitory at a girls’ secondary school in a town in Kenya’s Rift Valley overnight, killing 16 students, the government said on Thursday, 28 May 2026. The fire broke out just after midnight at the Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School in Gilgil in west-central Kenya and burned for more than two hours, Education Minister Julius Migos told reporters.
He said 79 other students were injured, although 71 of them had already been discharged from hospital. Students at the school are aged between 15 and 18 years. “Investigations are ongoing, but the … cause of the fire is not yet identified,” Migos said.
Speaking to reporters at the school, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen urged people not to speculate on the cause of the fire. However, multiple survivors told first responders that a student had lit a mattress with a match, said one first responder, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media. They did not know what the student’s motive might have been.
Doors on the second floor where the fire started were initially locked and some students died while jumping out of the windows, the first responder said.
Fires are common at Kenyan schools, with more than 100 recorded in 2024, according to the government. Many fires a reset by students protesting harsh discipline and poor conditions, researchers have found.
The fire broke windowpanes and left the walls of the school stained with smoke. Hundreds of family members gathered on Thursday morning to seek news of their loved ones, Reuters witnesses at the scene said. “The fire started from an upper dome and spread all over within that time,” Eunice Mureithi, whose daughter escaped the fire, told television station NTV, referring to part of the school’s structure. “It had barricaded a part of the dome to one side and to the other side the students were unable to come out, but a lot of them were able to escape.”
Investigations are continuing into the exact cause of the blaze
After interviews with students and staff and a forensic review of CCTV footage, eight pupils at the school were identified as "persons of interest in connection with the planning and execution" of the fire, the National Police Service said in a statement.
Police said the students were detained for questioning after being traced to their homes and brought back to the school, while others who had remained in the area were also tracked down and detained. The eight were among 30 students who were initially recalled to the school by detectives investigating the deadly fire.
Regarding the aftermath of the fire, Education Minister Julius Ogamba said preliminary findings indicated that there had been multiple breaches of safety measures at the school, including overcrowding in dormitories and a locked exit door. "In particular, there was congestion in the dormitory and one exit door was locked, contrary to the prescribed safety requirements," he said.
Past incidents
A fire in 2024 at a primary boarding school in nearby Nyeri County killed 21 students. Its cause was never conclusively established. In the worst school fire of recent times, 67 schoolboys were killed in 2001 at Kyanguli Secondary School outside Nairobi, an incident the authorities attributed to arson.
Sources: Reuters, BBC, AP
He said 79 other students were injured, although 71 of them had already been discharged from hospital. Students at the school are aged between 15 and 18 years. “Investigations are ongoing, but the … cause of the fire is not yet identified,” Migos said.
Speaking to reporters at the school, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen urged people not to speculate on the cause of the fire. However, multiple survivors told first responders that a student had lit a mattress with a match, said one first responder, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media. They did not know what the student’s motive might have been.
Doors on the second floor where the fire started were initially locked and some students died while jumping out of the windows, the first responder said.
Fires are common at Kenyan schools, with more than 100 recorded in 2024, according to the government. Many fires a reset by students protesting harsh discipline and poor conditions, researchers have found.
The fire broke windowpanes and left the walls of the school stained with smoke. Hundreds of family members gathered on Thursday morning to seek news of their loved ones, Reuters witnesses at the scene said. “The fire started from an upper dome and spread all over within that time,” Eunice Mureithi, whose daughter escaped the fire, told television station NTV, referring to part of the school’s structure. “It had barricaded a part of the dome to one side and to the other side the students were unable to come out, but a lot of them were able to escape.”
Investigations are continuing into the exact cause of the blaze
After interviews with students and staff and a forensic review of CCTV footage, eight pupils at the school were identified as "persons of interest in connection with the planning and execution" of the fire, the National Police Service said in a statement.
Police said the students were detained for questioning after being traced to their homes and brought back to the school, while others who had remained in the area were also tracked down and detained. The eight were among 30 students who were initially recalled to the school by detectives investigating the deadly fire.
Regarding the aftermath of the fire, Education Minister Julius Ogamba said preliminary findings indicated that there had been multiple breaches of safety measures at the school, including overcrowding in dormitories and a locked exit door. "In particular, there was congestion in the dormitory and one exit door was locked, contrary to the prescribed safety requirements," he said.
Past incidents
A fire in 2024 at a primary boarding school in nearby Nyeri County killed 21 students. Its cause was never conclusively established. In the worst school fire of recent times, 67 schoolboys were killed in 2001 at Kyanguli Secondary School outside Nairobi, an incident the authorities attributed to arson.
Sources: Reuters, BBC, AP
