Think clearly about informal housing fires in Masi and Cape Town

It’s public knowledge that fires frequently occur in informal housing. In 2016 Ground Up reported that “informal settlements are at a high risk for the rapid spread of structural fires.” In 2015, the City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service reported an average of more than four informal settlement fires per day.

While almost any area of informal house in Cape Town could serve as a case study, I would like to briefly talk about house fires in Masi near Noordhoek.

In December 2020 a fire destroyed more than 1000 structures in Masi. The blaze was reportedly linked to an attempted land invasion. In January 2022 another fire destroyed 105 homes. In October 2025 a fire broke out in the Zululand informal settlement in Masiphumelele, killing one man and leaving dozens of families homeless. Around 20 informal structures and one formal building, including a local church, were destroyed despite a rapid response from City fire services.

A simple search for “fire in Masi” yields a long record of incidents. It’s clear that Masi fits this trend of informal housing fires.

House fires in Masi (and elsewhere in Cape Town) are viewed alongside the growth of informal settlements. What I find interesting is that the province currently has the highest rate of informal settlement growth of any province in South Africa.

The image below illustrates the expansion of informal housing in Masi. Further evidence of this trend can be see HERE. Remember the Tygerberg Raceway?

This growth has produced, and will continue to produce, more fires for the simple reason that housing built without safety standards carries a higher risk. As the City’s Fire and Rescue spokesperson noted, “The rate of spread is directly influenced by the materials used in the construction of settlements and the distance between each structure.”

Informal settlements are developed outside formal planning frameworks. There is little to no city planning approval, no enforcement of building regulations, and no application of basic fire-safety standards.

By contrast, anyone wishing to build even a small formal structure, such as a granny flat, must comply with a rigorous planning and approval process. These processes exist for safety reasons (and presumably for money generation). Yet in the two-tier system that has emerged in Cape Town and the Western Cape, one group is allowed to bypass them through illegal land invasions and unregulated development. This results in housing that is inherently unsafe, increasing the chance of residential fires.

The underlying problem is a two-tier society. One group can build homes without proper safety plans or development approval. Another group bears the cost of this failure through higher rates and taxes to fund emergency responses and temporary interventions. The problem compounds each year as informal settlement growth continues unchecked.

When will the local government stop lawless land invasion and informal settlement development? They could pass by-laws to legally deal with the growing problem, just like they to do regulate responsible residents of Cape Town. Perhaps this reveals that local politicians have lost control of the City and are unable to enforce basic order.

This dynamic is often described as anarcho-tyranny: lawlessness is tolerated, and sometimes indirectly incentivised, while compliance is enforced strictly on those who already follow the rules. Responsible citizens face rising rates, taxes, fines, and compliance costs, while basic planning laws are not consistently enforced elsewhere. This results in fires in informal housing blocks.

Compounding the problem is the pressure on responsible residents by non-profits and councillors, who guilt them into handing out free stuff using words like “compassion” and “empathy.” This is what people call “suicidal empathy,” because it is based on perverse incentives. Giving away free things without accountability breeds entitlement, and unmet entitlement leads to chaos.

The “solution” of continued handouts or tolerating unsafe housing developments only makes the problem worse. The more responsible approach, the one that has historically worked, is to move decision-making closer to local communities and strengthen independent local institutions. The City of Cape Town needs to be rezoned into multiple municipalities so that decisions are made close to residents and accountability for unsafe housing developments is enforced. Until that happens, expect more fires and more moral guilt pushed by non-profits, local councillors, and woke activists on social media and WhatsApp groups.