ENG-1956 — Page 38

REVIEW

23

emergency accommodation were completed on the site of the fire in February 1954-53 days after the catastrophe.

This at least gave breathing space in which to examine the new policy a little more closely. A new department of Government, the Department of Resettlement, was set up with authority over registration, clearance and all the pro- cesses of resettlement. Working in conjunction with a sub- committee of the Urban Council, this department proceeded to re-examine the overall policy in the light of what had been done and planned as a direct consequence of the Shek Kip Mei fire. Its attention was first given to what was still the imminent, ever present danger-fire. The reactions of Government, the squatters, and indeed the community as a whole, to the Christmas night catastrophe was a source of inspiration to all who were concerned in any way with those early measures of relief and rehabilitation. But it was a dis- tinctly sobering thought that there was no reason on earth why another fire, or two, or three, of equal or greater pro- portions, should not occur at any moment. In the current resettlement jargon summer was the 'close season' for fires, but the rains were not due until April and another 'fire- season' would begin in October. The first attack made by the new department on the overall problem was a more deter- mined and ruthless prosecution of the policy of driving wide fire-breaks through the larger squatter areas. Fires would still occur, nothing could prevent that, but if a series of wide channels were dug through the mass of habitations at the necessary intervals one could then be quite sure that no fire of the appalling dimensions of Shek Kip Mei could happen again. But the driving of the lanes itself involved the compli- cated process of the clearance and resettlement of at least 7,500 persons, and this in turn created a new and immediate de- mand for more land and more houses. Somehow these two vital commodities were found and the fire-lane plan got well under way. It was to be complete by October 1954, the begin- ning of the new 'fire-season'. But again the gods were