A fire broke out in a dormitory at Utumishi Girls Academy in Kenya on May 28, injuring at least 79 students. The dormitory housed 202 girls, and the blaze burned for several hours before firefighters brought it under control. Authorities are now investigating how the fire spread so far and why safety systems did not work as they should have.

A critical detail has come to light: the school matron — the adult responsible for the dormitory — did not unlock the door during the fire. In Kenyan boarding schools, the matron is the person who watches over students at night and holds the keys to the dormitory. Those keys exist specifically for emergencies like this. When the matron did not open the door, students had to escape through other routes, making evacuation slower and more dangerous.

This is not the first time a dormitory fire has caused harm in Kenya. Over many years, fires have repeatedly struck boarding schools — especially government-run schools where buildings are old, fire equipment is broken or missing, and there are not enough adults watching at night. Each time a fire happens, the government promises to fix the problem. But those fixes rarely stick. Instead, the cycle repeats.

The fact that 79 out of 202 students were hurt — nearly 40 percent of the dormitory's residents — shows how dangerous a locked building becomes during a fire. Students were burned, hurt from smoke, or injured while trying to escape.

Kenyan officials and education experts will now debate what needs to change: better fire escapes, working fire equipment, more staff at night, and who is responsible when safety systems fail. The real question is whether this fire will lead to real, lasting changes or whether — as has happened before — people will be upset for a while, then things will go back to the way they were.