[Closed] Greenfell Tower Fire

how many of you guys have checked the Fire Alarms in your house recently

Another tip - replace batteries annually whether the alarm says they need it or not.

It's a Christmas day job for me; you're usually buying a million batteries anyway, 2 more is no hardship.

I can vouch for not running large appliances when out /asleep. House over the road from us was gutted due to a fire caused by the dishwasher.

Drac, that picture is incredible.

I've been in the situation of opening a flat door to a wall of searing heat and a wall of thick black smoke and I've looked out of the window and chosen the hedge to land on if it comes to it. And I've watched the firemen take a baby out of the window below. Fortunately know was hurt with the exception of some bad facial burns on the girl who tried the stairs.

That was from a second floor in a Glasgow tenement and the and the thought of being stuck in that block has had me shaking like a leaf today.

It is - reminded me of some of the WW images
[img] [/img]

Checked my alarms (x3 plus CO) and pressure in the extinguisher.

I've been in the situation of opening a flat door to a wall of searing heat

These comments are reminding me of stuff I've been taught in the past - this was from a US chemical plant safety briefing in the event of fire alarms.... before opening a door, don't. Test it for heat with the back of your hand and if it's even warm go another way or wait. And if it's proper hot and burns you - at least you still have functioning palm and fingers.

I can vouch for not running large appliances when out /asleep. House over the road from us was gutted due to a fire caused by the dishwasher.

http://www.kingspanbenchmark.com/Products/Engineered-Facade-Systems/Facade-Options

This is made by a number of people, the link is the Kingspan option, I worked for Corus who offered something similar, i have seen Ash and Lacy's production line.

ACM simply means Aluminium Composite, the skin is made of a plastic Auminium composite sheet that is cut and folded to shape, sometimes it is then insulted with a PIR/PUR core other occasions it is un-insulated, really depends on the spec. The panels are then hung from a light steel frame that is screwed onto the existing block/concrete.

Last time I posted that people queued up to tell me the risk was so small it wasn't worth worrying about......

I also have a friend whose house was uninhabitable due to smoke damage from a DW fire, running it overnight. Thankfully the smoke alarms woke him and his other half but even then, his abiding memory was that even though your smoke alarm probably annoys you by going off when you burn toast and there is 'no' smoke - the time it took from alarm waking them to realising what it was to getting out and downstairs, the house was full of impenetrable black smoke.

I'd prefer to save that waking and realising time by not being asleep in the first place.

I know the risks are tiny, and maybe i'm obsessively paranoid about fire in particular, but almost no risk is too small for me.

Talking about fire risks, remember why Samsung pulled their galaxy Tab and the issues Boeing had with fires and the Dreamliner? Li-ion batteries aren't really that stable. So really worth paying attention to how they are handled and charged.

trouble is, people had been advised to stay in their flats in the event of a fire, so whilst I dearly hope I'm wrong.....it sounds like there could be a significant number of people trapped and in all certainty, killed!

Doesn't bear thinking about. 🙁

Really terrible.

We have had two fires in the Paris apartment building in which we live in the past 18 months, both completely gutted the affected apartments but did not spread. One an electrical appliance fault the other an alcholic who fell asleep with candles buring as his electric had been cut off for non-payment. Advice is to remain in flat in the event of fire as per this tragedy. 1980's construction 8 story.. Not difficult to imagine 1970's council built to be of poor / lesser quality. That cladding seems to be a very poor choice. £2.6m for a whole building seems very little but still equates to £25,000 per flat.

Another good safety tip when staying in a hotel is to count the number of doors to the nearest fire exit from your room. This is in case you need to crawl along the corridor in smoke and you can find a way out. Hopefully the alarms and sprinklers will mean this isn't necessary though.

We are of course assuming that the materials used are the ones they are supposed to be and not a copy made elsewhere. Wouldnt be the first time.

We are of course assuming that the materials used are the ones they are supposed to be and not a copy made elsewhere. Wouldnt be the first time.

depends on the spec, yes the contractors may have substituted, but you would have to be a real cowboy* to substitute something totally different.

A rainscreen isn't that difficult to make, 0.5-0.9mm steel/alu skin with a PVC/PVF finish, 20mm-ish PIR boards only held onto to light steel frame and epdm gaskets between each panel.

At this point i would be inclined to wait for the enquiry to open and see what comes from there.

*this is the building industry so anything is possible

trouble is, people had been advised to stay in their flats in the event of a fire, so whilst I dearly hope I'm wrong.....it sounds like there could be a significant number of people trapped and in all certainty, killed!

Doesn't bear thinking about.

The problem is with a number of these buildings built in that time period, is that they only have a single stairwell.

The advice on people staying in their flat is relatively logical, as if a fire breaks out in a flat, it should be contained within the flat.

The fire brigade arrives and takes control, then deciding which floors to evacuate in an orderly manner. If everyone is trying to leave the building by the single stairwell at the same time the fire brigade are trying to get in, then chaos ensues.

Fire brigades across the country deal with several hundred fires a year in buildings similar to Grenfell, and the fire is generally contained in the flat.

Also, there is talk of no real fire alarm system, with that many flats the alarm system would be going off when someone burns their toast, and eventually someone will try to disable the system, or ignore it in the same manner people ignore car alarms going off these days.

In commercial and retail buildings there are fire wardens who should evacuate the building in an orderly manner, domestic buildlings don't usually have wardens.

Edit: Alex Simon, social cleansing has been going on there for a good 20 years, As I said before I grew up around there, and its been eye opening how the place has changed in that time. I have absolutely no doubt that the former residents of Grenfell tower will not be returning after whatever is built to replace it.

depends on the spec, yes the contractors may have substituted, but you would have to be a real cowboy* to substitute something totally different.

More likely is incorrect installation, especially for a built up in situ system that has various separate elements. I do not know if the specification for the cladding required any kind of horizontal fire barrier every floor or every other floor, but fire barriers are the sort of thing which often requires precise attention to correct installation if it is to work. The only way of making sure it's done properly is to monitor the installation very closely, since once it's complete it's extremely difficult to check afterwards whether or not it was done properly.

ignore it in the same manner people ignore car alarms going off these days

there have been numerous studies that show that people will ignore smoke alarms until someone tells them it's real and to move.

12 confirmed fatalities, with the tally expected to rise further.

I previously worked for both render and rainscreen cladding manufacturers.

It would be standard practice on a tower block to use a non combustible insulation such as rockwool to create a firebreak at every storey beyond the second d storey.

Whilst EPS doesn't necessarily burn it will disappear in a fire leaving a huge vertical chimney stack behind the cladding.

Look up Lakanal house fire.......

[img] [/img]

We've done the steel frames for a few housing developments in the past. A few times the design has been changed to allow for lower ceiling heights , thus doing away with the need for a sprinkler system with its associated cost/ maintenance *
*Or that's what I have been told by various Project Mangers

So, I'm on a work trip sat in a hotel restaurant googling the best knots for escaping fires and the waitress walks past just as I'm basically scrolling through pictures of nooses 😳

So, I'm on a work trip sat in a hotel restaurant googling the best knots for escaping fires and the waitress walks past just as I'm basically scrolling through pictures of nooses

😐

Leaving aside the real, direct trauma of the event, what you can't see in the photos Drac has posted is the newly installed children's playground.

For me it's a reminder of the number of families you'd see there every day - and the inevitable direct impact this has had on people of all ages, including children.

It's thinking about the playground and the positivity that embodied that makes me most sad.

Woke up to this news this morning, as most people probably did. Really bad and upsetting. One of my customers today was in tears about it. Feel sorry for everyone involved.

drac, i hope the Sun dont get hold of that picture of all the lazy firemen laid down doing nowt.......

AlexxSimon - I think they got a Labour MP at the recent election who is very much against gentrification and empty flats owned by people who have no interest in the area. I'm not 100% sure on the constituency boundrys. Really is sad the way people are treated for not being born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

eight tower blocks all 10 storeys high in a local city, 2 have had sprinklers fitted despite the residents kicking up a fuss, about sprinklers being fitted, the risk of water damage etc was sited, these two blocks are rented to over 55,s so little risk of vandalism.

Hopefully they will now realise they may save their lives.

Indeed. Been comments on the radio from people involved in investigating these kinds of fires and compared other similar fires with rapid engulfing of the cladding, and the building interior suffered less damage and lives were saved simply because they had sprinklers.

very sad .

A lot of people still think sprinklers go off like in the movies, they don't, each head has a separate break glass. So actual risk of water damage is limited unless it's actually in your property or directly above.

Turned the TVs on late last night. Originally thought it was a film I was watching.

Sadly not. 😥

Sprinklers are the most effective form of active fire protection, but they are not a panacea. Their reliability levels are generally very high, but they can fail. Blocks of flats with sprinkler systems will usually have isolation valves in each flat, and it's not unknown to find after a fire which the sprinklers failed to control that some tenants had isolated the system in their flat because they were concerned about water damage from a leak or because decorating works had been carried out and they forgot to switch the system back on afterwards.

Moreover it looks like the external cladding on Grenfell Tower was a key factor, and internal sprinkler systems will not control a fire where it is the exterior of the building that is ablaze. Residential sprinklers rely on the fire being extinguished at an early stage by just a small number of sprinkler heads. If a large fire on the outside of the building breaks through windows into multiple floors, the sprinkler system will not be able to deliver enough water to all the heads that are triggered on each of those floors, and the fire will continue to grow and spread.

I'm not suggesting that sprinklers should not be retrofitted to buildings like these, but it will still be necessary to ensure that other aspects of fire safety are properly installed/in place and managed/maintained.

A major difficulty for those responsible for conducting fire risk assessments is that it requires skills and knowledge which extend over multiple disciplines, e.g. construction, systems like sprinklers and fire alarms, potential causes of fire and how fires may behave in different circumstances, human behaviour etc., and it is difficult for one person to be an expert in all those fields. If that were not enough, there are limits to the extent to which someone undertaking a fire risk assessment can assess and investigate. So they have to assume that previous building works will have been compliant with the relevant fire safety standards, unless they are some obvious visual indicators that contractors have failed to do the job properly.

There are no easy answers, and no substitutes for good standards of management to ensure that any building works are done safely and that the fire performance of the building is not impaired by such works, and that day to day fire safety is actively maintained, including regular checks and maintenance of all fire safety systems and equipment.

It's still burning!

On the news now.... crazy.

Lots of combustible stuff in a flat, plastics, settees, beds, flooring etc, all burn and getting enough water into the building, there will be a dry riser, but probably more hoses will be required, then there is the problem of water pressure and mains pressure, also with safety of the fire fighters, working upwards, probably in the dark as the one staircase is internal to the building core.

we do have some contemptible pigs in government.

Get those politcial swipes in why don't you ?

Jambo - in the circumstances, that link is fair comment.

The building is still burning even now at 10pm (news live).

Heard about this on the way into work, having now seen some pictures/video online I was truly shocked at the state of the fire, [b]it almost looks like a line of fire climbs 20 stories across the face of the building.[/b]

Seems that the response from the council has been quite lacking, 24hrs and not everyone displaced is in shelter

Food and supplies being handed out largely by volunteers

Not expecting a council to have every disaster eventuality covered, but it's sounds like leadership is lacking there,

Still cant believe how horrific it is

Completely wrong, so sad makes me sick. It seems that improvements to the tower have made it less safe.

Hat raised.
[img] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCTqV_kWsAA60tf?format=jpg&name=small [/img]

Thank you.

it's so ****ing grim.

Jambo - in the circumstances, that link is fair comment.

No, Jambalya is right. Many people are dead and it is wrong to use this situation to make a cheap shot like that, regardless of how you might feel about Boris Johnson or any other politician.

Jambalaya was lambasted on the Trump thread for this comment:

So a Trump hating Bernie Saunders fan shoots Republicans. You can imagine the headlines and STW outrage the other way around

There seems to me to be little difference between these comments, and I think both are wrong, but it does seem that these threads exhibit the sort of double standards to which Jambalaya was objecting.

With regard to the issue being discussed in the video clip, it was not particularly relevant to the loss of life in Grenfell Tower. There are no reports as far as I am aware that the brigade took too long to arrive because of reduced cover.

There is a very compelling argument that it makes sense to reduce fire cover. Those resources need instead to be directed to better strategies to reduce the number of fires and their severity, which is what Boris Johnson is talking about.

there are reports of fire men and women working 13 hr shifts because everyone is there on site and there is no spare crew to relieve them.
Bloody heroes firemen, every last one
I did an extra hr in work and had to have a lie down when I got home

The head of the fire brigades union made no direct mention of cuts on newsnight, but the Tory MP on the all party fire safety seemed very angry that the government had ignored their warnings that regs needed updating he said there shouldn't be a price on fire safety when asked about cuts.
Housing expert pointed out that if review had been undertaken, cladding used would've been banned after Dubai & french tower fires, but our gov believes in less regulation- no one disagreed

the council do not have enough resources to deal with this, so charities are doing the job.

'Politician' means someone who works for the citizens of the city.

it's all about politics. the economy, country, borders, trade, all of that exists to make sure the people who live there are safe and secure.

they seem to have forgotten that.

Can we refuse to pay tax as they are misusing our money?

All new residential buildings in Wales have had to have sprinkler systems fitted since 2016.

there are reports of fire men and women working 13 hr shifts because everyone is there on site and there is no spare crew to relieve them.

That's pretty much a normal shift not extra hours. It's what most emergency services work.

14 hr nightshift is the norm sunday to friday. 16 hrs on a Saturday night.

[url= https://twitter.com/crispymick/status/874999483326754817 ]https://twitter.com/crispymick/status/874999483326754817[/url]

[img] [/img]

There are no reports as far as I am aware that the brigade took too long to arrive because of reduced cover.

Agreed, I think it was minutes, what is concerning is that government ministers sat on an enquiry and have done nothing. This is why it is the right time, if the government through incompetence has got us here then they need to be held accountable. If a minister has blocked the enquiry then they need to be personally accountable, and jailed.

Remember the government bonfire of red tape, all the opportunities once we leave the EU to scrap burdensome regulation. Regulations exist for a reason, but they do need to be reviewed as times change. To scrap or ignore is in the interests of very few.

This was covered on 'PM' on R4 last evening. A fire safety specialist chartered surveyor and an industry journalist; I wasn't paying full attention but they said I think that the types of cladding typically used is 'within regulations / passes testing' but it's known in the industry that the testing proves nothing in the real world, and that the regulations need total overhaul.

But that 3 successive ministers have been told this and done nothing, including the last one promising a review in October 2016(?) - it's now June.

Now, a review and regs change is one thing but that wouldn't necessarily change this situation, it's not as if one day you can change the regs and the next day magic wand everything into 'fixed'.

But when companies are being held accountable and in some cases prosecuted with corporate manslaughter charges for faulty / non-compliant equipment; when are the officials that set the regs, have been repeatedly TOLD that those regs aren't adequate and yet still do nothing when are they going to be held accountable for the poor sods that die as a result, and for the lives of our firefighters and rescue personnel that they risk.

W@nkers. And yes that is filter avoidance, because they are utter incompetent w@nkers.

19:30 onwards here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tbf1y

Disgusted in Corbyn who's used this to have a swipe at Tories blaming this on cuts on services. There's a time and place for that and it's not now.

Disgusted in Corbyn who's used this to have a swipe at Tories blaming this on cuts on services. There's a time and place for that and it's not now.

He may be politicising this to an extent, but he asked a question, if cuts could be to blame, the same question was asked yesterday on the news websites, social media and news analysis shows like newsnightas I pointed out above it was a Tory MP implying that cost savings may have been at fault

Thank God these monstrosities in Glasgow are all coming down, a truly grim place to put people.

There's a time and place for that and it's not now.

When is it, then? After everyone's moved onto the next media event? After the next tragedy? When? That sounds a lot like the US response after every gun tragedy.

This is political. Of course it's desperately sad and horrible, but it is also political - someone made the decisions about the construction and renovation of this building, someone decided on the material used, someone made the safety regulations, someone decided how much emergency response cover this area needed, someone decided that the residents' repeated concerns should be ignored. And some people - politicians, because they're the ones who make the decisions - got it very, very wrong.

Thank God these monstrosities in Glasgow are all coming down, a truly grim place to put people.

Not all, a bunch are being renovated. Hopefully with different materials - I've heard, though haven't seen confirmation, that Scottish planning regs are quite a bit stricter than in England.

Flats can be a great solution - just look at places where they're desirable, like New York. The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos.

The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos [i][b]and then polish the turd by covering them in 'unfit for purpose' cladding to make the problem look nice[/b][/i]

FTFY

bencooper - Member 
When is it, then?

When the fire services have done their job (the place is still burning), families and friends have news of their loved ones (100s missing), when the dust has literally settled and the investigation can start and we then get to see what the cause is.

Corbyn's swipe at cuts is irresponsible and an insult to the 200 strong fire crews who turned up within minutes and risked their lives. There's no evidence that cuts affected their job.

Your right sadexpunk we'll never get to keep the payfreeze of the last 7 years if they see that pic

Not all, a bunch are being renovated. Hopefully with different materials - I've heard, though haven't seen confirmation, that Scottish planning regs are quite a bit stricter than in England.

Must've changed then, I distinctly remember about 4 or 5 years ago the statement being made that they were all coming down?.

Your right sadexpunk we'll never get to keep the payfreeze of the last 7 years if they see that pic

If people shut up, "because now is not the time", politicians will move on the public will forget and the pay freeze will continue. Heard anything about the cuts to police numbers for a few days?

There will always be another news item, attention will move on.

I know that it is not time to be political, but there is something inherently wrong when an MP like Craig Mackinlay can be charged with fiddling his expenses and still be allowed to stand as an MP, but a fireman (police and NHS workers also) have had their numbers slashed and their pay frozen for so long.

bencooper - Member
Thank God these monstrosities in Glasgow are all coming down, a truly grim place to put people.
Not all, a bunch are being renovated. Hopefully with different materials - I've heard, though haven't seen confirmation, that Scottish planning regs are quite a bit stricter than in England.

Flats can be a great solution - just look at places where they're desirable, like New York. The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos.

The 5 royston ones are all clad. You'd hope somebody is out testing and assessing..

If it's substantiated that the safety concerns which were continuously ignored were relevant to this horrific event, then it will be very political indeed - but more about the way public housing is managed than fire service cuts IMO.

Whether the fire service response was hampered by cuts is another very valid issue, of course.

The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos and then polish the turd by covering them in 'unfit for purpose' cladding to make the problem look nice

This is simplistic emotive rubbish, and no better than than the political point of which Corbyn is being accused.

Concrete buildings are not cheap, and modern high rise buildings are now almost invariably steel framed instead, which potentially is much more difficult to bring up to the levels of fire resistance of a concrete building.

The reason for the cladding, which was part of a project which included new double glazed windows and a new heating system, was to improve the thermal performanace of the buildings. In other words to insulate the flats and make them better places to live, as well as improving energy efficiency, which is essential to reducing our consumption of fossil fuels and addressing the risks of climate change.

We will continue to need to keep doing similar projects, so it's vital that we understand the underlying causes of this fire.

Superficially it could be argued that the inherent fire safety of a 1970s non-combustible concrete high rise tower block - which makes it possible to have a single stairwell exit route - is not compatible with retrofitting modern insulation systems which use expanded plastic foam. I don't think that is the case: there are expanded plastic foam products which have very good fire resisting performance. I understand that BBC's Newsnight reported last night that the version of the cladding affixed to Grenfell Tower was one with a low or no fire rating. Before we talk about the current Regulations being inadequate, we need to establish first whether they were breached at Grenfell Tower, and how we can better ensure that Regulations are complied with.

Moreover, there is more to this fire than just the cladding. Even with the outside of the building on fire, people should still have been able to evacuate inside safely, and we need to understand everything that went wrong, what it's impact was, and how best to prevent it happening again.

I would like to see more of the fire fighters shown in the photographs above spending their time on safety inpections and enforcement activity. A photograph of a a fire safety officer undertaking an inspection, writing up a report, inspecting building works, reviewing plans etc. is a lot less dramatic than the photographs above, but that activity is potentially far more valuable and will save more lives. We will always need the sort of fire fighting and rescue capability that the Brigades showed yesterday, but we need to be better at prevention rather than cure.

As this cladding is a basically a skinned version of the Kingspan type insulation sheeting and fixed using the same method with battens. As the many threads on here have recommending it for anything from garage to house roof insulation to wall lining prior to plastering as the method of keeping heat within the building.
Is this the new asbestos scandal waiting to break and who is now removing this material from their home which is now widespread in its use and method of fixing?

The reason for the cladding, which was part of a project which included new double glazed windows and a new heating system, was to improve the thermal performanace of the buildings. In other words to insulate the flats and make them better places to live, as well as improving energy efficiency, which is essential to reducing our consumption of fossil fuels and addressing the risks of climate change.

That is IMHO criminal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40283980

deadkenny - Member

Corbyn's swipe at cuts is irresponsible and an insult to the 200 strong fire crews who turned up within minutes and risked their lives.

The pay freeze- ie real world pay cut- is an insult to them. Not sure how saying pay them better and resource them better is an insult. If "now is not the time" then how about 2 days ago:
https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2017/06/13/firefighters-call-immediate-end-pay-freeze
Or, how about last year when the inquiry was supposed to go ahead, but didn't? May's promising an enquiry but clearly "now is not the time", years ago was the time.

(No expert - just a guess really)
Would the UPVC windows also be a potential issue, since a fire was up the outside? The advice to stay in a flat was based on fire not spreading up stairwell due to internal protections of fire doors etc- not a fire outside with no protection...

The 5 royston ones are all clad. You'd hope somebody is out testing and assessing..

In mineral fibre insulation which is entirely non-combustible...I have full drawings, specifications, BRE testing certificates and reports from the fire brigades safety inspector for those 5 blocks and about 70 others in Glasgow if you'd like a look at them.

Edit: There has also been three fires (that I know about) in those 5 blocks since they were overclad. The cladding system performed as predicted.

it is a horrible tragedy, all we can hope is that lessons will actually be learnt and that there is a serious review of similar buildings, I lived on the 17th floor of a tower block for a couple of years in my 20's in Leyton, East London and it was a genuine worry about what the hell would happen in the event of a fire.

Would the UPVC windows also be a potential issue, since a fire was up the outside? The advice to stay in a flat was based on fire not spreading up stairwell due to internal protections of fire doors etc- not a fire outside with no protection...

Yes they are an issue inasmuch as the frames are plastic and will melt/burn and fail, and allow fire spread from outside into the building. However, it's always important to consider the behaviour in a fire of any one component in the context of all the other components (as a package). So even if the frames were instead fire resisting, the glass isn't (as far as I am aware Australia may be the only country that does require fire resisting glazing for high rise buildings), and you would also need to consider the window fixings and any other potential points of entry for fire in the external wall, e.g. ventilation grilles, trickle vents etc. The whole thing is only as good as it's weakest link and you have to assess how it performs as a package, not as an individual component. Even if it was practical to improve the fire resistance of the windows, it would probably not be the best use of resources.

Yes they are an issue inasmuch as the frames are plastic and will melt/burn and fail, and allow fire spread from outside into the building.

It's summer - many of the windows will have been open anyway.

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) said a ruptured gas main in the block had to be isolated before fire crews were able to put the blaze out and bring it under control by 1.14am.

If that's the case, then there is more to this than simply the cladding going up.

Not arguing that point, the point is whether the materials used are appropriate, which in turns asks both whether they are approved but also if that approval is appropriate. And the experts (whoops, we love them!) on the radio I heard last night were saying that the review process to evaluate that had passed through 3 minister's hands now and was still being avoided.

That is IMHO criminal.

To call it 'criminal' without waiting for an inquiry and giving the ministers and the department an opportunity to explain why things have been delayed, is again lazy emotive and simplistic - it's the same sort of knee jerk outrage that makes it possible for the likes of the Daily Mail to continue to stay in business by pedalling sensationalist manipulative rubbish.

It's possible that there is some Machiavellian motive for the delay, but I doubt it. Sometimes things are complicated and difficult, and there are no easy answers, and sometimes it is necessary to wait and see rather than taking a decision to do something because 'something must be done'.

It's easier to make a bad decision, than to undo the consequences of one, and with something like fire safety progress is often necessarily slow and painstaking to ensure that optimal decisions are taken.