One page in and am I the only person to wonder when Bolton got a university? Would that be from an upgraded Polytechnic or Tech College? Still, I’m sure university has helped property values.

Fire alarm systems in this type of building are sometimes configured to used phased evacuation, activated zone and zones either side/above and below get full Alarm, Sounders beyond those zones can be set to pulse or not operate at all. I personally don’t like this setup, but it’s done to get people out safely. There’s not much being said about the alarms not sounding now so maybe this was the case here. The main problem I come across is the persons in charge of the building including the fire alarm and the weekly testing of the fire alarm, just don’t fill in the log book. In every log book and fire alarm service certificate is a section to fill in regarding false alarms and activations. From the information in that section we can work out if there’s a problem with false alarms. There’s plenty of engineering solutions to false alarms. Modern systems can be programmed to change the sensitivity of single detectors at different times of the day, multi sensors that need heat and smoke to activate can also be used to cut down on nuisance alarms, but if its not noted down in the log book then we can’t follow it up.

Going to be interesting if we start seeing insurance companies withdrawing fire cover from buildings with ‘flammable’ cladding and that Government is going to have to start under-writing the insurance particularly for things like council properties. Leaving it to the ‘market’ will simply result in a massive hike in premiums / increase in uninsured buildings

Don’t know the actual factual details but from what I partially overheard on the tv was that the top two stories of the building are timber framed and a later addition.
The original building is steel and concrete construction.
It appears it was the timber framing that was the main fire source.
Might have misheard but that appears to tally with the photos.
Also mentioned bbq on the balcony but that was speculative.