London tower block inferno

Linalmeemow · Jun 14, 2017

shepp said:
It appears crazy to me that cladding would be made of such flammable material.

This is what I was getting at earlier - building materials should have a degree of fire resistance to slow fire spread. I can't believe they could have legitimately got away with using something so flammable - I wouldn't be surprised if what was used was not what was claimed to have been used.

Godsdog · Jun 14, 2017

Seems Gavin Barwell the new chief of staff at downing street was housing minister part responsible for the safety issues on that tower block for a year until his election loss recently and dithered like the rest of them as regards the safety concerns of the residents

chub1 · Jun 14, 2017

Seems Labour are now demanding answers from the government!! Sorry no place for political manouvering:nono::twisted:

Ale · Jun 14, 2017

The political fighting will get going soon. I would have thought responsibility should be with the local authority rather than the government. Its a local housing issue.

The contractor who did the refurb is based not too far from me so was on the local news being interviewed. The person being interviewed was clearly upset and was saying things like the cladding used had the required certificates and authorisation as fire retardant. I also heard a resident who was interviewed this morning say that during the refurb they installed pipes in the main stairwell. Thats madness. They also said that there were stickers on every floor saying in and emergency stay in your flat and they think a lot of people did that.

I could see someone going to prison for a very long time for multiple manslaughter charges. I'm expecting the death toll rise into the hundreds.

MyQul · Jun 14, 2017

shepp said:
There will be a lot more people living there than the authorities know about.

Edited to say.

Before anybody starts getting up on there back legs over this comment above.

My ex-girlfriend was looking for a room to rent in this area (low end price) a couple of years ago and out of the 9 rooms she looked at 7 of them were sub-let local authority houses and flats.
So the local authorities will not really know who is living there and the full extent of the fatalities for some considerable time.

A lot of my comments are from personal experience and not just blind dogma.

Sub letting is a very common practice here in London.

MyQul · Jun 14, 2017

chub1 said:
I thank god i don't have to live in a tower block,that would always be one of my fears,shades of the film 'the towering inferno' there!.
By all accounts the fire alarms failed to go off and as for the possibility of no sprinkler system:twisted: peoples heads must roll i would think.
Probably get the same old story, Well we will learn lessons from this:twisted:

I live in a block of flats but fortunately I live on the ground floor. We had a fire in the basement carpark once but it only melted a couple of cars before the fireservice put it out. We have a newly build firestation at the top of the road which helped

MyQul · Jun 14, 2017

Ale said:
The political fighting will get going soon. I would have thought responsibility should be with the local authority rather than the government. Its a local housing issue.

The contractor who did the refurb is based not too far from me so was on the local news being interviewed. The person being interviewed was clearly upset and was saying things like the cladding used had the required certificates and authorisation as fire retardant. I also heard a resident who was interviewed this morning say that during the refurb they installed pipes in the main stairwell. Thats madness. They also said that there were stickers on every floor saying in and emergency stay in your flat and they think a lot of people did that.

I could see someone going to prison for a very long time for multiple manslaughter charges. I'm expecting the death toll rise into the hundreds.

And I bet they wont even be able to identify many of the victims. All over London (including the block I live in), because of the cost of accomodation there are many properies sublet then absolutely crammed full of people. I've even heard of people doing 'shifts' for the bedding

chub1 · Jun 14, 2017

MyQul said:
And I bet they wont even be able to identify many of the victims. All over London (including the block I live in), because of the cost of accomodation there are many properies sublet then absolutely crammed full of people. I've even heard of people doing 'shifts' for the bedding

This was my train of thought.
I would put good money down that there were many of those flats being sub let to god knows how many people.
It's a terrible thought but those who were trapped will possibly have been totally obliterated so proper numbers of deaths will probably not be known unless those who were /might have been subletting actually come forward with details!.

passedpawn · Jun 14, 2017

Ale said:
The political fighting will get going soon

Such is politics. Might as well complain about gravity or friction.

Such a sad episode. Fire is an awful awful thing. But unlike many forms of atrocity that we (yes us!) invented, it's a quite natural thing that we'll never be rid of. Every community has known infernos that caused this sort of loss.

I'm a bit surprised a bldg of that size was not equipped with sprinklers. I'm not from that area, but I would have assumed that the bldg codes would require it.

sdt7618 · Jun 14, 2017

Linalmeemow said:
This is what I was getting at earlier - building materials should have a degree of fire resistance to slow fire spread. I can't believe they could have legitimately got away with using something so flammable - I wouldn't be surprised if what was used was not what was claimed to have been used.

Only thing stopping the core of the cladding from being " class o". Pound and pence. Someone here is going to end up in jail, and rightly so. So many life's gone on the profit margin hunt. Sickened to say I work in construction, safety first, safety always! people can never be replaced, families torn apart.

To see someone driven to drop a baby 10 floors, that's nearly 30m or 100 feet. Must have been an insane decision, thankfully that child was caught. My children sleep safe tonight, I cannot imagine having to even contemplate that choice.

Linalmeemow · Jun 15, 2017

sdt7618 said:
Only thing stopping the core of the cladding from being " class o". Pound and pence. Someone here is going to end up in jail, and rightly so. So many life's gone on the profit margin hunt. Sickened to say I work in construction, safety first, safety always! people can never be replaced, families torn apart.

To see someone driven to drop a baby 10 floors, that's nearly 30m or 100 feet. Must have been an insane decision, thankfully that child was caught. My children sleep safe tonight, I cannot imagine having to even contemplate that choice.

I used to work as an H&S and fire safety consultant. As soon as I saw the building yesterday morning it was clear that the regs hadn't been followed, but it'll be interesting to find out exactly where.

Ale · Jun 15, 2017

Linalmeemow said:
I used to work as an H&S and fire safety consultant. As soon as I saw the building yesterday morning it was clear that the regs hadn't been followed, but it'll be interesting to find out exactly where.

I used to work in the energy industry and had many years involved with various aspects of H&S. I was shocked when I heard that part of the refurb was to put gas pipes up the main stairwell which is the main escape route with the lifts out. Although the fire brigade would have turned the gas off as soon as they arrived, there was enough gas to provide for a 24 storey block of flats being pumped into the middle of the building when it started.

There are numerous people who need to be investigated for this. The people who managed the building, the company that did the refurb and fixed the external cladding, the manufacturers of the cladding, the local council who oversee building safety, the fire brigade that signed it off as safe, etc.

Chippy_Tea · Jun 15, 2017

They also said that there were stickers on every floor saying in and emergency stay in your flat and they think a lot of people did that.

A guy explained this on the news this morning, if you imagine a tower block made from shoe boxes each box is designed to be fire resistant for 30 minutes which gives the firemen time to get there set up the dry riser, go to the floor below and run the hose from there to the fire, if you had people evacuating the stairwell would be full of panicking people trying to escape and the firemen wouldn't be able to get to the fire, in this case as we now know something has gone terribly wrong and staying in the room would not have helped.

.

Linalmeemow · Jun 15, 2017

Chippy_Tea said:
A guy explained this on the news this morning, if you imagine a tower block made from shoe boxes each box is designed to be fire resistant for 30 minutes which gives the firemen time to get there set up the dry riser, go to the floor below and run the hose from there to the fire, if you had people evacuating the stairwell would be full of panicking people trying to escape and the firemen wouldn't be able to get to the fire, in this case as we now know something has gone terribly wrong and staying in the room would not have helped.

.

And that's a reasonable strategy if the compartmentation and fire spread issues have been properly dealt with, but in this case the fire spread with such speed and the dry riser failed so it proved disastrous. Also worth a read:

http://www.probyn-miers.com/perspec...rnal-cladding-panels-perspective-from-the-uk/

There have been numerous cases with cladding on high rise buildings here and overseas in the past few years.

shepp · Jun 15, 2017

Apparently if they paid 3 times as much for the cladding material, it would be fire proof and have 10 x more thermal insulation properties.

In this case it was only really clad to improve the look of the area.

Davemc · Jun 15, 2017

shepp said:
Apparently if they paid 3 times as much for the cladding material, it would be fire proof and have 10 x more thermal insulation properties.

In this case it was only really clad to improve the look of the area.

The sad thing is I read that one reason the cladding was added to make the building more visually appealing to wealthier residents of some of the private housing and apartments that can see the block.

I think pointing the finger at the Fire Brigade for signing the building off is out of order. They would have been checking fire fire exits were not blocked, fire doors were fitted, fire exit sinage was there etc. They would not be responsible for checking the standard or quality of materials used in the refurbishment, that is the job of building control.

Chippy_Tea · Jun 15, 2017

I agree about the cladding but would the fire inspection have included testing the fire alarm which from what I have heard was so quiet it may as well have been switched off.

Covrich · Jun 15, 2017

There is quite a lot of block of flats in Coventry, they have put lost of multiple blue cladding on to try and improve the aesthetics

lancon · Jun 15, 2017

did I hear/read that the fire testing is now not necessarily down to the Fire Brigade but to an "registered inspector"

Davemc · Jun 15, 2017

Chippy_Tea said:
I agree about the cladding but would the fire inspection have included testing the fire alarm which from what I have heard was so quiet it may as well have been switched off.

I don't know for certain but I worked in an office block and testing of the smoke detectors was carried out by a private company. Testing of fire alarms was done weekly and by the company but this was a workplace. I don't know the laws on that but would assume its up to the housing association to test the fire alarm. The Fire brigade will carry out inspections annualy or perhaps bi annually, you would think the testing of fire alarms should have been done more frequently.

At the end of the day someone here is culpable, I guess it will take the public enquiry to sort all that out. What should be very apparent already and needs addressing on all other affected tower blocks is that this type of cladding needs removing ASAP.

London tower block inferno

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