fire in London tower block

[The Stationmaster]

I'd agree with everything which has been said but feel compelled to add that after watching news reports tonight and listening to the radio reports through the day, I find it disturbing that some left homeless are still awaiting return contact from the Borough housing department or Social Services regarding emergency accommodation and the relief operation appears to be largely in the hands of some extremely enthusiastic, dedicated and thankfully well drilled volunteers (and maybe the better for it). One lady had been forced to arrange temporary accommodation for her children with friends and relations, three of them in separate locations and she was resigned to spending a second night separated from them in the leisure centre. The story may not be entirely representative of the situation on the ground but that there's one soul in this situation is heartbreaking.

 

The speed with which the fire took hold and the devastation it caused in such a short time is almost unbelievable, seasoned fireman have been left in disbelief at what happened, but the fact it happened in the UK's richest borough, and the suggestion that the causes and lack of preventative measures may have been down to penny pinching, is beyond any words.

 

There would seem to be, as might not be unexpected, several 'stories' abroad on this sort of thing.  No doubt the council is inundated but they have said they have three centres in operation offering assistance and dealing with rehousing and so on - and people are not always going to them (quite how people are supposed to find out they exist and where they are is of course another matter),

[phil-b259]

We don't know the cause? I was under the impression that a distraught male survivor living on the fourth floor stated that his fridge had exploded, causing a fire in his flat. Did the media make that up?

 

This has not been confirmed by the official bodies involved - so while quite possible it cannot be taken as definite (unlike the things mentioned in post 31).

 

However a faulty tumble dryer (that the manufacturer hadn't got round to fixing despite them being a well known fire risk) is believed to be the cause of a previous high rise fire so a defective fridge is not impossible as the cause in this case.

[sulzer27jd]

This has not been confirmed by the official bodies involved - so while quite possible it cannot be taken as definite (unlike the things mentioned in post 31).

 

However a faulty tumble dryer (that the manufacturer hadn't got round to fixing despite them being a well known fire risk) is believed to be the cause of a previous high rise fire so a defective fridge is not impossible as the cause in this case.

 

The actual source of the fire, is in this case, all but irrelevant. No matter what cause, or where it started, it should have remained a domestic incident within a compartmentalised structure. The fire services deal with this on a daily basis.

 

What needs to be the focus of attention is why, given a simple external breach, the whole tower block became involved.

 

I think it is safe to assume that those advocating letting the experts investigate and write a report have to neither live in a multi-storey block nor respond to fire incidents in such premises. We have seen, following such events as a helicopter crash, whole fleets being grounded. I would expect (and it may be happening) that building inspectors are out and about, checking blocks across the UK and where there is any doubt, start the process of getting similar cladding stripped off.

[OnTheBranchline]

The point was made on last night's Newsnight, by a legal professional who represented the victims of a similar occurrence, that a Public Enquiry is a lot more restrictive than an Inquest, because it is under government control and does not permit questions and cross-examinations from affected members of the public. It can therefore give the impression of a mechanism to limit criticism of the powers that be.

 

The Nim.

I hate to be a cynic but I suspect the only sort of punishment that will happen is a fine.

 

Also, how do we know the property owners are starting a cover up right now?

Edited June 16, 2017 by OnTheBranchline

[Legend]

We do not know the proximate cause of the fire.

 

We do not know what caused the rapid spread of the fire.

 

We do not know if sprinklers would have avoided some or all of the fatalities.

 

We do not know if the cladding used made the fire worse or was responsible for the rapid spread of the fire.

 

At the moment speculation on all of the above is just that, speculation. Professional investigators who know what they are doing will investigate and produce a report,  they will have the professional expertise, judgement and hopefully resources to investigate properly and arrive at a more informed, robust conclusion than the media commentariat and/or politicians.

I Agree there is a lot of speculation. However it is also clear that there is a lot of concern and rising discontent . We can't wait for a public enquiry to make it's recommendations. Something does need to be done as soon as possible . I bet the fire brigade already has a view on what caused the fire to spread so rapidly. And the key thing is to give advice to other tower residents what to do now . If the fire integrity is not compromised it may be that the best advice is to stay put in your flat and await rescue, but if the integrity has been compromised then that could be the completely wrong advice. If you are tucking your kids up in bed tonight in a high rise you really need to know this . We cannot wait months or even years to get this sorted. Someone's going to have to act pretty fast to turn this speculation into some hard facts.

[Horsetan]

.....We can't wait for a public enquiry to make it's recommendations. Something does need to be done as soon as possible ......

I'd only hope that this in itself doesn't lead to further flaws and omissions in the rush to (be seen to) get something done.

[APOLLO]

Just read HM The Queen along with Prince William have visited the Westway Sports Centre, a releif centre helping victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40298473

 

Once again, well done Your Majesty.

 

Brit15

[lapford34102]

Another "Aberfan" moment, I for one hope so as I doubt anyone would like to see a repeat of this tragedy.

Personally I'm not bothered by all the speculation on here as I think we're all smart enough to know that's precisely what it is and can draw our own conclusions. Some interesting info has emerged and I now know a little more about my MP.

There is though a grey area between the politicisation of this and asking questions of the appropriate people.

I agree with Nimbus that an Inquest is probably a better way the a Public Enquiry. There's also a lot of background to this that I'm sure some would wish that it stays there.

I hope all those who may have needlessly died and all those affected get some measure of justice, whatever that may be.

 

Stu

 

Edited to make a bit more sense....

Edited June 16, 2017 by lapford34102

[Mark Saunders]

My thoughts:-

 

Coroners inquests make recommendations and recommendations do not stick!

 

Public Inquiries take time and by the time they have concluded the events have been forgotten by the majority of the population!

 

Mark Saunders

[kevinlms]

The actual source of the fire, is in this case, all but irrelevant. No matter what cause, or where it started, it should have remained a domestic incident within a compartmentalised structure. The fire services deal with this on a daily basis.

 

What needs to be the focus of attention is why, given a simple external breach, the whole tower block became involved.

 

I think it is safe to assume that those advocating letting the experts investigate and write a report have to neither live in a multi-storey block nor respond to fire incidents in such premises. We have seen, following such events as a helicopter crash, whole fleets being grounded. I would expect (and it may be happening) that building inspectors are out and about, checking blocks across the UK and where there is any doubt, start the process of getting similar cladding stripped off.

Agreed, whatever CAUSED the fire shouldn't mean that the whole building ends up gutted (unless some significant outside event, such as 9/11 - but no mention of such a cause). Something seriously went wrong, with flames apparently, sweeping up the OUTSIDE of the building.

 

It doesn't need a technical expert, to realise that the building should not have burnt like that. The fire chief has stated publicly, that she has never seen anything like it. Important words, from someone who presumably knows what she's talking about. Unlike a politician, council representative or whoever (including most of us on RMweb!).

 

No idea, if the building is structurally safe or not (probably not), but it will have to be demolished anyway, as no one would want to live in it again.

[Nearholmer]

Pete

 

You said: "A lot of what I'm seeing in the media seems to be less about fire safety, and more about one political party trying to make capital out of the disaster by attacking the current Government for the sum of all the failings of every previous Government around fire safety and social housing."

 

I too caught a strong whiff of politics yesterday, but I think that we have to accept that politics (a.k.a. democracy) is a roughly-toughty, untidy, imperfect-but-better-than-all-the-alternatives, process by which we get to the point where "the system" serves "the people". Ditto journalism, which, as usual, is currently running the gamut, from irresponsible speculation to highly valuable holding-to-account.

 

It might be difficult to stomach, but there may well be cans of worms in this, around whether people who live in social housing are being afforded an acceptable standard of care by their landlords, or the legislators, and if not, what might be driving their landlords' actions, or the legislators' inactions. That sounds like public policy stuff, which in turn sounds like the stuff that gets thrashed-out through the messy process of politics.

 

JJB

 

I very much agree with you that relevant experts must be permitted to get on with the job of fully understanding the detailed "what and how" of the fire, and that it is counter-productive to go too far into speculation in advance of their findings, but there does seem to be strong evidence suggesting that the fire spread over the outside of the building, fuelled-by, or aided by the form of construction of, the cladding. That being so, there must be a case for "precautionary action", even in advance of full findings, to protect others who live in blocks with similar cladding.

 

The Government seems to accept that, and seems to be attempting to identify all the buildings concerned, and work out what the precautionary action should consist of. Listen to the Today programme this morning, from about 0815 to hear their spokesperson say so, and then gets belted very hard by the interviewer about whether or not they are doing so as quickly as is humanly possible.

 

Kevin

[Glorious NSE]

If you're talking about council housing, it's impossible to do so without involving politics...
 

I think it is safe to assume that those advocating letting the experts investigate and write a report have to neither live in a multi-storey block nor respond to fire incidents in such premises. We have seen, following such events as a helicopter crash, whole fleets being grounded. I would expect (and it may be happening) that building inspectors are out and about, checking blocks across the UK and where there is any doubt, start the process of getting similar cladding stripped off.

I can understand the anger - but we do need *facts* - and those building inspectors will need *facts* in order to do their job. Yes, those *facts* need to be out there for authorities to start acting against ASAP - certainly within weeks not the years a public inquiry will take, but we need to ensure they are *facts* nonetheless.

Just as a for example - I think it's entirely right that folk are questioning the performance of the cladding, but there is still much that is unknown. We know what was specced as part of the refurb as that has been reported - but we don't have any way of knowing whether what was installed was the same as the spec or whether it was installed in the way the manufacturers intended for example....

The real equivalent to precautionary grounding a fleet of helicopters (IE you do not use them at all) would be precautionally declaring all towers unsafe until we know what happened, unfortunately that would leave more than a million homeless in London alone - pretty problematical - even to the extent of it being likely to kill far more folk than this disaster has...

[pete_mcfarlane]

I too caught a strong whiff of politics yesterday, but I think that we have to accept that politics (a.k.a. democracy) is a roughly-toughty, untidy, imperfect-but-better-than-all-the-alternatives, process by which we get to the point where "the system" serves "the people". Ditto journalism, which, as usual, is currently running the gamut, from irresponsible speculation to highly valuable holding-to-account.

My concern is that a lot of the 'politics' coming out of this disaster is basically angry soundbite generation rather actually than holding the Government to account over provable failings in a meaningful way.  

 

The real equivalent to precautionary grounding a fleet of helicopters (IE you do not use them at all) would be precautionally declaring all towers unsafe until we know what happened, unfortunately that would leave more than a million homeless in London alone - pretty problematical - even to the extent of it being likely to kill far more folk than this disaster has...

The Fukushima evacuation being a good case in point - the death rate amongst evacuated people is higher than it would have been if they'd been left in place. (Hindsight being a wonderful thing of course)

[stewartingram]

 

The Times reported on yesterday's front page that said individual had allegedly taken time to pack some of his belongings before reporting the fire to a neighbour, rather than directly to the Fire Brigade. Was that an invention too?

 

 

Yes, although that would give us the much-reduced report:

 

"Tower block catches fire. Many dead." 

 

That would be about all they could report without risking speculation.

 

As I said before - known facts NOT speculation. End of.

[The Stationmaster]

 

Its not all speculation. As has been frequently mentioned since the disaster occurred, it is a FACT that there have been plenty of severe fires in tower blocks fitted with sprinklers but no deaths - and its foolish to claim there is not some sort of relationship between the two. Similarly it is a FACT that there have also been several significant tower block fires where external cladding has been identified as a factor in the rapid spread of a fire.

 

Agreed, until the investigators have done their work we will not be able to comment on the exact relationship between these factors with regard to this particular tower block, but I don't think it is too far fetched to say that, based on the wealth of evidence from elsewhere, if the block had been fitted with sprinklers and had not been clad, then the death toll would have been less.

 

 

 

Interestingly a woman living in a tower block in East London was interviewed on the radio today - she is a member of the residents' committee - and she referred to a severe fire which had totally gutted a flat in the block where she lives (which does not have sprinklers).  The 'plan worked' in that the fire was contained within the flat where it started - first principle of fire safety in such a building was observed and worked; that principle is critical whatever sort of fire suppression or mitigation system the building has.  It would appear that the principle perhaps didn't work in Grenfell Tower - that is up to fire analysis experts to assess as part of examining how the fire started and spread.   Incidentally her local council have told residents that their block has the more fire resistant sort of insulation.

 

Secondly beyond the fact that a fire started and then spread on the outside of the building at an incredible rate we none of us (including the media and the politicos) know what happened after the initial fire and what the mechanism of spread was or how it spread within the building - that will be for experts to determine and they are no doubt already on the task if the building is safe enough for them to carry out their work.

 

Thirdly the exact effect of sprinklers needs to be considered.  Their particular benefits are damping surfaces and materials thereby raising their potential ignition point and in suppressing smoke however they will not necessarily extinguish a fierce fire once it has got hold.  Again it depends on the mechanism by which any particular fir propagates and spreads and so we don't know if they would have helped to control this fire (although by suppressing smoke within the building they might have helped save lives).

 

But equally a critical - to my mind - area which needs to be examined (and I hope will be) is the efficacy of what is far behind containment in the matter of dealing with a fire and that is evacuation.  The adequacy of staircases and their capacity to clear people clearly must be examined particularly where there is a potential clash of priorities between containment/fire brigade access and evacuation.  Again in some respects it comes back to that first principle - containment and access to a fire.

 

There are no doubt various other questions which appropriate experts will be asking and investigating but an interesting aside - a pal of mine whose safety business includes fire safety and inspection had lots of customer calls on the morning following the fire - one of them asked what he should be doing and in response was asked if he had carried out all the actions identified in the most recent inspection report - I leave the answer to your thoughts but it included 'Oh!' 

[Dunsignalling]

Agreed, whatever CAUSED the fire shouldn't mean that the whole building ends up gutted (unless some significant outside event, such as 9/11 - but no mention of such a cause). Something seriously went wrong, with flames apparently, sweeping up the OUTSIDE of the building.

 

It doesn't need a technical expert, to realise that the building should not have burnt like that. The fire chief has stated publicly, that she has never seen anything like it. Important words, from someone who presumably knows what she's talking about. Unlike a politician, council representative or whoever (including most of us on RMweb!).

 

No idea, if the building is structurally safe or not (probably not), but it will have to be demolished anyway, as no one would want to live in it again.

The exterior of the building (under the cladding) is concrete which is very difficult to set light to.

 

The fire can be seen in the news footage to be fairly whizzing up the outside. Bottom to top in little over half an hour according to eye witnesses.

 

If it wasn't concrete burning on the outer surfaces, it could only be the added insulation and/or the cladding.

 

Interestingly, on one side, the cladding on the lower half (approximately) of the block appears to be more-or-less unscathed.

 

That makes me wonder if all the cladding applied to this building was the same stuff. If not, why not?

 

John

Edited June 16, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[peach james]

OK, so I claim absolutely NO experience with high rises.  Tallest building I regularly dealt with was 7 stories.  (well, it was a ship...).  However, I do have all my 1001 firefighter training done, so I think I have some understanding of expected fire behaviours- and what we saw was NOT one of them.  The expectation over here is that a Type 1 (non combustive, or generally any building over 75 ft height) would not experience fire growth driven by building material like what the photographs/videos show happened to Grenfell Tower.  What that says to me, is that the external cleading system chosen during refit was probably NOT applied as a Type 1 material.   If there were vertical chimneys running between the original (presumably concrete) building surface and the new Aluminum/Plastic honeycomb, they would aid in the speed of fire growth.  Even if wood (25x50mm) battens were used to attach the ACM to the building, if they extend across at regular (3-4') spacings without substantial gaps, then that would prevent chimney effects.  What I suspect is going to be the end result is that the battens were cut to be less than the width of the panels, they were then attached to the existing concrete, and chimneys were created running up inside the ACM.  When the fire exited the unit, that would then cause heat to rise up said gaps, melting out the plastic insulation from the  ACM, with said fuel being exceptionally susceptable to combustion. If the ACM has fire on one side, it may meet type 1 fire retardant rates- in that it is quite possibly self extinguishing.  Heat it from both sides, and it fails, because it is outside of design, and no longer a Type 1 material.  

 

The problem of plastic foam materials burning is NOT a new one, the book "The Deep Dark" goes into it in some depth.  ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Mine_(Idaho)).  From memory, the flame speeds in supposedly "non flammable" foams were up to several hundred feet per second.  Unfortunately, I suspect the death toll will exceed that of Sunshine. 

 

Again, I am just a firefighter, not a fire officer.  North American designs are different than UK.  The general policy remains stay in place, based on compartmentalization of the fire.  If the fire is intense enough to breach said containment quickly, it is acting outside of expected fire behaviour.  Fire being a physical thing, it will follow physics and not how we tell it to behave.  (reference Trench Fires, from Kings Cross, when the fire acted completely differently than expectations).  I don't feel it is premature to start looking at similar ACM faced buildings, based on their poor performance (see Dubai "Torch", and the Australian example).  The basic failing here was taking an apparently compliant Type 1 structure, and making it non compliant, that then has suffered from a catastrophic fire.  I would be very interested to see what other buildings done by the same company/same material look like under the cleading...and I suspect that little bit of digging is ongoing right now...

 

James

[jjb1970]

I think we all agree that something has gone catastrophically wrong, indeed it would be absurd to attempt to deny that reality. There were very obviously some colossal failures on multiple levels for such a conflagration to take hold. I agree with those who are questioning why the passive containment measures did not contain the fire long enough to allow an evacuation. There are some obvious questions about the fire procedures in use, building inspection and risk assessment, the building design (only one stairwell?) and lot’s more. Nobody disputes that the sprinkler question is pertinent or that the cladding question needs to be considered by the investigators. For all that, what we have are questions we need to see answers, any attempts to provide answers at this point are just speculative. Because sprinklers have saved lives and undoubtedly improve safety of buildings does not mean that the absence of sprinklers was the principal cause of the hideous loss of life in this case. Sprinklers are just one aspect of fire safety, an important one but passive measures (fire walls, fire rating of materials, evacuation arrangements) are just as important and it should not be assumed that the absence of sprinklers was the overriding factor in the rapid spread of this fire and in the heavy loss of life. Hence I stand by my opinion that we should grieve for those lost and those who lost loved ones and allow the investigators to do their job without media commentators and politicians speculating and apportioning blame before we even know what happened and why it happened.

[Nearholmer]

As long as it is understood that I raise a possibility, rather than speculate:

 

One way of "breaching the containment" of a building is to open a window, which is pretty normal thing to do on a warm night.

 

Not a problem if the exterior above the window doesn't support combustion, but becomes one if it does.

[sulzer27jd]

If you're talking about council housing, it's impossible to do so without involving politics...

 

I can understand the anger - but we do need *facts* - and those building inspectors will need *facts* in order to do their job. Yes, those *facts* need to be out there for authorities to start acting against ASAP - certainly within weeks not the years a public inquiry will take, but we need to ensure they are *facts* nonetheless.

 

Just as a for example - I think it's entirely right that folk are questioning the performance of the cladding, but there is still much that is unknown. We know what was specced as part of the refurb as that has been reported - but we don't have any way of knowing whether what was installed was the same as the spec or whether it was installed in the way the manufacturers intended for example....

 

The real equivalent to precautionary grounding a fleet of helicopters (IE you do not use them at all) would be precautionally declaring all towers unsafe until we know what happened, unfortunately that would leave more than a million homeless in London alone - pretty problematical - even to the extent of it being likely to kill far more folk than this disaster has...

 

I am not suggesting not using what is, after all, people's houses. I am merely making the point that whilst some are advocating waiting for reports to be written, that is not an option if you want to sleep comfortably in your own home. 

[sulzer27jd]

 

One way of "breaching the containment" of a building is to open a window, which is pretty normal thing to do on a warm night.

 

Not a problem if the exterior above the window doesn't support combustion, but becomes one if it does.

 

That is correct. It is not unknown for fire to vent out of a window and jump floors, often missing the floor directly above but affecting the next one up. Fire loading, open/closed internal doors and double glazing can all be factors in fire growth but must be considered as routine (if fire can ever be described as such) for firefighters. What would not be expected, or planned for is that any flame coming out of a window setting light to the entire external surfacing of the block.

[gwrrob]

Without getting political here and watching the rolling news coverage of this disaster I can't help feeling we're living in a third world country sometimes.Bewildering times.

[Oldddudders]

Protesters, angry about the way things for survivors and the bereaved are being handled, have gone to Kensington Town Hall to demand answers. Friday afternoon, sadly, is not a great time to expect much action in any office building.

[Horsetan]

As I said before - known facts NOT speculation. End of.

Well, here's something that may well be a fact:

 

[The Bigbee Line]

I do not wish to join the current debate but to make the following comments:

 

1) Fire when out of control is a dreadful thing. It can spread at speed beyond comprehension.

 

2) With all the current regulations etc there is one insidious enemy - Risk Assessment... In 2002 I qualified in 'Quantified Risk Assessment', in basic terms you look at the risk (cost) of a process killing someone, then put mitigation in place to prevent that loss. The calculations to calculate that risk can be frigged to get the result you want... In one exercise during the course, that was brimming with acronyms, the instructor asked how I got a particular result. I replied an application of MTF. MTF he asked, what's that? Massaging The Figures was my reply. Long face and mumbles from the instructor. Risk assessments are OK, but there needs to be some kind of checking / audit process.

 

In my view the risk assessment would suggest that sprinkler systems were made mandatory. The only issues being timescales to fit and maybe some government financial assistance in fitting.

 

That's my two cents, lets see what the enquiry reveals..

 

Oh one last point. A big hats off to the emergency services, their professionalism was first rate. I such circumstances it is so easy to get carried away and become yet another casualty, very well done boys and girls.