fire in London tower block

[Nearholmer]

Another thought about fire alarms in buildings that are intended to be divided into compartments or zones: it is possible to fit an 'intelligent' system that triggers an "in compartment" alarm only, unless fire is detected in N compartments simultaneously, in which case a whole-building evacuation signal is given, or evacuation is triggered floor-by-floor. Detection and alarm protocols can be made quite sophisticated and still remain reliable, and not generate excessive "false positives".

 

K

[Bernard Lamb]

My daughter made an interesting comment this morning.

As it is Ramadan a lot of people were still up having just finished their meal.

On a different date far more people would have been in bed and the death toll would probably have been much higher.

Bernard

[brian777999]

Another thought about fire alarms in buildings that are intended to be divided into compartments or zones: it is possible to fit an 'intelligent' system that triggers an "in compartment" alarm only, unless fire is detected in N compartments simultaneously, in which case a whole-building evacuation signal is given, or evacuation is triggered floor-by-floor. Detection and alarm protocols can be made quite sophisticated and still remain reliable, and not generate excessive "false positives".

 

K

 

I lived in a newly constructed Housing Commission block of units in Australia for thee years. It was wired exactly like this. Despite being a brand new building it was always generating ''false positives'' to the point where everybody just ignored the alarms. I moved out after three years and the problems had still not been fixed.

Edited June 17, 2017 by brian777999

[Fat Controller]

Another thought about fire alarms in buildings that are intended to be divided into compartments or zones: it is possible to fit an 'intelligent' system that triggers an "in compartment" alarm only, unless fire is detected in N compartments simultaneously, in which case a whole-building evacuation signal is given, or evacuation is triggered floor-by-floor. Detection and alarm protocols can be made quite sophisticated and still remain reliable, and not generate excessive "false positives".

 

K

Such systems already exist. 'False positives' can be reduced, if not eliminated entirely, by careful specification of the thresholds for the alarms. 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Fat Controller

[Nearholmer]

They do, which is why I said "it is possible". Hotels, ships, underground railways stations, hospitals etc are some of the applications I'm aware of.

 

Selection of the right detector heads for each area is another thing that helps prevent false positives.

 

K

Edited June 17, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Reorte]

A bit on the BBC:

 

Government statement on cladding

Posted at 12:31

There has been speculation over whether the cladding used to cover Grenfell Tower contributed to the speed at which the fire spread.

BBC Newsnight has reported that the exterior cladding on Grenfell Tower, added in 2015, had a polyethylene - or plastic - core instead of a more fireproof alternative.

Now comes a statement from the Department for Communities and Local Government: "Cladding using a composite aluminium panel with a polyethylene core would be non-compliant with current Building Regulations guidance.

"This material should not be used as cladding on buildings over 18m in height.

"We cannot comment on what type of cladding was used on the building - this will be subject to investigations."

[vitalspark]

The Gas Main was ruptured at some stage.

 

http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/LatestIncidentsContainer_grenfell-tower-fire-update-15-june-2017.asp

 

 

That is possibly very relevant as they state that overnight firefighters worked with gas officials to seal a ruptured gas main.

 

For how long was this main pumping gas into the building?

 

Again I ask why are high rise developments using gas?

 

If its only because of the lower cost unit to the resident then local authorities need to provide subsidies to allow electric heating to be provided to the resident at the same lower unit cost as gas.

 

On sprinklers again I am amazed at the comments that people expected these to have been installed as a matter of course.

 

Has any one who commented actually visited council high rise blocks from the 70s or earlier in the UK?

 

Perhaps England is different but when my involvement in such things ended a few years back I counted zero in the central Scotland area and that amounts to a lot of high rise flats.

 

They simply were never considered and are not something you will find in this type of building.

 

Again on the same subject and the suggestion that water is the wrong medium for an electrical fire yes to a point but in a domestic situation if the individual homes are correctly protected by RCD fuseboxes as they should be I would suggest that as soon as the water

 

is applied the power will isolate if it has not already done so leaving a non electrical fire.

 

The fire itself although caused by perhaps an electrical fault is invariably combustible materials and best extinguished by water.

 

I was involved for a large part of my career in fire investigation for a major electricity supplier and in a very large percentage of cases a simple RCD applied to the circuit would have meant interruption in supply long before things got critical.

 

It would be very interesting to learn if the appliance concerned was connected to such a protected circuit.

 

We need to start with the basics and electrical protection by upgrading fuseboxes in older housing stock is where we should begin.

 

Sad to say this whole sorry episode might have been avoided by something as simple as a correctly operating rcd.

 

I stress correctly operating because these devices need to be properly tested at intervals and not just by pressing the test button but its a quick and simple procedure involving plugging a device into a socket and reading off a value.

 

Again I rarely heard of this being part of any routine health checks for council buildings but it should be as an RCD good as it is is still a mechanical device and they do occasionally fail.

 

Dave. 

Edited June 17, 2017 by vitalspark

[chris p bacon]

The fire itself although caused by perhaps an electrical fault is invariably combustible materials and best extinguished by water.

 

We need to start with the basics and electrical protection by upgrading fuseboxes in older housing stock is where we should begin.

 

Sad to say this whole sorry episode might have been avoided by something as simple as a correctly operating rcd.

 

Dave,  just taking those 3 sentences

 

The building regs were updated some years ago to introduce RCD protection and to limit the scope of works carried out by a non competent person (Part P). Unfortunately you only have to read threads here for example, to understand how many people will ignore advice and certification as they regard it as 'intrusive'.

 

If as has been intimated the fire was a fridge with combustible gases then the RCD probably wouldn't protect as the gases are probably the issue rather than electrical.

 

 

I would make this comment about fire and means of escape from multiple floor buildings. Time and again on RMWeb we have modellers that see the loft and wish to use it for a layout, The standard advice I give is to undertake a proper conversion and have it inspected  and certified. And yet there are quite a few members who post "don't bother it'll be fine' and 'I've never had a problem' and yet the reality is that a properly protected means of escape buys you time. Something these poor residents don't have anymore

[Legend]

How many people in the building? I think there were 127 apartments, say three per residence. How do you organise 450 or so residents, many of whom are elderly, young, infirm, not English speaking, to safely evacuate down a single flight of stairs, perhaps when the fire brigade is trying to go up the same stairs to get to the seat of the fire? Would you want to evacuate them for a relatively small fire, easily contained? The fundamental design of these tower blocks is flawed, if emergency mass exodus is desired, for whatever reason.

I think probably something else to emerge , certainly for any new builds will be you need two stairwells at opposite corners of buildings

[jjb1970]

Another thought about fire alarms in buildings that are intended to be divided into compartments or zones: it is possible to fit an 'intelligent' system that triggers an "in compartment" alarm only, unless fire is detected in N compartments simultaneously, in which case a whole-building evacuation signal is given, or evacuation is triggered floor-by-floor. Detection and alarm protocols can be made quite sophisticated and still remain reliable, and not generate excessive "false positives".

 

K

 

 

A properly set up addressed fire detection and alarm system is a real asset, as you say, with the right selection of detectors and set up they are very effective and you can reduce false alarms to a level which doesn't cause much trouble. Such systems are not a recent idea but the relatively low cost and availability of software controlled systems over the last couple of decades has massively improved the functionality and allowed designers to address some of the problem areas of older technologies. Every ship I sailed on and every power plant I worked in had this type of system and despite some particularly harsh operating environments and having to work in areas with extremely high heat levels, vibration, humidity etc the systems worked and false alarms were really not a big issue. The office buildings I've worked in have had similar systems.

[APOLLO]

As far as gas supplies to high rise / multi occupancy buildings all service mains are fitted with emergency isolation valves which are clearly marked as such. In the North West local fire services were shown the location of such isolation valves on regular site visits, as well as being provided with plans. These valves are generally  located underground adjacent to the pipe entry into the building, (which could be underground to an internal riser or riser pipes fitted externally).

 

As to such pipes and (the recent) application of exterior cladding, I am not conversant with any current gas safety regulations as I retired years ago.

 

I'm not a personal fan of gas in high rise flats, having been called out on more than one occasion to a smell of gas in flat, cause was usually an unlit cooker turned on. Forced entry to the flat, (if warden not present) gas off at the meter and windows open to ventilate solved the problem. I once had a leak on a shaft riser which was immediately isolated and all flats evacuated until the shaft was ventilated and checked free of gas. A pig of a job to repair, eventually the whole block (and several adjacent ones) had all gas pipes completely renewed with exterior riser pipes at immense cost to "British Gas" as it was known back then.

 

Many tower blocks have automatic constant gas monitoring equipment linked to a central warden's office, especially if the rising gas main is in a duct / shaft. 

 

I don't know about the Grenfell Tower, seems to have had a gas riser main fitted during the recent refurb in the stairwell. Any such pipe will be of steel construction. Service off takes to the flats would be steel pipes also.

 

The gas industry always took (and hopefully still does) gas safety as a No.1 priority, Cost never came into it as far as safety was concerned.

 

The weak link though was the customer - like the one mentioned above who left a cooker on / unlit when they left the flat.

 

I hope these comments are useful. Gas is safe, even in tower blocks, but needs treating with respect.

 

Brit15

[Ceptic]

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

 

£370,000,000 set aside for the future refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, the London residence of one family from an past immigrant background.

 

£5,000,000, apparently, now awarded to the surviving members of one time families of the Grenfell Tower catastrophe. 

 

Once again, you know where you can stuff your, so called majesty ?, and her, so called, government ?.  

 

Yes,     deep,    very deep.

[Nearholmer]

Ceptic

 

The spirit of what you say chimes, but what the dickens does being descended from immigrants have to do with the price of fish?

 

And, non-enthusiastic as I am about the concept of royalty, I have to say that HMQ seems to have behaved/acted very appropriately in the past few days, using her position to attempt heal what is an ever more obvious rift.

 

There is an almost breathtaking cartoon in the Times today, showing HMQ thanking a long line of emergency services personnel, then reaching the PM at the end and asking "So, what do you do?".

 

Kevin

Edited June 17, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Ceptic]

Ceptic

 

The spirit of what you say chimes, but what the dickens does being descended from immigrants have to do with the price of fish?

 

Kevin

 Just look at the faces, and the fears of the people involved.

[Nearholmer]

I think I get where you're coming from.

 

Kevin

[PhilJ W]

I think probably something else to emerge , certainly for any new builds will be you need two stairwells at opposite corners of buildings

As I stated above the design of this building precludes that with a central 'core' containing the lifts and stairs. Many blocks of flats were built to the same design notably Ronan Point which amply demonstrated the weakness of that design, the inherent weakness of the corners of the structure. The ideal would be to have the stairs and lifts in a separate tower or towers connected by walkways but this would increase the cost enormously.

[PhilJ W]

On the BBC London news this evening it was reported that people who were told to bring donations to Kensington Town Hall at a specific time arrived to find the place locked and bolted, no wonder that people are angry.

[APOLLO]

Well Her Majesty has shown more human compassion in this incident than our other major "leader".

 

The £370,000,000 set aside for the future refurbishment of Buckingham Palace is money well invested, it will bring far more in tourism over time, and it is also part of our heritage.

 

Edited to add, Just read this on BBC news

 

London fire: 'Outrageous' lack of help for Grenfell tower victims

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40312564

 

Just shows how out of touch authority is these days. Incidents like this are beyond them.  Simply not good enough.

 

Brit15

Edited June 17, 2017 by APOLLO

[Horsetan]

.... There is an almost breathtaking cartoon in the Times today, showing HMQ thanking a long line of emergency services personnel, then reaching the PM at the end and asking "So, what do you do?"

 

Here's a thought: if Jeremy Corbyn had won power, it would be him getting the flak. The fact that he didn't means he can make hay whilst the sun shines (and, believe me, it's shining very hot indeed) without ever having to bear any responsibility for what he says.

 

JC. 'E's not the Messiah.

[Nearholmer]

It would be very interesting to understand which body actually has duties and powers in respect of planning for and coordinating the "post event" response in London. The role of the Borough may in law be quite limited, given the existence of LFEPA (London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority) under the Greater London Authority. There is a tendency to think that the LFEPA has no more duties than to govern the fire brigade, but I'm pretty sure that it does have more.

 

However, the GLA Acts seem to talk about the authority, without actually defining its duties and powers, and lead back into the Local Authority Act 1985, which only talks about Fire and civil defence (hence the old LFCDA title) ........ where do the duties and powers around "emergency planning" derive from ..... or is that just a couple of undefined words?

 

Do we have a local government legal expert here present?

 

Kevin

Edited June 17, 2017 by Nearholmer

[jjb1970]

London is a strange place for risks, I think some would be surprised if they were aware just what they pass by when walking or using the train.

 

I first came to London with one of the big electricity companies, the plant straddled a major railway with a 1000T diesel oil tank immediately adjacent to the running lines, separated only by a brick wall (and I do mean a brick wall, not a reinforced concrete wall. A 50T ammonia tank was on the concrete deck over the railway lines. There were two 5 stage 1.5MW 350Bar gas compressors on the roof, with offices and apartments within a handful of metres of the blast enclosures. And the most interesting thing is virtually nobody knew the plant existed, very few of our neighbours knew what was next door.

 

I always remember the look of horror when a special branch officer came to check out our semtex detonators for the blast suppression systems and asked why there were radiation hazard notices and got told yes, those are our radioactive sources. When we did some quantified risk analysis on the gas compressor packages the answer was that worst case was over 100 general public fatalities.

 

Aside from the main plant we had gas engines and gas boilers in the basements of big office buildings. I was always rather bemused at some of the risk management approaches we encountered in the building services sector.

[Butler Henderson]

 Here's a thought: if Jeremy Corbyn had won power, it would be him getting the flak. The fact that he didn't means he can make hay whilst the sun shines (and, believe me, it's shining very hot indeed) without ever having to bear any responsibility for what he says.

Alternatively what would have happened at the election if this had happened the week before - thought last nights interview with the PM on Newsnight  really shows the PM is unable to think on her feet and just comes out with the lines shes learnt.

 

As for the cladding one thing no one has mentioned is the fixing of it to the building. Regardless of the cladding itself how fire resistant were the fixings (thinking that some glue would have been involved) and did any adhesive actually react with the cladding to change its properties.

[jjb1970]

I'm not a fan of Theresa May (to be quite honest, I cannot stand her) and am not a conservative party supporter (although I'll admit to being economcally conservative) but I think it is understandable for her to be left stumped by a tragedy of this magnitude. She is a human being and as PM she doesn't have the luxury of turning up for a photoshoot, offering a few sound bytes and leaving somebody else to worry about the clean up and making sure it doesn't happen again. Personally I'd be more turned off by the sort of slick media savvy performance of certain former prime ministers.

[Horsetan]

....Personally I'd be more turned off by the sort of slick media savvy performance of certain former prime ministers.

....or would-be prime ministers?

 

And after all this, no matter how angry you feel, or however much you wring your hands, would you still stick your neck out and stand for election in your local constituency if you know that you're only going to be pilloried, whatever you do as a Member of Parliament in the current era? What exactly is government for?

Edited June 17, 2017 by Horsetan

[raymw]

 

As for the cladding one thing no one has mentioned is the fixing of it to the building.

Maybe not mentioned on here, but plenty elsewhere - on everything. I saw the manufacturer's name and type number, but just as easily it could be 'fake news'. Easy enough to determine at least, the bottom few panels of cladding, and their fixings, but however it has been fixed that does not mean it was the same for the rest of the building. I'm guessing that nobody deliberately flaunted the current regulations when the work was done, but there is obviously ignorance of the effect of 'normal tolerances' within the alterations which have taken place. I'm not sure if the sub contractor's - sub contractor's minimum wage fixer would understand or had had explained to them the technical requirements.

 

On our local tv, I think it was in flats in Bristol, a young father pointed out, among other aspects, a fire door in a corridor with no glass, been like it some time, even though reported, and exits via windows with metal grids chained shut and other stuff. Ok, don't chain the windows, allow in burglars more easily. I guess this is pretty commonplace all over. So far, so good, until now.

Edited June 17, 2017 by raymw