Cable Forum - Huge fire at West London tower block

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Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth (Post 35903578)

Because some people don't seem to be able to coexist with anyone who isn't blue to their core. They need to get out more.

Cheers

Dave

You don't need to be blue to the core to be able to recognise leftist garbage, the majority of voters in this country managed to do that just fine.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 35903594)

You don't have to be a fire safety expert to see that the outside of the building was on fire, and ferociously so. There is no way a fire in a fourth floor kitchen should spread to the top of the building under any circumstances whatsoever. There simply shouldn't be enough flammable material in the basic fabric of the building to allow it. Yet someone thought it was a great idea to put flammable material all the way up the outside of the building, pretty much ensuring that any fire serious enough to blow out any one window could then spread right across the whole structure. This is an utter, utter national scandal of the highest order, and would have been so even if nobody had died.

:tu:

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 35903594)

I was listening to an expert on this sort of thing and he was saying how critical a number of other factors are in order to make this cladding system safe - both in terms of other materials used in conjunction with the cladding and the correct installation of measures to prevent the spread of fire via the stack effect for example. It seems to me that any one of them not implemented correctly could have compromised the entire installation. What'll be critical is identifying whether this is a localised issue due to, say, incorrect installation or a fundamental misunderstanding of the fire risks associated with this cladding. We saw with 9/11 that (if you don't happen to believe they were blown up by the CIA or whatever) buildings which were designed to be able to cope with virtually anything collapsed in the extreme conditions resulting from the impact and ignition of aviation fuel from 2 jet liners. IIRC all the design testing done confirmed they shouldn't have collapsed but they did nonetheless and I'm still not sure they've found out what went wrong with 100% certainty and whether anything has been done to prevent the same thing happening again in any of America's other huge buildings.

Another big problem I can see here is the information being given to residents. They were told to stay put and in this case, with hindsight, that may not have been the best option. Had they all decided to evacuate ASAP the death toll may have been reduced but on the other hand in the panic and smoke things could have turned out far worse. Right now anyone living in one of these blocks is going to be wanting clarity on what to do in the event of fire and how likely are they to want to follow the current advice? God forbid we have another entirely preventable tragedy caused as a result of the uncertainties resulting from this one.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

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Originally Posted by Osem (Post 35903600)

In normal circumstances the advice to stay put in your flat is sound. The cellular structure of multi storey is sound and no fire should spread to an adjacent flat.

Those who don't feel safe staying put should be able to leave via the fire escape/stairwells as these again being sealed off by fire doors should be free of smoke and should fire arrive at them the intumescent strips in the door frame should hold fire back for 30mins minimum.

I know jumping to conclusions should be avoided but it does appear blindingly obvious that the combustability of the cladding has led to this unfortunate disaster. The cladding appears to have circumvented every inbuilt safety measure and allowed the fire to spread everywhere above the source with such rapidity.

I would much rather the money that is going to be spent on a public enquirey (which will be millions governments don't mind spending) be spent be spent on improving safety, making sure any cladding materials are non-conbustable and installing sprinlker systems at least in the communal areas and exit stairwells. I'm sure residents won't mind having a free shower in the event they need egress from the building in the event of fire.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

It's a really difficult situation clearly. I'm pretty sure I heard a former fire brigade safety officer saying that the main problem in the communal areas isn't so much the fire as toxic smoke and sprinkler systems won't help with that. The link below would seem to confirm the problem. In this case toxic smoke/fumes and fire was entering the flats via the exterior of the building so again sprinklers wouldn't have been totally effective. How feasible would it be to retrofit sprinklers inside all the blocks I wonder? It does seem like a sprinkler system inside the flat in which the fire started could well have prevented this tragedy but even so there'd still be the potential for external fire sources to set the cladding ablaze. :shrug:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40297466

The guy in question here seems to be pretty fit looking and he made it from the 14th floor to the 4th before collapsing. Luckily a firefighter got him out but older, more vulnerable people would never have made it.

Respect to anyone who's prepared to go into that sort of environment, however well trained they are!!

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pierre (Post 35903407)

This man is a disgrace

http://www.lbc.co.uk/news/london/wes...local-funding/

Trying to make a political point when the dead haven't even been counted.

There has been no investigation yet, nobody knows why it started, why it spread the way it did.

The cost of refurbing that building was £8.7 million.

He's vile.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gavin78 (Post 35903424)

I think the Looney left supporters need to give it a rest with every little thing they can find to out the Tories.

The building had 8.7m spent on it so what the need to do is look at the company doing it and add up the costs as to where the 8.7m actually went and look to the company contracted to do the buildings.

Unlike Labour who seems to think money is endless you can't just keep giving money away which is more realistic I would have considered the money to do the flat up was a huge amount. So Lessons do need to be learned from this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul M (Post 35903422)

Not one that needs making while they are still counting the dead.

Trying to score points off this is exactly why this man should never be in charge.

Did any of you listen to the recording? The reason I ask is that he was responding to a question about the recommendations of the report into the fire at Lakanal House in 2009, and why the government has not implemented the recommendations (note: The interviewer said they had not, Jeremy made it clear he did not know if they had). Jeremy suggested that one possible reason is the local authority cuts.

That is not what the headline says, but that is what the recording says. I am no fan of Jeremy Corbyn (look at my previous posts on here and facebook for evidence of this).

In this instance, I don't believe he was using the fire for political capital. He was answering a question asked by the interviewer.

I agree that implementing the recommendations would cost money, and that money is not infinite. Those are facts of life. I also agree that Labour have been a bit too ready in the past to borrow money (however they dress it up).

However, the interviewer bought up the report into the Lakanal fire, and said that one of the main recommendations had not been implemented. Jeremy did say he didn't know if this was the case. However, another fact of life is that the Government HAS cut a lot of funds from local authorities. This MAY be one reason that the recommendations were not implemented (assuming they were not).

On a related note, I find it odd that the government is asking local authorities to make cuts because they cannot afford to finance them, yet they can find billions of pounds to finance their own needs, and seem able to ignore the billions in taxes that large companies escape by channeling their income out of the country. That's not something I've started feeling recently, that's something I've felt for a long time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomadking (Post 35903429)

There are different practicalities between a building with a handful of flats and 120.That will be the reason for the advice for them to stay put. Each flat is meant to be fire-resistant in it's own right. That should limit the rate of spread of any fire to other flats. It would seem the rate of spreading of the fire was the problem. If you were to assume a rate as short as 30 minutes to reach an adjoining flat, then only a few flats should be affected before the fire brigade got there.It should have taken several hours to reach the top floor.

The problem is that most people think that the way to deal with fire is to buy something to help prevent it, and if a fire happens, get out and let the fire brigade deal with it.

That is good advice, as far as it goes, and what we, as people, should generally do.

When designing, building and refitting buildings, dealing with fire is nowhere near as simple as that. There is a lot of science and modelling that goes into the prevention. I've seen this first hand, as one of the groups I do technical support for is a research group dedicated to fire safety and evacuation, and they frequently get called in to advise on designing and refitting buildings.

With regard to evacuation, they apparently do two things. One is advising on design of escape systems/routes to enable the most people to escape. These routes would contain systems or features designed to keep the route protected in the event of fire.

The other is to advise on the implementation of "refuge areas". These are areas within building that include features designed to protect the occupants for as long as possible, so that hopefully the fire brigade can get to them.

Most reasonably large buildings use both now, with the refuge areas used to protect those who cannot make the fire escapes (such as wheelchair users). The average refuge area will have enhanced fire protection, should be kept clear of any obstructions and will have fire doors offering enhanced protection. In this case, as the residents were apparently advised to stay indoors, I would expect that the exterior walls, doors and windows to each flat would all have good fire protection. I would also expect good fire doors in the corridors leading to the flats.

The problem is, you can have the best fire protection in the world, but all it will do is give the occupants a few extra minutes. It sounds like, in this case, the fire spread too quickly (possibly due to the exterior cladding), and it would probably have overwhelmed whatever systems were in place in the building, even assuming the refit did not compromise them.

I can see the point about criticising Theresa May's assertions that we need to learn lessons. While I actually agree that we do need to, they do say this at every major disaster, and yet it frequently seems lessons are not learned. This fire should not have been so bad. It's impact should have been limited by the systems put in place after the recommendations of the previous report. It's incidents like this that make it feel like stating we need to learn lessons are just template responses from some politician's guide on how to deal with major incidents.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

30 people confirmed dead now with it set to rise in the coming days.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...latest-updates

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuart (Post 35903608)

I can see the point about criticising Theresa May's assertions that we need to learn lessons. While I actually agree that we do need to, they do say this at every major disaster, and yet it frequently seems lessons are not learned. This fire should not have been so bad. It's impact should have been limited by the systems put in place after the recommendations of the previous report. It's incidents like this that make it feel like stating we need to learn lessons are just template responses from some politician's guide on how to deal with major incidents.

The 'learning of lessons' comes at a price and clearly every government in our history has had to make decisions which are based on cost not what they'd like to be able to do if they could and had a never ending supply of money and resources. Frequently lives are lost because of that.

Armies are sent to war without the best possible equipment, hospitals are run without being able to offer every possible drug or treatment etc. It may well be possible to solve some of the problems with these blocks as a result of lessons learned from this disaster but it will never be possible to eradicate every potential for catastrophe in our towns and cities no matter how many lessons are learned. That's the problem all governments face - how best to spend the limited resources they have.

---------- Post added at 12:59 ---------- Previous post was at 12:37 ----------

As regards all those 'empty' properties Corbyn suddenly wants to seize control of:

Quote:

Corbyn and Labour are peddling the idea that there are vast numbers of empty foreign-owned properties across London. Awkward truth bullet: the experts say this trope is a myth. The overwhelming majority of overseas-owned property is rented on the UK market or occupied by the owner’s family members. As for new builds, an LSE report commissioned by London mayor Sadiq Khan last year found less than 1% are so-called ‘buy to leave’ investments. There is “almost no evidence” that luxury properties in ‘gentrified’ areas are bought up and kept empty.

https://order-order.com/2017/06/16/s...aim-is-a-myth/

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by Osem (Post 35903607)

It is the heat which makes smoke rise. If a sprinkler system is active it cools the smoke and it drops down to floor level. Science 101.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by pip08456 (Post 35903617)

It is the heat which makes smoke rise. If a sprinkler system is active it cools the smoke and it drops down to floor level. Science 101.

The smoke and heat were outside, and any sprinklers are where exactly?

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

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Originally Posted by nomadking (Post 35903618)

The smoke and heat were outside, and any sprinklers are where exactly?

Had they been fitted they would have been in the communal area outside the flat front door giving a safe area within the core of the building to escape.

I'm glad you are sensible to think that everything was outside and consdider no people were affected by smoke and heat on the inside. Perhaps with your opinions you should be recuited for the public enquiry so that we can have another whitewash of the facts.

I wonder how everything above the 4th floor is incinerated when everything happened outside?

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Company confirms cladding for Grenfell Tower was cheaper, a more flammable option.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...mnis-exteriors

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

The spreading of the fire was the problem. That occurred outside and in less than 30mins the building was engulfed.

Quote:

The fire safety advice for Grenfell Tower residents was to "stay put" - unless the fire was affecting their own flat.
David Sibert, Fire Brigade Union fire safety expert, said: "The principle that tower blocks are built on is that every flat is a fire-resisting box - every flat is completely surrounded by fire-resisting construction from the rest of the building.
"So you should be able to set fire to your own flat and leave it to completely burn out and it won't affect anybody else in the building."

---------- Post added at 13:51 ---------- Previous post was at 13:43 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by denphone (Post 35903623)

Company confirms cladding for Grenfell Tower was cheaper, more flammable option.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...mnis-exteriors

But who specified it?

Quote:

“We supplied components for a system created by the design and build team on that project,” said Cowley.

Quote:

German construction companies have been banned from using plastic-filled cladding, such as Reynobond PE, on towers more than 22 metres high since the 1980s when regulations were brought in to improve fire safety at residential blocks.

Why should buildings only 22m high magically not be a problem. The fire spread not only upwards, but sideways across a floor.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block

Quote:

Originally Posted by denphone (Post 35903623)

Company confirms cladding for Grenfell Tower was cheaper, a more flammable option.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...mnis-exteriors

It seems to me that you should rarely go for the 'more flammable' option. :erm: