Huge fire London building

[yorkie1999]

Terrible. Who's the cvnt who decided to put plastic cladding on the outside of the building.

[Lionator]

16 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Terrible. Who's the cvnt who decided to put plastic cladding on the outside of the building.

They're all like that these days. It's cheap and easy and makes it not look like a brutalist horror show.

[MadKaw]

Without doubt its the composite cladding on the outside of the building that caused the spread. We have had a couple of similar, but not as bad, incidents in Aus caused by cheap imported composite panels.

I work in the facade industry and there has been major changes to building codes in the last year to try to remove the risky products from the market. The majority of multi story aluminium cladded buildings use this type of composite panel, which is a make up of .5mm or .8mm thick aluminium sheets with a plastic resin (polyethelene) or mineral based fibres between them making up the 4mm thickness. The product has been used, without issue, for a very long time but the cheaper less regulated products have been getting into the market and this is the consequence. After 20 + years of using these composite products we have had to use solid aluminium sheet in the last few projects we have done as no one wants to take the risk with it.

Edited 14 June 2017 by MadKaw

[StanSP]

1 hour ago, MrSpaM said:

Baffling as to why a building like this wouldn't have a monitored fire alarm, they would have had fire engines there within ten minutes of it starting if they had

agreed. Someone living inside the block said that they could hear a fire alarm but it was very faint.

 

33 minutes ago, Melbourne Fuchs said:

How many people would live in a building like this? I hope it's not as bad as it looks. 

There's between 120-130 flats in the block so I presume upwards of 400-450. Given there will be families of 3-4+ living in each flat presumably. 

 

15 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Terrible. Who's the cvnt who decided to put plastic cladding on the outside of the building.

Someone at the council/HA who decided to go with the cheapest quote during a tendering process (if followed). Without realising the consequences of it all if the cladding was so susceptible to fire. Given the way the fire spread so quickly outside the building, this had to be one of the causes and catalysts of a fire spreading. 

 

[stripeyfox]

1 minute ago, StanSP said:

agreed. Someone living inside the block said that they could hear a fire alarm but it was very faint.

 

There's between 120-130 flats in the block so I presume upwards of 400-450. Given there will be families of 3-4+ living in each flat presumably. 

 

Someone at the council/HA who decided to go with the cheapest quote during a tendering process (if followed). Without realising the consequences of it all if the cladding was so susceptible to fire. Given the way the fire spread so quickly outside the building, this had to be one of the causes and catalysts of a fire spreading. 

 

Yes, I saw a guy on the news this morning who said he could only hear the alarm once he was out of his flat and on the landing! 

 

 

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, Melbourne Fuchs said:

How many people would live in a building like this? I hope it's not as bad as it looks. 

Think i read 600 somewhere

[stripeyfox]

BBC say six confirmed dead, but death toll expected to rise...

 

[Strokes]

8 minutes ago, stripeyfox said:

Yes, I saw a guy on the news this morning who said he could only hear the alarm once he was out of his flat and on the landing! 

 

 

That could be deliberate as part of a cause and affect set up on the fire alarm system. A lot of residential tower blocks I've worked in the residents are evacuated in stages. So the alarm will ring on the level of the fire to evacuate it. After a set time, say 5 minutes the level above and below, and so on and so forth. You can't have everyone stampeding down the stairs at the same time.

Id imagine it's the fire protection that's at fault rather than the alarm, they get tested every quarter so it's unlikely it will be imo.

[separator]

At least 6 people dead, number expected to rise according to Sky

[stripeyfox]

3 minutes ago, Strokes said:

That could be deliberate as part of a cause and affect set up on the fire alarm system. A lot of residential tower blocks I've worked in the residents are evacuated in stages. So the alarm will ring on the level of the fire to evacuate it. After a set time, say 5 minutes the level above and below, and so on and so forth. You can't have everyone stampeding down the stairs at the same time.

Id imagine it's the fire protection that's at fault rather than the alarm, they get tested every quarter so it's unlikely it will be imo.

That makes sense. I guess the premise is fine, based on the building supposedly "containing" the fire to one or two apartments.

 

[Strokes]

49 minutes ago, stripeyfox said:

That makes sense. I guess the premise is fine, based on the building supposedly "containing" the fire to one or two apartments.

 

Exactly! I wouldn't want to be the fire officer that signed that off.

[The Guvnor]

Just heard that this block of flats had one escape stairwell, this in my experience should be a protected staircase ie a relative place of safety from the point of entry to your egress ie outside in fresh air ,you would have a fire door on each floor landing with self closing devices on them. In some tower blocks the general smoke detectors or heat detectors may be confined to the refuse chutes and the skip storage areas obviously don't know what this building had in place. Each individual flat would have detectors fitted but would only warn the resident of the affected flat. As I have said earlier that is because any unaffected flat is supposed to be able to protect you for at least one hour, unfortunately and clearly something has gone catastrophically wrong. 

[ramboacdc]

evening standard reporting a baby was thrown out of a 9th floor window and survived!

 

Metro saying a woman left with her 6 kids but lost 2 on the way out. 

[Strokes]

8 minutes ago, The Guvnor said:

Just heard that this block of flats had one escape stairwell, this in my experience should be a protected staircase ie a relative place of safety from the point of entry to your egress ie outside in fresh air ,you would have a fire door on each floor landing with self closing devices on them. In some tower blocks the general smoke detectors or heat detectors may be confined to the refuse chutes and the skip storage areas obviously don't know what this building had in place. Each individual flat would have detectors fitted but would only warn the resident of the affected flat. As I have said earlier that is because any unaffected flat is supposed to be able to protect you for at least one hour, unfortunately and clearly something has gone catastrophically wrong. 

It's not uncommon for the flats themselves to be separate from the main system but usually in my experience they have atleast 1 sensor from the main system in each flat and a sounder. Fire inspectors will be busy reviewing existing systems nervously over next few months no doubt.

 

[spacemunky]

Sad to wake up this morning and hear of the casualties.

[stripeyfox]

7 minutes ago, ramboacdc said:

evening standard reporting a baby was thrown out of a 9th floor window and survived!

 

Metro saying a woman left with her 6 kids but lost 2 on the way out. 

Jesus. What an absolute nightmare situation. 

 

 

[The Guvnor]

20 minutes ago, Strokes said:

It's not uncommon for the flats themselves to be separate from the main system but usually in my experience they have atleast 1 sensor from the main system in each flat and a sounder. Fire inspectors will be busy reviewing existing systems nervously over next few months no doubt.

 

There was a 'stay put' policy in these block of flats so with the fire protection of compartments, concrete floors and ceilings and individual flat fire/smoke detection in theory no need for a general Fire Alarm system I guess. Whatever the configuration all will hopefully be thoroughly investigated, the appropriate legal action taken if necessary and appropriate fire safety measures implemented. 

Our feelings at the moment have to be with everyone affected by this hideous tragedy 

[stripeyfox]

3 minutes ago, The Guvnor said:

There was a 'stay put' policy in these block of flats so with the fire protection of compartments, concrete floors and ceilings and individual flat fire/smoke detection in theory no need for a general Fire Alarm system I guess. Whatever the configuration all will hopefully be thoroughly investigated, the appropriate legal action taken if necessary and appropriate fire safety measures implemented. 

Our feelings at the moment have to be with everyone affected by this hideous tragedy 

Indeed. This is an awful tragedy. One can only imagine the horror of being confronted with this situation in the middle of the night and having to flee with children, babies, elderly people etc. 

 

I fear the death toll will rise considerably.

 

[Guest Col city fan]

It's no comparison of course to dying in a fire! But I'd always wondered just how shite it would be to lose your home, possessions, and everything else in a house fire. Everything you'd saved up for, possibly bought together, all the photos etc... all up in smoke.

Terrible thing.

Edited 14 June 2017 by Col city fan

[Strokes]

52 minutes ago, The Guvnor said:

There was a 'stay put' policy in these block of flats so with the fire protection of compartments, concrete floors and ceilings and individual flat fire/smoke detection in theory no need for a general Fire Alarm system I guess. Whatever the configuration all will hopefully be thoroughly investigated, the appropriate legal action taken if necessary and appropriate fire safety measures implemented. 

Our feelings at the moment have to be with everyone affected by this hideous tragedy 

Yeah absolutely, I hope I didn't come across as not caring. Just offering my limited knowledge.

[Rincewind]

There are sick people about. I don't know the full details of any victims but someone posted on Facebook smileys and roast M.... You have to be devoid of feelings to think like that.

[stripeyfox]

4 minutes ago, Rincewind said:

There are sick people about. I don't know the full details of any victims but someone posted on Facebook smileys and roast M.... You have to be devoid of feelings to think like that.

True, there are. But lets not focus on them. What about the hundreds of people rallying round, feeding and watering fireman and victims. Bringing clothes and other essential goods. Councillors working hard to get people made homeless a bed and meal for tonight.

 

[rgc1967]

Just seen on the BBC that there are fire crews in the building searching, firemen and women all heroes 

[Darkon84]

9 minutes ago, Rincewind said:

There are sick people about. I don't know the full details of any victims but someone posted on Facebook smileys and roast M.... You have to be devoid of feelings to think like that.

 

The same happened with the Manchester and London terrorist attacks. The live coverage on Al Jazeera's facebook channel was full of hundreds of smiley & laughing emojis etc. Disgusting really.

[lgfualol]

Just now, Darkon84 said:

 

The same happened with the Manchester and London terrorist attacks. The live coverage on Al Jazeera's facebook channel was full of hundreds of smiley & laughing emojis etc. Disgusting really.

Didn't that Al Jazeera thing doing the rounds on Twitter turn out to be fake? I didn't watch the live video so I'm not sure.