London Fire and Aftermath RIP

prinzeugen

Mint Sauce wrote: »

I would have thought also, if the lift was working, the opening and closing of doors, compromises the buildings chambers/compartments. If each compartment is probably maintained, ie, fire doors not proped open, close automatically, etc, each compartment should survive between 30 and 60 minutes depending on door ratings. I would imagine in buildings like this, each apartment would be a compartment, each landing would be one, and the staircases would be another.

Am gussing the opening and closing of lift doors, and if the lift was working, it's movement would help facilitate the movement of smoke.

Another reason families would be told to stay, is if compartments are working correctly, that would prevent the spread of smoke.

All that is true if you were dealing with a single flat fire. That was not the case here however.

Looking at the pictures on the BBC just now and the top of the block is definitely leaning over to one side.

jackofalltrades

RIP to the victims.
Reports of people throwing children out of windows to people below. :eek:

Looks like the local residents group were worried that this might happen.

IvyTheTerrible

Those poor poor people trapped in their apartments. It doesn't bear thinking about.

RobertKK

It is the 9/11 conundrum if you are trapped at a height and fire is getting to you, how to die...it is a horrible thing to post but that is what some of these people faced.
That is what makes this worse in a way. To be mentally tortured by the situation and seeing the outcome being death either way is something we all hope we never face.
It is most awful for the all the victims and their families, friends and those who witnessed the disaster.
The emergency services too who have to deal with these situations. They have such a hard job.

Asus X540L

How the **** was this upgraded last year at a cost of sixteen million?

Heads are going to roll and rightly so

Persephone kindness

Asus X540L wrote: »

How the **** was this upgraded last year at a cost of sixteen million?

Heads are going to roll and rightly so

I would say it was not upgraded to the letter of the law or perhaps to the letter of the law labor proposed.

JaMarcusHustle

Persephone kindness wrote: »

I would say it was not upgraded to the letter of the law or perhaps to the letter of the law labor proposed.

There's a summary of it here:

http://www.rydon.co.uk/what-we-do/refurbishment/case-studies/refurbishment-case-studies/grenfell-tower

No mentioned of health and safety upgrades - appears to be only fitting in new flats/apartments and modernising the exterior (and improving insulation).

Jolly Red Giant

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Looks like the local residents group were worried that this might happen.

A lot more than that

The block is managed by a TMO - in fact all of the council's housing stock of 10,000 is managed by the same TMO that is the largest TMO in Britain. TMO's were established by the Tories in the early 1990s as part of a process to privatise the councils housing stock and cut expenditure for the council. Furthermore - along with being the largest TMO in Britian the K&C TMO is also a ALMO which means that the council can dump legal responsibility for all aspects of the housing on the TMO.

K&C TMO has been embroiled in controversy since almost the start. It is notorious of paying very low wages to its staff (except the top management) and has a huge staff turn-over which likely was a factor. The people in Grenfell Tower have been complaining for years about fire safety fears - the Block's Action Group have detailed a whole series of fire safety breaches and issues - including the potential fire safety dangers of the new cladding that was installed. All of their complaints fell on deaf ears with the TMO and the council.

This is the website of the Grenfell Action Group- and to quote from an article in Nov 2016

It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders...

Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpres...ing-with-fire/

Isn't it disgusting that the TMO and the Tory run council who washed their hands of the dangers in this area has resulted in this prophecy coming through.

Mr.Plough

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Just... f?cking NO.

Get that thought out of your head.

You do not use the elevator in case of fire risk. Ever.

Unless it's an evacuation lift.

prinzeugen

Can't believe people are already blaming the Tories for this, trying to score political points.

The question is why was this material allowed to be used when it was clear it was highly flammable.

Why did the architect/chief fire officer of LFB sign off on this cladding even although it proven to be dangerous in Glasgow and abroad.

You can have the best fire protection in the world inside but it is useless when each floor is being set alight from the outside.

Beefy78

The Contractors are saying they met all safety & fire standards in their renovations. Sounds like there were all sorts of issues at play though.

Again from the live Guardian blog:
Christopher Miers, an architect and the founder of the construction dispute resolution group Probyn Miers, said that he was surprised how fast the Grenfell Tower blaze had spread.

He said that the panels on the outside of the building should not have been able to catch fire, and that fire compartmentation and firebreaks should also have stop the spread of flames. He said:

“Nowadays, in the UK, we don’t use materials with this degree of combustibility. They are sandwich panels which are two sheets of aluminium with a core, and the core can be made of different materials. In other parts of the world, in the Middle East and in China, the core material was still being made of combustible plastic product, but that is no longer permitted and has not been permitted in the UK for a long time. The panels are not likely to have a combustible element to them. It’s much more likely that the firespread is not the panels themselves, but it’s more likely to have spread by other means.”

Miers said Grenfell Tower appeared to have undergone fairly standard renovations: “The exterior of this building was clad in a rainscreen cladding system. What you see on the outside are aluminium composite panels. Behind that there is a void, to allow air to circulate, and behind that again is normally insulation.”

Miers said the renovation would have been carried out to improve the insulation of the building.

“There are very specific regulations which limit the combustibility of the materials. Once a building is over 18m, all the materials in the exterior have to be of limited combustibility. One would expect that we will find that the exterior walling itself is not what we would think of as combustible. Having said that, most materials in intense fires can ultimately can show some degree of burning. Even when we think of material as of limited combustibility, in certain extreme situations, it can still burn.”

Jolly Red Giant

prinzeugen wrote: »

Can't believe people are already blaming the Tories for this, trying to score political points.

The policy of the Tories (and the Blairites) to absolve councils of responsibility for their housing stock to facilitate cutting corners is directly responsible for this tragedy. The K&CTMO was being praised by the Tories for being a model TMO (winning awards and all that stuff) yet it was cutting corners left, right and centre over years that created a massive health and safety issue in this tower block - and many others. The residents have seen this happen and have been warning that a tragedy like this was inevitable - yet they were ignored (indeed condemned) by the Tory council and the TMO.

K.O.Kiki

Mr.Plough wrote: »

Unless it's an evacuation lift.

Seems you still can't use an evacuation lift UNLESS you are disabled.
http://www.movveo.com/the-consulting-room/can-an-existing-lift-be-upgraded-to-serve-as-an-evacuation-lift/

Murrisk

Just read about this - horrific. The fear realised of anyone who lives in an apartment block. I always thought having a balcony would save me but it looks like thick, noxious could still get to you there.

RIP to all the victims, a terrible death.

c_man

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

The policy of the Tories (and the Blairites) to absolve councils of responsibility for their housing stock to facilitate cutting corners is directly responsible for this tragedy.

There you have it lads, no need for an investigation.

DeanAustin

RobertKK wrote: »

It is the 9/11 conundrum if you are trapped at a height and fire is getting to you, how to die...it is a horrible thing to post but that is what some of these people faced.
That is what makes this worse in a way. To be mentally tortured by the situation and seeing the outcome being death either way is something we all hope we never face.
It is most awful for the all the victims and their families, friends and those who witnessed the disaster.
The emergency services too who have to deal with these situations. They have such a hard job.

Both situations are obviously terrible but this one is potentially worse in a way if you're trapped with your kids which didn't happen to the victims of 9/11 AFAIK. Knowing you couldn't save yourself or your children and waiting for your deaths is horrific.

Mint Sauce

Just seen a live shot on the BBC, looks like nothing left of most of it. Can clearly see light shining through the frame work of it in many places.

humberklog

humberklog wrote: »

It's more to do with not pushing oxygen around the building.

Think they call it the piston effect? Vaguely remember reference to a similar phenomenon in, ironically, another London tragedy, the fire at Kings Cross, where trains entering and leaving the underground station turned a simple fire into a disaster.

Send In The Robots

Maybe it's time various Fire Services looked into developments in resuce robots and drones.
Ideally made of Tungesten alloys (MP 3,422 ?C) on-board i-red cameras and the like.

Think a few folks have already made stable people carring drones.
In this case the drone need only carry a large basket, and get up close to windows.

There was reports of people throwing young ones out the windows
- into makeshift catchment blankets/sheets on the ground.

caff

Way too similar to the previous tragedy in Larkanal in 2009. Report into that was published at the beginning of the year.
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/lakanal-house-the-verdict/6526499.article

JP Liz V1

Was the tower block old?

RIP the deceased, more sad news for London

Ulysses Gaze

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

The policy of the Tories (and the Blairites) to absolve councils of responsibility for their housing stock to facilitate cutting corners is directly responsible for this tragedy. The K&CTMO was being praised by the Tories for being a model TMO (winning awards and all that stuff) yet it was cutting corners left, right and centre over years that created a massive health and safety issue in this tower block - and many others. The residents have seen this happen and have been warning that a tragedy like this was inevitable - yet they were ignored (indeed condemned) by the Tory council and the TMO.

Blairites are Labour - therefore socialist. So it looks like all parties are to blame then.

Atlantic Dawn

Reports nobody in the top 3 floors escaped, hopefully that turns out not to be true.

AllForIt

Well this is just awful if the reason the fire spread so quickly upwards is due to the exterior cladding the was erected to make the building look nicer. I recall seeing these tower blocks a few years ago on a visit to the new luxurious Westfield shopping center nearby and I was stuck how grim they looked in stark contrast to the shopping center before the cladding was erected. They looked to me that they needed to be demolished and not plastered over.

wakka12

RIP to all who died but I think its a miracle that many many more didnt die in such a tall tower block considering the scale of that fire

DrPhilG

I know 6 have been confirmed dead, and I heard that 50 are in hospital.

Is there no figure for how many are out and safe? Or still missing?

end of the road

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Blairites are Labour - therefore socialist. So it looks like all parties are to blame then.

blairites = tory light. as far removed from labour as it gets. remember, thatcher praised tony blair.

tara73

that is truly shocking. this building was refurbished with a new facade just over a year ago. the facade is completely, over the whole building, ablaze. that, from building regulations and material wise, should never, ever happen.

I think the architects, the building companies and the suppliers of this facade can say goodbye to their normal lifes...

DrPhilG

DrPhilG wrote: »

I know 6 have been confirmed dead, and I heard that 50 are in hospital.

Is there no figure for how many are out and safe? Or still missing?

As with the attack on London Bridge the authorities are very, very slow to confirm anything. People in the area are having to go hospital to hospital to try to find out if the missing people they're looking for are there and the only thing confirmed is that "a lot" of people are still missing.

Atoms for Peace

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Blairites are Labour - therefore socialist. So it looks like all parties are to blame then.

Blair a socialist? ðŸ˜