London Fire and Aftermath RIP

punisher5112 wrote: »

Not for the little canisters and they will hold up in conditions of getting out. If your body will make it out so will one of those.

Your problem is not the canister; it's the oxygen, which is highly flammable.

Breathing apparatus normally works on compressed air, not oxygen, which removes the risk of explosion. But the problem in a fire is not so much lack of air as presence of fumes which will overcome you. So what breathing apparatus requires is not only a supply of compressed air but a hood or other delivery system which is airtight, elminates contaminated air from the immediate environment, but does not impede visibility. And, as I say, even if this is available, you need training in how to deploy and use it.

Mr.Plough wrote: »

Fire Engineer here.

Private residential buildings almost always have a 'stay put' evacuation strategy, i.e. alarms are not interlinked. The intention of this is that you won't have to evacuate the whole building whenever someone burns toast. To compensate for this, all apartments are generally separated by walls and floors achieving 60 minutes fire resistance. So in the event of a fire, residents stay in their apartment (which is essentially a fire proof box, if built correctly), until the fire brigade arrive (6 minutes in this case). Only people in the fire affected apartment evacuate initially.

Obviously don't know enough to comment on the cause of the fire and how it spread, but my gut feeling is the combustible cladding is to blame. Apparently remedial gas works were also carried out recently.

I heard an interview with a guy who worked as a local authority surveyor all round the London area for 30yrs.

He seemed to be suggesting that new work like cladding on these old buildings should be backed up by cavity fire breaks(?).

Something interesting he said was that in the mid 90s that the responsibility for signing off on new work was handed over to the private sector . Previously, nothing got signed off until the local authority officers were satisfied.

It's just been reported that a new school build nearby was causing concern for local residents and that part of the sweetner deal for residents was the Cladding that would make their own building look better.

The new school also has similar cladding, but my guess is that the school building also has modern fire safety requirements that a 1975 tower block would not have.

punisher5112 wrote: »

Another option is there should be escape route to the roof for evacuation by helicopters.

Evacuation by helicopter is not really feasible until the fire has burned down. The building is like a giant candle, with a rising column of hot turbulent toxic gases and dense smoke above it. This is not a safe environment for helicopters to operate in - or, indeed, for people to wait for rescue in.

Plus, a building with 120 flats might have four or five hundred people in it. A helicopter can take three, possibly four. It would take a fleet of many helicopters many hours to complete an airlift of that many people, even if it were safe to attempt one.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Evacuation by helicopter is not really feasible until the fire has burned down. The building is like a giant candle, with a rising column of hot turbulent toxic gases and dense smoke above it. This is not a safe environment for helicopters to operate in - or, indeed, for people to wait for rescue in.

Plus, a building with 120 flats might have four or five hundred people in it. A helicopter can take three, possibly four. It would take a fleet of many helicopters many hours to complete an airlift of that many people, even if it were safe to attempt one.

Air sea rescue can take plenty more and can use a winch I wouldn't have meant landing as that would be no go.

Certain conditions could work and also smoke vents like in tunnels to carry away the smoke.

punisher5112 wrote: »

Of course it will because one wouldn't be breathing in the toxins or carbon monoxide.

One would, unless there's more than a simple mouthpiece.

The minimium that's needed is something that covers both the mouth and nose, provides an airtight seal around them, and is securely strapped on the head so that maintaining the seal doesn't depend on the user holding or manipulating the apparatus properly. The compressed air container has to be strapped on as well; otherwise the weight of it will pull the mask away from your face if you drop it.

Think of the kind of breathing apparatus you think of as being issued to soldiers at risk of gas attack. Something that looks like this. Anything less than that is of minimal value, and will only give people a false impression of safety that isn't really provided. Provide those hand-held canisters designed as a backup for scuba divers, and you'll just end up being sued or prosecuted for providing sub-standard equipment.

It's not essential that the apparatus should also protect the eyes, but they nearly always do, because once you get to that point extending the mask to cover the eyes also doesn't greatly add to the expense or difficulty of use, and fire fumes irritate the eyes as well as the respiratory tract, so limiting vision.

punisher5112 wrote: »

Air sea rescue can take plenty more and can use a winch I wouldn't have meant landing as that would be no go.

Certain conditions could work and also smoke vents like in tunnels to carry away the smoke.

The problem is that the helicopters can't land; its that they can't (safely) fly above the building, and they certainly can't hover to use a winch. The column of smoke and rising hot gases extends for at least the height of the building again.

Smoke vents can only carry smoke and gases to the side of the building, but after that they just travel upwards (because they're hot air, basically).

When the World Trade Centre was struck, hundreds of people went to the decks on the top of the buildings, hoping for helicopter rescue. It never came, because helicopter rescue from above a burning building is impossible. Those who hadn't already succumbed to fumes and smoke or jumped to escape them died when the buildings collapsed.

There is a technique for horizontal rescue by helicopter which involves the helicopter hovering beside, rather than above, the stricken building/vessel. It requires specially equipped helicopters and it's extremely difficult. It's not a realistic option for rescuing people from a burning building in an urban environment.

10 million refurbishment to make the building look prettier but they never replaced the elevators which would cost 60K. They were constantly breaking down according to residents.

I'll never understand why the fire service are so underpaid.

Persephone kindness wrote: »

They risk their own lives!

Every time, potentially, even when it seems simple enough job. And there is the mental health aspect. They see some very traumatic things.

Persephone kindness wrote: »

tiger55 wrote: »

I have lived in high flats.  They are just concrete in the stairwells  Not even a carpet.

They tend to be older flats. It's more expensive. But it acts as a cheap fire protectant. The thing is the opposite is true in winter....as in it gets VERY cold. So people freeze or have fire risk. You have to insulate a tower block to be able to heat it properly.

In the old flats even with the heat on people would die sometimes of cold.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/heating-was-working-in-flat-where-woman-died-of-cold-says-council-1.581608

This woman died of hypothermia...the heating was working though ..so people didn't get it ..but it's the old style block of flats extensive concrete ..which has one good thing it's a fire protectant ..

The bad side is it will make a block of flats freezing even when heated ...so they started to use insulation or diff design and material....some i guess might be more flammable.

I had 2 flat fires in high flats in my old place, one was even on my landing.  Drunks/Junkies to blame.

People have been warning about this for years (in this block):

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/grenfell-tower-fire/