Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington - news and discussion

[not-bono-ever]

I am in tears listening to the descriptions of people trapped. fuckfuckfuck.

 

[Teaboy]

Also see this link from fire safety expert. Short excerpt below.

View attachment 109316

There is no way on a building this high a combustible material like expanded polystyrene should be used, even with firebreaks (basically a strip of non-combustible insulation such as Rockwool incorporated into the insulation to act as a break). Anything over 18m in height should use Rockwool or similar.

 

[Wilf]

An unquotable rag (DM) is currently claiming ''Nobody on the top three floors survived''.

.

Haven't read the source, but it sounds unlikely. Not so much that it isn't true, more that they couldn't know it's true yet.

Oh, fuck, this is horrible.

 

[EastEnder]

i know at the moment this is a relatively small point in the scheme of things, but where the hell are the 'surviving' tenants going to go in the short term? many will surely need to be re-housed nearby due to jobs, family commitments etc, but of course there's a chronic shortage of emergency housing afaik. also, many will have lost all their possessions. gonna be a bit of a nightmare for the local authority (and the tenants) to sort, surely.

There will probably be a reasonable degree of very short term help - shelter, clothes, food, etc. But what all those people do over the following days/weeks/months is a different matter entirely...

 

[brogdale]

I am in tears listening to the descriptions of people trapped. fuckfuckfuck.

Have had to turn off; way too much...folk in such a state of shock shouldn't be in front of mics

 

[Plumdaff]

i know at the moment this is a relatively small point in the scheme of things, but where the hell are the 'surviving' tenants going to go in the short term? many will surely need to be re-housed nearby due to jobs, family commitments etc, but of course there's a chronic shortage of emergency housing afaik. also, many will have lost all their possessions. gonna be a bit of a nightmare for the local authority (and the tenants) to sort, surely.

There was a lot of talk after the election about how much of Kensington is non resident empty houses owned by the rich. If there were any fucking justice they'd be used now for the displaced.

A mate who used to be very active in the RMT on LU is talking about the big changes that were made in terms of fire regs and risk assessment where it moved from inspection by fire officers to self risk assessment. You can see the incentives for minimisation and avoidance in that system, especially in a time of austerity; the fact that this and other buildings 'passed' risk assessments may be meaningless. Wonder what the report the government has sat on for years has to say about this?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Think that may answer the question...

In some cases, anyway.

I know a TMO in Southwark which forked out for capital works to put a sprinkler system and modern fire-doors in their blocks. It's a question of will, most of the time.

 

[EastEnder]

An unquotable rag (DM) is currently claiming ''Nobody on the top three floors survived''.

Though the wet towels story seems to run against that.

I have little faith in any of the DM's "reporting", but if they're to be believed, there could have been 600 people in the block....

 

[Teaboy]

PDF of design/materials for cladding on building.

not entirely sure if these are the final choices. Anyone?

That doesn't really tell us much unfortunately as its more about colours than specific products. The cladding product specified was a non-combustible product and its still there on the walls albeit very charred.

 

[scifisam]

There will probably be a reasonable degree of very short term help - shelter, clothes, food, etc. But what all those people do over the following days/weeks/months is a different matter entirely...

Yep. K&C simply won't be able to rehouse them.

I'm looking on gofundme but there are 14 different campaigns and I don't know which are legit.

 

[stethoscope]

Am quietly fuming - I think this is going to be a very common and wide reaching reaction to these events. It really taps into both an underlying modern fear of potentital dangers of tall buildings, and the sheer brutality, unfairness and hypcrisy of the current housing system, austerity and neoliberalism

Absolutely this. My shock first thing thi morning has now just turned into anger.

Having been involved in social housing stuff the last little while, and having friends and family at various times living in not just social housing but in 60s towers, its been clear to observe the effects of austerity and neoliberalism and successive government housing policies, the decline of proper maintenance and funding allowing properties to fall into disrepairs, loss of janitors, local councils engaged in their own shady deals and profiteering from housing stock, the selling off of once entirely owned council blocks making management of buildings even more difficult, the privatisation of housing associations, etc.

 

[scifisam]

Have had to turn off; way too much...folk in such a state of shock shouldn't be in front of mics

It'll help make people be held accountable (when and if it's found who contributed to this) and help them get money which I suspect they all desperately need.

 

[A380]

My heart goes out to the people in the flats. Emergency services crews will have done a fantastic job. Internet sites are saying some BA crews got at least as far as the 20th floor. 20 floors in BA in a working job like this; amazing.

But: how many fire crews have been covering wider areas because of full or part time station closures? Most of the cops will have been on at least 12 hour back to back shifts since Manchester and the non HART LAS people have been running at 96/97% capacity for years. That's no meals and no breaks. Don't even start on the receiving A and E departments

And none of them have had more than a 1% pay rise for years whilst both Fire and police have had their pensions fucked. LAS had their pensions buggered years ago.

I look forward to the Maybot saying how much she respects the emergency services.

 

[a_chap]

If it's not awful enough for those involved they are now having to contend with hordes of reporters seeking ever more distressing accounts of what they witnessed

 

[1927]

There was a lot of talk after the election about how much of Kensington is non resident empty houses owned by the rich. If there were any fucking justice they'd be used now for the displaced.

A mate who used to be very active in the RMT on LU is talking about the big changes that were made in terms of fire regs and risk assessment where it moved from inspection by fire officers to self risk assessment. You can see the incentives for minimisation and avoidance in that system, especially in a time of austerity; the fact that this and other buildings 'passed' risk assessments may be meaningless. Wonder what the report the government has sat on for years has to say about this?

The Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005 is a dangerous piece of legislation imho. And your mate is exactly right, it took Risk assessment away from the professionals and gave it to occupiers, and abolished requirement for fire certificates.

 

[Plumdaff]

Yep. K&C simply won't be able to rehouse them.

I'm looking on gofundme but there are 14 different campaigns and I don't know which are legit.

Having faced this trauma you can envisage people being expected to leave areas where they have friends, family and support. Probably to leave London.

It's intolerable.

 

[brogdale]

It'll help make people be held accountable (when and if it's found who contributed to this) and help them get money which I suspect they all desperately need.

I hope so.
Just too painful really.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Wouldn't it be nice if someone broke into those empty "homes" and housed some of these now-homeless people there?



Agreed.

Many years ago I lived on the 24th floor of a tower block with one staircase, too, but it was eventually knocked down as unsafe. WTF was going through the architects' minds to only have one set of stairs? A fire that spreads to that one staircase means everyone above that level dies. No safety doors can guarantee that won't happen, especially when people end up propping open fire doors because they're so bloody difficult to use.

From what I've been able to make out from a friendly architect, most designs feature adequate fire suppression systems, so the architects of most of those towers believed that the end product would be properly served for such emergencies. However, given that the norm in repairs and maintenance for most local authorities has been neglect, if such systems were installed (rather than culled at the build stage), often they don't work properly - or some times at all.

 

[Barking_Mad]

More on the cladding

 

[cupid_stunt]

In some cases, anyway.

I know a TMO in Southwark which forked out for capital works to put a sprinkler system and modern fire-doors in their blocks. It's a question of will, most of the time.

The link I posted before, confirming retrofitting of sprinkler systems is not required by current regulations, but can be done for around £1200 per flat, so let's say double that as this is a big block, that gives you a figure of around £300k in this case.

They recently spent £10m on this block, but don't appear to have spent £300k on a bloody sprinkler system.

 

[scifisam]

Having faced this trauma you can envisage people being expected to leave areas where they have friends, family and support. Probably to leave London.

It's intolerable.

While flats in their own borough lie empty just as investments.

 

[brogdale]

Having faced this trauma you can envisage people being expected to leave areas where they have friends, family and support. Probably to leave London.

It's intolerable.

Not to mention the un-necessary hassle these folk are likely to get from some employers/DWP about missing work/interviews/assessments.

 

[Teaboy]

It seems that this cladding can be pretty flammable.

Fire Risks From External Cladding Panels – A Perspective From The UK « Probyn Miers

Its not.

Just to repeat for people who may be worried about their own building. There is no cladding panel on the market in the UK which is combustible, otherwise you could just have people setting fire to the outside of a building.

Most things will burn if the temperature is high enough so phrases such as flammable and fire-proof are pretty redundant, that's why we talk about combustibility. Basically will a product make the situation worse.

 

[Treacle Toes]

A pastor has blamed the “disgusting” disparity between rich and poor for the Grenfell tower block fire.

Read more here: https://inews.co.uk/…/video-pastor-blames-disgusting-divid…/

 

[bimble]

Its not.

Just to repeat for people who may be worried about their own building. There is no cladding panel on the market in the UK which is combustible, otherwise you could just have people setting fire to the outside of a building.

Most things will burn if the temperature is high enough so phrases such as flammable and fire-proof are pretty redundant, that's why we talk about combustibility. Basically will a product make the situation worse.

I have no clue but this from the guardian:

"Dr Jim Glocking, technical director of the Fire Protection Association (FPA), an industry body which carries out tests on fire safety issues, among other things, said a major issues was that insulation underneath cladding on the outside of tower blocks did not need to be fireproof.

Glocking said that while he did not know the situation at Grenfell Tower, the rapid spread of the blaze indicated thus could be the case.

He said the association had received increasing numbers of reports about insulation on the outside of buildings catching light.

“They can be slapping on up to 300mm deep of polystyrene on the outside of the building,” he said. “It can be very significant. I have no knowledge of what happened in this particular case.”

Laboratory tests on such cladding carried out by the FPA “found that there was scope for really large-scale fire spread under certain circumstances”, he said."
..He added:
“I think the inexcusable element here is that with cladding or insulation there are choices. There will be a perfectly good non-combustible choice that can be made, but somebody is not making those calls.”

 

[WWWeed]

A guy on the telly just said it was started by a fridge explosing in the flat next to his.

Speculation at this stage isn't helpful to anyone, but as soon as I heard about this fridges and tumble driers sprang to mind (particularity beko and Hotpoint/Whirlpool/Indecit ones).

The London fire brigade have been shouting about this for years:
London Fire Brigade - Total Recalls: ‘Gaping hole’ in fridge freezer safety
London Fire Brigade - Total Recalls: How to check if your tumble dryer is a safety risk

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind people to take some time to check if any of your home appliances are subject to safety recalls. You can find more information on how to do this at Product safety: product recalls - GOV.UK

 

[Barking_Mad]

Residents association guy explaining some issues and threats he received.

 

[scifisam]

From what I've been able to make out from a friendly architect, most designs feature adequate fire suppression systems, so the architects of most of those towers believed that the end product would be properly served for such emergencies. However, given that the norm in repairs and maintenance for most local authorities has been neglect, if such systems were installed (rather than culled at the build stage), often they don't work properly - or some times at all.

But to me it seems obvious that you must always have a back-up safety feature that doesn't rely on electrical or mechanical input or anything at all complex. You need stairs. Any design that relies entirely on technology is basically crossing its fingers and hoping for the best.

 

[Barking_Mad]

From the Inside Housing website.

 

[Teaboy]

I have no clue but this from the guardian:

"Dr Jim Glocking, technical director of the Fire Protection Association (FPA), an industry body which carries out tests on fire safety issues, among other things, said a major issues was that insulation underneath cladding on the outside of tower blocks did not need to be fireproof.

Glocking said that while he did not know the situation at Grenfell Tower, the rapid spread of the blaze indicated thus could be the case.

He said the association had received increasing numbers of reports about insulation on the outside of buildings catching light.

“They can be slapping on up to 300mm deep of polystyrene on the outside of the building,” he said. “It can be very significant. I have no knowledge of what happened in this particular case.”

Laboratory tests on such cladding carried out by the FPA “found that there was scope for really large-scale fire spread under certain circumstances”, he said."
..He added:
“I think the inexcusable element here is that with cladding or insulation there are choices. There will be a perfectly good non-combustible choice that can be made, but somebody is not making those calls.”

Yes, this is probably closer to where we are at. In my opinion (and obviously its a guess at this stage) the cladding is a red herring, its going to be what is happening behind the cladding.