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tj444 -> RE: London fire: What we know so far about Grenfell Tower (6/14/2017 7:49:02 PM)
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~~ fast reply ~~
a little more info.. of course we will have to wait for the official investigation which could take weeks/months..
The London Fire: What We Know
LONDON — A fire tore through a 24-story West London apartment building early Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 70. The cause is still under investigation.
How did the fire start?
The fire was first reported at 12:54 a.m. The site was Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, built in 1974, which housed at least 400 people in 120 apartments across 20 residential floors. Firefighters responded within six minutes. According to the London Fire Brigade, the blaze began on the second floor and spread quickly to the top.
The brigade’s leader, Commissioner Dany Cotton, said it was too early to speculate on the cause. Early news reports said that the fire may have been caused by the explosion of an electrical appliance, but nothing has been confirmed.
How did it spread so quickly?
That is a major question for investigators. Usually, high-rise buildings are designed to contain a fire in its unit of origin, and in contemporary buildings, alarm systems and sprinklers are the norm.
Grenfell Tower was recently fitted with exterior aluminum cladding. Christopher Miers, the managing director of Probyn-Miers, a forensic architecture firm that examines buildings that are defective or fire damaged, said: “It’s a possibility that there are areas in the external wall system that played a role and it’s an area that would need to be considered.”
Whether the cladding had a role in this case was not clear, but such cladding, which often consists of aluminum sheets sandwiched over some kind of insulation, has been seen as a factor in past blazes, including three major high-rise fires in Dubai.
The United States and Britain have tougher regulations on the potential flammability of internal material used in cladding, but other factors — such as how panels are made and installed — could come into play.
“They are safe to use, but they need to be properly used and they need to be well constructed and the building needs to be well managed,” Mr. Miers said.
David King, a building engineer in Maidstone, England, said the cladding might have helped the blaze leap from floor to floor.
“I’ve seen how the flames were coming out of the windows and going up the outside, so that’s one possible explanation,” he said.
How did the authorities respond?
More than 250 firefighters, more than 100 medics and 100 police officers were sent to the scene, according to Mayor Sadiq Khan. Ambulances took 64 patients to hospitals, while an additional 10 patients went on their own; 20 people were said to be in critical condition.
Commissioner Cotton said that a structural engineer had been dispatched to assess whether the tower could collapse, but firefighters were likely to remain there for 24 hours.
Who owns the building?
Grenfell Tower is owned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, one of 32 boroughs that make up Greater London, along with the City, London’s financial district. Day-to-day management is contracted out to the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization.
In May 2016, the building underwent a $12.8 million renovation, including the cladding, double-glazed windows and a communal heating system.
Nicholas Paget-Brown, the council’s leader, told the BBC that whether the refurbishment was done appropriately “will need to be the subject of a separate investigation.”
“We need a thorough inquiry into why this fire started, why it spread so quickly, and whether there was anything in place to slow down its progress,” he added.
He said his immediate concern was finding housing for displaced residents.
Did the building meet current standards?
Grenfell Tower’s management company carried out an overhaul of the fire safety system only last year, considering it a model for its many properties. In board meeting minutes last year, it said it would use the same approach on “all major works projects.”
The overhaul came after years of complaints by tenants, and after a deficiency notice was issued by the London Fire Brigade last year relating to another building.
What was the safety protocol, and was it followed?
The fire action protocol said that residents who were safely inside their apartments when there was a fire elsewhere in block should stay put, keeping doors and windows closed. The procedure is not uncommon for such towers in Britain.
A 2014 residents’ newsletter defended this policy on the grounds that the building had been designed to meet “rigorous fire safety standards.” It said apartments had recently been fitted with front doors that could “withstand a fire for up to 30 minutes, which gives plenty of time for the fire brigade to arrive.”
Paul Munakr, a seventh-floor resident, told the BBC that alarms in the building had not gone off, leading to initial confusion as to whether there was a fire.
But Mr. King, the engineer, said that in his three-decade career, he had never heard of residents in high-rise buildings being told to stay put.
The Grenfell Action Group, a residents’ group, said it had raised alarms for years about the management of the building.
In a post last November, the action group said that, despite a fire at another tower managed by the company, and power surges found to have been caused by faulty wiring at Grenfell Tower in 2013, residents had received no “proper safety instructions.” The group predicted that it would take a “catastrophic event” to spur the management company to action.
The group said the management company had responded to the concerns by posting fire safety instructions — including the “stay put” policy — at the building entrance and outside elevators on every floor.
A fire risk assessment for the tower conducted in November 2012, and cited by the Grenfell Action Group, said that fire extinguishers in the basement boiler room, the elevator monitor room and the ground floor electrical room were out of date. “Some located in the roof level areas had ‘condemned’ written on them in large black writing with a last test date of 2009 or 2010,” the report said. It was not clear if the extinguishers had since been updated.
How has management responded?
The management company declined to comment on safety concerns, and referred reporters to a statement on its website by its chief executive, Robert Black, calling the fire “devastating” and expressing heartbreak at the reports of injury and loss of life.
In a statement, the Rydon Group, the contractor that refurbished Grenfell Tower last year, said its work “met all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards.”
“We will cooperate with the relevant authorities and emergency services and fully support their enquiries into the causes of this fire at the appropriate time,” the company added.
Harley Facades Limited, which made the cladding, did not immediately provide a comment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/world/europe/uk-london-fire-grenfell-tower.html?_r=0
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