London tower block
 

Utterly utterly horrific scenes and not sure the media really need to show some of the stuff they are. Just seeing the state of the tower is upsetting enough.

The stories are heartbreaking, just how does someone decide between dieing in the flames or from jumping out of the building :(

A lot of lives must have been lost and my thoughts are with their families and with those who have had to deal with the situation.

The emergency services are amazing to be able to deal with stuff like this and risk their lives :notworthy:notworthy:notworthy

Some kind massive screw up here , cos you really wouldn't expect this in the uk - would you ? well I wouldn't


R.I.P

I think the 'Stay in your room if a fire breaks out' advice, has unfortunately resulted in a number of unnecessary deaths.

RIP.

I know some people live in similar age block that has just been similarly refurbished , how on earth has this particular one gone up like that

According to live interviews with residents and neighbours on the news this morning:
- immediate hall-neighbour of one of the first residents who escaped said he'd heard a loud bang and then saw his fridge had exploded.
- neighbours from the same street said many residents had expressed concerns about power surges that had been happening in the block over the past couple of years.
- all of the residents who'd managed to get out said the same thing about no fire alarm going off (except their own smoke detectors, if they had them).

The above probably gives some strong clues about how the fire broke out, but doesn't really explain why it spread so quickly up so many floors.

Terrible tragedy, and shouldn't be happening in an advanced capital city in the 21st Century. :(

Why isn't cladding fire proof?

Difficult to conceive that this external cladding being applied isn't fireproof

people I know are / were thrilled at how much its saving them on the leccy , maybe not so much now

Noone knows for sure yet whether it played any real part in the spreading of the fire. Common sense says it would be far more likely that something on the inside of the building was responsible.

Just one word really, tragedy.

Ex-Chairman of Residents' Association was saying that Council had completely ignored concerns that residents had during refurbishment.

Do seem to be some big questions to ask about the suitability of the exterior cladding.

DL

Shocking pictures of such a building resorted to a smouldering shell so quickly.

Materials workmanship maintanence has to be called into question. The regulations are there and do stop fire spreading between floors. Regardless of the cause; Something was seriously wrong to allow fire to spread upwards.

Fake fire rated material via China? Builders not bothering with hermetic seals on doors or dampers on ducting? Using normal expanding foam/sealants to seal holes/gaps instead of fire rated foam/sealants. Residents/builders pinning open fire doors. Cheap/Nasty door closers that fail after a year or so?

A building like this in this day and age should not have fire spread in the way that did.

Hopefully it won't collapse so the cause will be identified and blame correctly apportioned, But looking at the current pics it looks like the one corner may give way as the support columns have seen a lot of heat.

Really bad news, RIP.

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Tragic Tragic scenes.

Reminded me of the film Towering Inferno and you'd never think something like this can happen in the first world with so many H&S laws these days.

RIP to those that have sadly lost their lives.

The cladding appears to be a major factor in how it spread so quickly, you can see on the cladding that wasn't that badly damaged at the entrance hall has streams of melted cladding that have run down and re-solidified.

Why no sprinklers and alarms in a residential building of this size?, surely a hotel would have to have a spinkler system so why not a huge tower block housing 500+ people.

Once they get to the bottom of this there will be a few manslaughter cases to answer

Pretty certain no sprinklers are required. In fact I don't recall being in a UK or even EU high rise hotel with sprinklers.

In the USA and Canada it's a different story; I've toured across both countries and pretty much every single city hotel I stopped in old and new had sprinklers and very obvious dry risers.

Don't know why I notice this, but I do; Possibly due to me bring a little claustrophobic; I always looks for ways out and never fully comfortable in places with one way in/out. Absolutely hate hotels with anti-Clapton windows.

Saw on the news they explained the US uses active protection with sprinklers but in the UK it's deemed to expensive and passive prevention is used which is down to building design and construction. Well it didn't work today :(

The cladding looks to have created a chimney effect around the outside of the tower and sent the flames shooting upwards. The internal design of the building was supposed to be an hour for a fire to break through to the next floor so 20 hours to get from bottom to top. It reached the top in 30 minutes from the outside. Just shocking :(

I'm involved in fire risk assessment and prevention at work, I haven't seen a plan of the building but I would say the external cladding is unlikely to cause the fire to quickly spread internally.
the building will have riser sections for water services and cables and these are hotspots for fire to spread.
Usually these have barriers between floors with material of at least one hour rating and pipes and cables sealed with fire foam or intumescent sealant.
The flat entrance doors should be fd30 minimum and be fitted with 10mm minimum intumescent fire and smoke brush seals and a self closing device, same for communal doors.

Smoke detectors should be in every compartmentalized area and hard wired.

I would say no fire risk assessment has been done on that building based on the fact some people didn't have a smoke detector.
Shocking really.

​​​​​those poor people.

Cooperate manslaughter you'd imagine, at the very least incredible gall to be asking general
Public to help them out to help the afflicted

looks very bad for Government .

Only just seen this, totally horrified by the scenes on the news, can't even watch it or listen to the gruesome commentary being given by some in interviews, had to turn it off and now wish I'd not seen it or heard what was said.

RIP.

I agree.

The layout is 4 self contained single floor flats on each corner with a single central shaft that shares the stair well and lift shafts. I guess the services shaft will be alongside there too.

As you say if any of those three shafts are compromised then fire will spread to other levels.

I've seen flats of this design retrofitted with external emergency stairwells at either end (accessed via windows). I personally think this should be mandatory for any building of this height with a single stairwell. Its commonplace in the USA.

That's arrangement friends block flats

Imagine what residents this design up and down the country are now thinking

It is a crying shame may they all RIP :(

Absolutely, an external fire escape is a no brainer in my opinion.

​​​​​​

If anyone remembers the child's toy that was used in Drop the Dead Donkey by the news reporter; I was reminded of it yesterday when they kept repeating and showing the page from the child's maths book. Just trying to add drama to an already catastrophic event. No need at all.

Sadly I think an external fire escape would have been rapidly engulfed in this instance.

Something I noticed is that whole day went by when not once was the "B" word mentioned on any news channel.

It was almost a relief; Not even terrorist attacks gave any relief from the media's 12 month infatuation with it.

But even then it goes into a reporting loop reporting the same over and over and over, even when nothing new or factual has been found.

Why is it so acceptable for media outlets to consider verbal diarrhea as "news"? It serves no purpose and helps nobody.

Awful just awful, R.I.P to the victims.

Agree totally about the Media obsession.

Regarding this block. I'd lay a small bet on the contractor trimming costs perhaps by using inferior cheaper cladding which I understand has to be separated from external walls to prevent damp on the wall faces. But this gap has to be carefully sealed to prevent a "chimney" effect if there is a fire. Too much to ask of a greedy contractor trimming his costs perhaps? And of course authority inspectors can sometimes be leant on to turn a blind eye. How much does this cladding cost? Someone will be gaoled for this; pity this won't help the poor sods that got frazzled.

Re external stairwell - fine but wouldn't have worked here and how do you prevent a security risk if someone can just climb up and enter a property (a decent alarm)?

David

I will bet that no one will end up in jail for this one.It will come back too close to central government for making cut backs of local government funding.Too many big names in the Kensington & Chelsea Borough(Cameron).Any blame will be diverted to private contractors.Also the poor people in the block were mostly low income so they really don't give a damn.

And the country of origin for this cladding material/foam ?

Re: Extra Stairwells. Plenty of ways to secure them so they are exit only. As for being engulfed in flames; Probably, but it would have aided far swifter evacuation, give fire crews something to aim at and concentrate water sprays on, and of course give them another means of entry; Once the main stairwell was taken out of action from the internal fire, all hope is lost, and this appeared to have occurred very very quickly :(

This is where we'll see what Corbyn is made of or not

The Only Way Is Corbs . . . or not.