Huge Fire In Block Of Flats

[saaby93]

Slaav said:

Why don't we see if the various parties all get quizzed and allow the Enquiry to find out the truth shall we?? It does seem pretty clear to my VERY UNTRAINED EYE that people have already made their minds up although (admittedly proving my own point) the combustibility of the cladding seems to be the real cause/culprit here? Whoever signed all of that off must be getting fully lawyered up as I type?

It's already been covered earlier
At one level it shouldnt matter if the cladding catches fire because the shell of the building is fire proof and each flat is supposed to be able to contain its own fire
unfortunately the windows seem to have been overlooked

If I remember there are two parts to whats outside the concrete the insulation and the cladding
it looks like the insulation didnt help either

[kev1974]

A fire in a Battersea block of flats this afternoon - not much in the way of dodgy cladding to speak of, mainly glass in the area of the fire, but even so it looks like it's done significant damage to 3 or 4 adjacent flats. Appears to have simply climbed up through the balconies.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/battersea-f...

8 appliances sent meaning over 50 firefighters so I guess the fire brigade management aren't taking chances now.

[saaby93]

kev1974 said:

A fire in a Battersea block of flats this afternoon - not much in the way of dodgy cladding to speak of, mainly glass in the area of the fire, but even so it looks like it's done significant damage to 3 or 4 adjacent flats. Appears to have simply climbed up through the balconies.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/battersea-f...

8 appliances sent meaning over 50 firefighters so I guess the fire brigade management aren't taking chances now.

Whats the shouting?

[cherryowen]

Vipers said:

Slaav said:

I've just seen a FBU post on FaceBook stating how disgusting it is that this poor chap is being hung out to dry. The insinuation is that he was effectively 'just' a watch commander or similar as Mark has already mentioned and that Snr Brass will allow him to take the fall to protect themselves.

The FBU are up in arms at his treatment and also the comments are (unfortunately not) unbelievable. Cuts this, unfair that, rich neighbours fault for forcing cladding etc etc.

Why don't we see if the various parties all get quizzed and allow the Enquiry to find out the truth shall we?? It does seem pretty clear to my VERY UNTRAINED EYE that people have already made their minds up although (admittedly proving my own point) the combustibility of the cladding seems to be the real cause/culprit here? Whoever signed all of that off must be getting fully lawyered up as I type?

Including who ever signed off the windows, and doors which didn't match the standard for fire doors.

If uPVC windows were specified, then i) they wouldn't be fire rated and ii) the window supplier would have qualified the same when quoting for the supply of such windows. Whilst working as a QS for a uPVC window company last year (for my sins), I can tell you that companies like United Living and Lakehouse still specify plastic windows in their pricing documents for high rise developments.

[Slaav]

cherryowen said:

If uPVC windows were specified, then i) they wouldn't be fire rated and ii) the window supplier would have qualified the same when quoting for the supply of such windows. Whilst working as a QS for a uPVC window company last year (for my sins), I can tell you that companies like United Living and Lakehouse still specify plastic windows in their pricing documents for high rise developments.

Quick question... are those companies ‘allowed’ to specify plastic windows? If so, what are they doing wrong?

[andye30m3]

Slaav said:

cherryowen said:

If uPVC windows were specified, then i) they wouldn't be fire rated and ii) the window supplier would have qualified the same when quoting for the supply of such windows. Whilst working as a QS for a uPVC window company last year (for my sins), I can tell you that companies like United Living and Lakehouse still specify plastic windows in their pricing documents for high rise developments.

Quick question... are those companies ‘allowed’ to specify plastic windows? If so, what are they doing wrong?

Very few windows are specified as fire rated as most windows open so there’s little point. In my experience it tends to be where buildings are right against the boundary to prevent the spread of flame to adjacent buildings or where fire escape routes pass a ground floor window

On standard brick walls the cavity has a fire resistant cavity closer around the window to stop flame spreading into the cavity with the inner and outer brick and block walls being fire resistant

[cherryowen]

Slaav said:

cherryowen said:

If uPVC windows were specified, then i) they wouldn't be fire rated and ii) the window supplier would have qualified the same when quoting for the supply of such windows. Whilst working as a QS for a uPVC window company last year (for my sins), I can tell you that companies like United Living and Lakehouse still specify plastic windows in their pricing documents for high rise developments.

Quick question... are those companies ‘allowed’ to specify plastic windows? If so, what are they doing wrong?

They won't be doing anything wrong, in as much as they will be following the given specification handed out by the prevailing local council and planning committee. They (the planners / council) may state that - for example - Kingspan Kooltherm insulation is required in the walls and under the floor slab, but will accept similar alternatives.

The only performance specific, IIRC, with regard to windows for the companies I mentioned is a u-value (i.e. thermal performance)

[saaby93]

cherryowen said:

They won't be doing anything wrong, in as much as they will be following the given specification handed out by the prevailing local council and planning committee. They (the planners / council) may state that - for example - Kingspan Kooltherm insulation is required in the walls and under the floor slab, but will accept similar alternatives.

The only performance specific, IIRC, with regard to windows for the companies I mentioned is a u-value (i.e. thermal performance)

Isn't it likely that no-one has done anything wrong?
It's just a set of circumstances that have come together
There may be changes in regs and guidance to try to stop the same thig happening again

[V8 Fettler]

Michael Dowden (London FB) should be quoting the rule book at every turn, that is his defence. Others should answer for deficiences in the design, policies and stated procedures.

Dowden's response to the training question was bizarre, surely this would have been clarified before he was put under the spotlight?

Edited by V8 Fettler on Thursday 28th June 06:52

[V8 Fettler]

saaby93 said:

cherryowen said:

They won't be doing anything wrong, in as much as they will be following the given specification handed out by the prevailing local council and planning committee. They (the planners / council) may state that - for example - Kingspan Kooltherm insulation is required in the walls and under the floor slab, but will accept similar alternatives.

The only performance specific, IIRC, with regard to windows for the companies I mentioned is a u-value (i.e. thermal performance)

Isn't it likely that no-one has done anything wrong?
It's just a set of circumstances that have come together
There may be changes in regs and guidance to try to stop the same thig happening again

"Do no harm". The designers commenced the design of the refurb with an exterior that was non-combustible. The exterior should have remained non-combustible following the refurb.

[john2443]

Slaav said:

watch commander or similar

Calling him commander makes him sound more senior than he is - he's a watch manager, normally in charge of the 2 or 3 appliances at his station. If you have a house in London, you'll get 2 pumps and a watch manager will be in charge, so that's the sort of incident he will be trained and experienced in.

Sa Calobra said:

He seems to me to have lacked initiative. How did he get into his position?

As above, he's not in a very senior role, on a building site he might be the foreman or in an office a team leader. As more appliances arrive, more senior people arrive with them and take over.

Sa Calobra said:

As soon as the fire spread beyond one storey he should have evacuated. In his position he should know that decisions are made on the spot on dynamic situations. Sticking to policy on an unprecedented situation is ridiculous.

If he'd decided to evacuate, going against the defined procedure and hundreds of people had died while trapped on the staircases you'd be saying why didn't he stick to procedure!


Every building in London has a specified initial response, the bigger the building, the bigger the initial response. If the first phone call didn't give the address but said it's a tower block on xxx Street it would have been a minimum of 3 pumps and an aerial platform, if the caller said it's Grenfell, the number of appliances specified for that address would have been sent.

Once the initial response arrived, the person in charge, in this case the Watch Manager, would have contacted control and asked for increased attendance - in this case to 10 pumps...that means a lot more than 10 appliances, it's 10 pumping appliances ("fire engines"), plus aerial platform(s), water bowser(s), hose layer(s), incident control room(s) and a more senior officer - the bigger the incident, the more senior - Station Manager, Area Commander etc, each of whom have more experience and training.

The size of the incident was increased and ended up at 40 pumps - that's probably 55-60 vehicles and a number of senior officers.

Before anyone asks why it wasn't a 40 pump fire at the beginning, LFB get a few hundred calls every day and if they sent a massive response to all of them they'd very quickly run out of kit so they have to start small and build up - lots of incidents will be false alarms or more minor than expected so there's no point sending a big response initially, the first pumps will be on site within a few minutes of the first call and they escalate.

[john2443]

kev1974 said:

A fire in a Battersea block of flats this afternoon - not much in the way of dodgy cladding to speak of, mainly glass in the area of the fire, but even so it looks like it's done significant damage to 3 or 4 adjacent flats. Appears to have simply climbed up through the balconies.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/battersea-f...

8 appliances sent meaning over 50 firefighters so I guess the fire brigade management aren't taking chances now.

The response is defined by what's set up on the control system - management don't look at every incident and decide what to send, the controller types in the address and the system tells them what to send and where the closest available appliances are, when they get there they call for back up if needed.

The initial response for a high rise might change as a result of the Grenfell Inquiry, but it won't have changed yet.

[andy_s]

Yeah, I tend to agree that they were asking the wrong questions to the wrong person, but early days.

[Mark300zx]

john2443 said:

The initial response for a high rise might change as a result of the Grenfell Inquiry, but it won't have changed yet.

It changed pretty much immediately after grenfell, as there were a number of other blocks in the Capital covered with the same cladding.

[WatchfulEye]

Interesting revelation about the safety of some presumed safe cladding components just out.

See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44748514

The buildings regs permit the unrestricted use of "limited combustibility" materials, whereas combustible materials are required to be subject to a large scale fire test.

However, some limited combustibility products when tested at large scale have proven to spread fire sufficiently so as to fail the tests.

The product in this case is something called "Vitacore G2", which is an aluminium matrix, and therefore is classed as limited combustibility on the basis that aluminium doesn't burn.

[hidetheelephants]

WatchfulEye said:

Interesting revelation about the safety of some presumed safe cladding components just out.

See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44748514

The buildings regs permit the unrestricted use of "limited combustibility" materials, whereas combustible materials are required to be subject to a large scale fire test.

However, some limited combustibility products when tested at large scale have proven to spread fire sufficiently so as to fail the tests.

The product in this case is something called "Vitacore G2", which is an aluminium matrix, and therefore is classed as limited combustibility on the basis that aluminium doesn't burn.

As the RN discovered in the Falklands, aluminium has the structural strength of a wet paper bag at quite low fire temperatures, which can spread fire and hinder firefighting.

[98elise]

hidetheelephants said:

WatchfulEye said:

Interesting revelation about the safety of some presumed safe cladding components just out.

See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44748514

The buildings regs permit the unrestricted use of "limited combustibility" materials, whereas combustible materials are required to be subject to a large scale fire test.

However, some limited combustibility products when tested at large scale have proven to spread fire sufficiently so as to fail the tests.

The product in this case is something called "Vitacore G2", which is an aluminium matrix, and therefore is classed as limited combustibility on the basis that aluminium doesn't burn.

As the RN discovered in the Falklands, aluminium has the structural strength of a wet paper bag at quite low fire temperatures, which can spread fire and hinder firefighting.

Its also where we learned that plastic uniforms are not great in a fire. Staggering when you think about it. Warships are dangerous places even when you're not at war.

[saaby93]

WatchfulEye said:

The product in this case is something called "Vitacore G2", which is an aluminium matrix, and therefore is classed as limited combustibility on the basis that aluminium doesn't burn.

It's a myth that aluminium doesnt burn, as discussed earlier in the thread.
Maybe the Grenfell images will put paid to that
If youve an aluminum can on a camp fire you can see it burn, it depends what is meant by burn.

[Greendubber]

saaby93 said:

WatchfulEye said:

The product in this case is something called "Vitacore G2", which is an aluminium matrix, and therefore is classed as limited combustibility on the basis that aluminium doesn't burn.

It's a myth that aluminium doesnt burn, as discussed earlier in the thread.
Maybe the Grenfell images will put paid to that
If youve an aluminum can on a camp fire you can see it burn, it depends what is meant by burn.

Yep, I'm no metal expert but I've seen enough burnt out stolen motorbikes with very few bits left over.

[Mark300zx]

Interesting recreation of the Stardust nightclub fire, in which an aluminium ashtray shows signs of autoignition and then combusts in the foreground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeLKVFC27-0