Grenfell - Who pays

[Macski]

I am just an armchair expert but wasn't the reason for the loss of life lack of fire escapes?

How could a building be built with just one stairway, why could a fire escape not have been added to the side of the building an access to the roof?

If i were living in a high rise I would be less concerned with the cladding but how quickly and esily I can escape!

[anonymous-user]

Macski said:

I am just an armchair expert but wasn't the reason for the loss of life lack of fire escapes?

How could a building be built with just one stairway, why could a fire escape not have been added to the side of the building an access to the roof?

If i were living in a high rise I would be less concerned with the cladding but how quickly and esily I can escape!

If the cladding had been correct, the fire wouldnt have spread the way it did. Assuming the building is up to regulation (i.e correct firedoors for the front of flats and hallways) then the stairwell is isolated from the fire.

[PF62]

Macski said:

I am just an armchair expert but wasn't the reason for the loss of life lack of fire escapes?

How could a building be built with just one stairway, why could a fire escape not have been added to the side of the building an access to the roof?

If i were living in a high rise I would be less concerned with the cladding but how quickly and esily I can escape!

One additional stairway - as there are four flats on each floor (one in each corner) you would need at least two additional stairways, one for each set of two flats. However if as in Grenfell the flames were coming up one side of the building then you couldn't use one of them, so you would need to create a way to access the newly built fire escape on the other side of the building. You would have to do that internally, so you would have to create new cross corridors and take that space for them from the existing flats.

And that is before you get to the issue of how the fk you would expect a 70 year old to descend 24 floors of an external staircase in high winds and driving snow in February with the external stairway covered in ice - the ice we can cure by getting someone to salt both 24 storey external escapes twice a day, nah, not enough, four times a day.Or perhaps we could electrically heat them to stop them freezing.

And as for access to the roof - what could go wrong with that? The least of the problem will be supplying the fire brigade with a few Chinook helicopters to keep on standby to airlift everyone from the roof Towering Inferno style.

[Mojooo]

I have read about 200 pages of the report - its worth reading if you have time

Its interesting reading the timeline of events and on the website you can read the statements of firefighters and the Police - there is even some body worn footage from the Police and mobile phone footage of the fire from the guy whose flat initially caught fire

There is all sorts of stuff on there you might not have thought about like the Police talking about setting up a cordon and people arguing with them - people trying inventive ways of trying to get people out of the building - such as using cranes. The belief that the building was going to collapse.

The fire spread from ground 4 to 23 (top) in around 25 minutes.

[BlackLabel]

What an arse.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests Grenfell Tower residents who followed fire brigade's 'stay put' instructions lacked 'common sense'”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7649895/J...

[R Mutt]

BlackLabel said:

What an arse.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests Grenfell Tower residents who followed fire brigade's 'stay put' instructions lacked 'common sense'”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7649895/J...

Not sure you'd want to be running down burning stairs, but we've had the same advice in a 6 storey building and even though we've been charged to replace our 10 year old fire doors and other measures, I'd rather just lower myself from the balcony

To an extent, safety standards and 'stay put' are dependent on each other. The fire brigade can give this order more routinely if they know standards in place, and internal fire retardance seems to be favourable over additional exits.

Do we know how many ignored it and survived?

Edited by R Mutt on Tuesday 5th November 09:32

[chow pan toon]

BlackLabel said:

What an arse.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests Grenfell Tower residents who followed fire brigade's 'stay put' instructions lacked 'common sense'”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7649895/J...

I keep seeing on here what a clever chap Rees-Mogg is. Quite apart from the insensitivity of making such a cretinous comment, the timing is just astonishing.

[The Surveyor]

R Mutt said:

BlackLabel said:

What an arse.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests Grenfell Tower residents who followed fire brigade's 'stay put' instructions lacked 'common sense'”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7649895/J...

Not sure you'd want to be running down burning stairs, but we've had the same advice in a 6 storey building and even though we've been charged to replace our 10 year old fire doors and other measures, I'd rather just lower myself from the balcony

To an extent, safety standards and 'stay put' are dependent on each other. The fire brigade can give this order more routinely if they know standards in place, and internal fire retardance seems to be favourable over additional exits.

Do we know how many ignored it and survived?

I'm not sure his comments are remotely controversial. The official report says that the 'stay-put' message being put out by the call handling centre was wrong, that the communication from the firefighters at the building to those call handlers was flawed, and that more people would have survived had they not been told to stay-put.

The 'stay-put' message is based on a normal fire, where people are safer in their protected compartment from any fire spread, and where people escaping down the stair don't block the access for any firefighters. Grenfell was not a normal fire though, the building was burning from the outside inwards rather than the inside out. Senior firefighters were not trained to recognise this, but for anybody inside it should have been very clear that the fire was entering each flat from the windows rather than the stair core as you would expect.

Anything said about this fire will be twisted for political gain by those with certain agendas, but the common sense action when faced with any fire is to try and move away from the fire. In the context of what he said, if you were in an apartment and a fire burst through the windows into to your flat, I'm not sure it's really that controversial to suggest that it would be common sense to head to the escape stair.

[Mafffew]

BlackLabel said:

What an arse.

“Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests Grenfell Tower residents who followed fire brigade's 'stay put' instructions lacked 'common sense'”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7649895/J...

You can always rely on Jacob Rees-Mogg to be a complete and utter .

[anonymous-user]

It has been said many times that JRM is an uneducated person's idea of what an educated person is like. JRM does not appear to be particularly bright, and his lack of human empathy and compassion is well evident in most of what he says and does. It is an indictment of our times that people as worthless as JRM, Johnson, Corbyn etc have attained prominence in public life.

[XCP]

Hard to disagree with that!

[chow pan toon]

Grovelling apology issued "What I meant to say is that I would also have listened to the fire brigade's advice to stay and wait at the time."

He accidentally said the exact opposite, happens all the time to me

[b0rk]

Macski said:

I am just an armchair expert but wasn't the reason for the loss of life lack of fire escapes?

How could a building be built with just one stairway, why could a fire escape not have been added to the side of the building an access to the roof?

If i were living in a high rise I would be less concerned with the cladding but how quickly and esily I can escape!

The roof is absolutely the last place you want to escape to, not least because the smoke shaft will vent onto the roof. Smoke shafts exist for the purposes of keeping the internal corridors, lobbies, hallways clear from smoke by letting it rise and vent externally.
Helicoptering people off the roof isn't something done outside of movies.

If your building is square and the single core is in middle accessing a "side" escape means you will have to traverse through the core, a secondary exit offers absolutely no benefit for that type of building arrangement.

A two exit building IMHO need the cores set on two opposing sides. A travelodge or premier inn is a good example but also done in modern rectangular apartment blocks as these generally have two cores set equidistant from each other.

[The Mad Monk]

1. You are in a burning building.

2. you can either;-
a. Leave, or
b. Remain

3. Generally speaking, what do you think would be the common sense thing to do?

Oh and
4. Without seeking, offence, finding offence, taking offence, demanding an apology, or demanding resignation.

[abzmike]

The Mad Monk said:

1. You are in a burning building.

2. you can either;-
a. Leave, or
b. Remain

3. Generally speaking, what do you think would be the common sense thing to do?

Oh and
4. Without seeking, offence, finding offence, taking offence, demanding an apology, or demanding resignation.

You are in a burning building, and a fire fighter tells you in no uncertain terms to stay where you are. Would that influence your answers to questions 2-3?

[The Mad Monk]

abzmike said:

The Mad Monk said:

1. You are in a burning building.

2. you can either;-
a. Leave, or
b. Remain

3. Generally speaking, what do you think would be the common sense thing to do?

Oh and
4. Without seeking, offence, finding offence, taking offence, demanding an apology, or demanding resignation.

You are in a burning building, and a fire fighter tells you in no uncertain terms to stay where you are. Would that influence your answers to questions 2-3?

Yes, I would give his advice due consideration and then make a judgement and decision accordingly.

May i remind you that the people in the Twin towers in New York were given professional advice to remain in the building. Likewise, of course, Grenfell.

[The Surveyor]

abzmike said:

The Mad Monk said:

1. You are in a burning building.

2. you can either;-
a. Leave, or
b. Remain

3. Generally speaking, what do you think would be the common sense thing to do?

Oh and
4. Without seeking, offence, finding offence, taking offence, demanding an apology, or demanding resignation.

You are in a burning building, and a fire fighter tells you in no uncertain terms to stay where you are. Would that influence your answers to questions 2-3?

The enquiry showed that the advice to remain in the flats was wrong. Had that advice not been given the enquiry says fewer people would have perished. The enquiry had all the information to hand from all the experts.

The reason the advice was wrong to stay in the flat was because the building was burning from the outside in. Fire would have entered the individual flats from the windows, windows that offer no barrier to a fire at all. In that situation it may have been too late for some, and it was certainly an insensitive topic for Mogg to comment, but the over-riding common sense action for anybody faced with a fire is to move away from the fire. That's not to ignore the terror faced by those in the building, or the bravery and personal conflict needed to stay in their flat whilst the fire raged around the outside, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that they would have had a better chance of survival had they ignored the advice from the call handlers (note, not the fire fighters on the ground) and gone for the stairs.

Also, the 'stay-put' message came from the call handlers who were based miles away from the fire

[Reciprocating mass]

Place your bets on grenfell tower having at least
One new story of controversy a year for the next
50 years

[The Surveyor]

Reciprocating mass said:

Place your bets on grenfell tower having at least
One new story of controversy a year for the next
50 years

Absolutely, any story about the fire will be milked for 'controversy' by anybody with even the most remote vested interest.

Sadly all the political fluff will distract everybody from the real lessons that can be learnt from the fire. The enquiry report and the earlier report by Dame Hackitt provided genuine recommendations which if implemented correctly and robustly will make buildings design and procurement safer for everybody in the future. It would be tragic if that was lost because everybody was too scared to get involved for fear of becoming another Moss, Lawrence or Lammy

[austinsmirk]

minutes ago, I have had a conversation with a tnt, in a high rise, as to why he shouldn't have dumped his sofa in a communal corridor.

simply doesn't get it.

the day after grenfell, I had a similar conversation with another genius with a 15kg gas bottle on a BBQ, wheeled under a flight of stairs in a block of flats.

he couldn't see my concern either.