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Tower block on fire in London


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13 minutes ago, aaid said:

A friend of mine works in housing at RBKC.  I think he's back from holiday today, I guess he'll be busy over the next few days. 


What an incredibly banal/weird post in the context of people dying in a fire.

 

Edited by phart
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14 minutes ago, phart said:


What an incredibly banal/weird post in the context of people dying in a fire.

 

It was a comment on the hundreds of people that will need rehoused as that's the area he works in. 

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You'd like to hope he'll be busy but that's a big fire over a large area from 1am in the morning.

Could be grim once they eventually get into the building. It might be too unsafe to enter for ages.

How can building with fire cladding go up so quickly and so intensely? Its insane. 

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It's the time it happened as well

The majority of the residents will have been in bed

Im going to try not to think about it anymore as the potential number of deaths is horrendous

Edited by Ally Bongo
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7 minutes ago, scoobydoo said:

How can building with fire cladding go up so quickly and so intensely? Its insane. 

I suspect that once the investigation is complete there will be some serious questions to be answered.  

This is pure speculation but there looks to me to be parallels with the Edinburgh schools fiasco.   Contractors cutting costs at the extent of safety not being picked up by lax council oversight.

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This is extremely bewildering to me. Almost beyond comprehension. I have over 20+ years post qualification experience as a construction professional and this just shouldn't happen - I also have over 12 years in facade and curtain walling systems, and specialise in Insurance fire here in Australia. Without speculating (and I do have a theory based on the photographs, suffice to say that someone is going to Jail), but this just doesn't make sense to me. I wouldn't consider myself to be a specialist, you know... a little knowledge and all that but ...

All the lessons are text book for any construction undergraduate after Ronan Point in 1968. Something has been seriously compromised here in the design/construction materials. Every UK designer would be aware of this, and if not all, at least someone within the design team/specialist sub contractor would be. Otherwise, you would think it was an act of Arson/Terrorism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point 

I also worked on the Glasgow/Edinburgh PPP/PFI Schools - these were rushed for political and commercial reasons - never experienced anything like it before or since - the bottom end of the chain ie. Project managers and Sub Contractors were bullied by Snr Managers/Councillors and put under far too much pressure Cost and Time wise. Obviously Quality was compromised (It was actually so apparent, it was embarrassing). It was hailed as a success story at the time - those of us behind the scenes knew it was an abomination. The Council took all the credit at the time, and I had to laugh when I read their responses recently - its wisnae me, a big boy did it and ran away.

I feel so angry and sad for these people, it looks like 9/11 from the news videos - I can't help feeling that cost has been the main driver in the refurbishment, but more so - professional incompetence and compromising the safety of people. 

Something really strange has gone on here.

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Something somewhere is (very) flammable. And fire prevention systems/infrastructure has clearly failed. I hope the building survives because many people need to be jailed for this and as much evidence as possible is needed to ensure all that must be learned, is learned.

Absolutely appalling.

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That sort of spread of fire shouldn't happen.  It looks to me suspiciously like one or more of poor design, detailing and specification with a system that is not only alarmingly flammable but which does not appear to have had any firebreaks installed.  I do a bit of design work for a company that does external insulated cladding and I understood that the material used for the insulation contained a fire suppressant which meant that it didn't really burn.  I wonder if some cheaper non-approved material has been used in a dangerous attempt at cost cutting.  I was recently involved in a job where a concrete structure didn't perform as it should and it turned out that the contractor had not built what was actually designed as his client, the developer, had demanded cost savings which were achieved partly by using a far cheaper and weaker insulation in places under a floor slab where a high strength insulation had been specified. Nobody was injured but it will end up costing a fortune to put it right. The number of houses I have seen where there are problems with wall ties having been omitted is in the dozens.  Quality control is a huge problem in contracts, especially design build contracts where there is no independent oversight - or even where there is supposed to be, as in the Edinburgh schools.

It takes a horrific incident like this to draw attention to the problem.  Let's hope governments start to listen to advice from people who know what they are talking about.  People's lives are too important to risk for a few pounds of cost saving.

Edited by Alibi
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41 minutes ago, Auld_Reekie said:

Something somewhere is (very) flammable. And fire prevention systems/infrastructure has clearly failed. I hope the building survives because many people need to be jailed for this and as much evidence as possible is needed to ensure all that must be learned, is learned.

Absolutely appalling.

The tower is about 150m tall and more than likely the fire pumps can't go that high to allow adequate deluge on the upper floors..

 

as you and huntingmcGregor also says above, its gaol time for someone.

 

What a catastrophe, on a level with piper alpha, bradford, Hillsborough.

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1 hour ago, fringo said:

Watching the news now it's still burning !

Aye didn't really see the news til late on. What an absolutely horrific event.

Seems so obvious that wrapping a building in plastic won't help its fire defence? :unsure:

Noticed TV architect George Clarke being interviewed, he lives next to the block and was clearly very disturbed by what he'd witnessed.

 

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2 hours ago, Toepoke said:

Noticed TV architect George Clarke being interviewed, he lives next to the block and was clearly very disturbed by what he'd witnessed.

 

It's harrowing. I'm trying not to think about it.

When i was at uni i lived in a tenament in Dennistoun one year and it had a chip pan fire. Just going down the one flight of stairs, I had no idea the smoke would be so incapacitating, and this was a minor, minor, minor thing in comparison. I barely got out the front cause of the smoke you have no idea till you're in it.

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My dad was a fireman for 20 years. You could tell when there had been a fatality as he would become very distant. He'd pulled quite a few bodies, including bairns out of buildings. He was always going on about how much their BA meant to them.

Fortunately house fires are rarer nowadays compared to then. Dear knows what these guys down there are thinking just now. Hopefully those that died were asphyxiated rather than burnt to death.

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7 hours ago, Toepoke said:

Aye didn't really see the news til late on. What an absolutely horrific event.

Seems so obvious that wrapping a building in plastic won't help its fire defence? :unsure:

When I was a kid I came very close to being involved in this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerland_disaster

We were on holiday in the Isle of Man at the time and were planning on going that night but because it was raining we went during the day instead. 

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