Anyone watching this terrible fire?...Any chance this building collapses? This fire is absolutely massive...Here's hoping the best for all affected.
OT: London High Rise Fire...
- Thread starter toobadface
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Just saw the video on local news ---- the ENTIRE building is on fire. 24 stories! That is NOT normal.
First things first - hope that firefighters can save some folk. But this blaze and the scale of it does beg a lot of questions ...........
First things first - hope that firefighters can save some folk. But this blaze and the scale of it does beg a lot of questions ...........
Building collapse will depend on how well the structural steel is protected and how much of the building is actually consumed by fire. I am looking for video of it and have only found pics.
Yeah, the fact that nearly every floor appears to be engulfed seems strange to me, especially since it has been reported that the fire started in one of the floors near the top of the building. It also seems that the fire must have spread rather quickly...
Just seen video of it on ABC's site. Looked like it was fully involved pretty much, or will be soon. Older buildings were overbuilt, ex. the Empire State Building, and newer buildings are designed to work on multiple components where if one part fails, the others will soon after. Lets hope it was an older building.
Something definitely suspicious about that fire. Buildings don't just get engulfed due to a typical electrical fire or someone leaving something on the stove too long.
I was thinking the same thing. This would appear to be classified as a "soft" target and I fear these crackpots have found a new threat. Hopefully I am wrong. Stay safe
Apparently residents have been writing a blog documenting their complaints with the landlord and expressing their fears that the building was a giant fire trap for some time now: https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/kctmo-playing-with-fire/
Beat me to it Raffy! Try to load another website from the management company detailing their fire risk assessment results. www.kctmo.org.uk/sub/safety/107/fire-and-smoke-alarms but it seems to be down right now prob due to overuse.
Additional reports say that the fire started on the 4th floor when a resident's fridge exploded, the building has had a history of electrical surge issues.
What are these buildings constructed of? When I worked in Beltsville they were building new townhomes and condos along my route. I noticed that all of them were stick construction and I kept wondering 'wow, what is going to happen if there is a fire' well, they don't last long. A small stove fire will spread very quickly no matter if there are fire stops in the walls or what not. They just go up like bon fires.
The London tower devastated by a vicious building fire may have been installed with flammable cladding during a recent renovation. Online records indicate contractor Harley Facades Limited installed "over-cladding with ACM cassette rainscreen" at Grenfell Tower. ACM stands for aluminium composite material, which is the same combustible product blamed for fuelling nearly a dozen major high-rise fires globally in the past decade.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/london-...ted-with-deadly-cladding-20170614-gwr9qf.html
Way too tall for stick construction - from what I saw it's concrete the whole way through, which is probably the reason why it didn't collapse. There is an issue of the cladding that another poster mentioned, though, as well as what appears to be the landlord's long-documented history of shoddy maintenance practices. Residents were apparently saying, too, that there weren't any sprinklers (or they didn't function) and that fire alarms didn't go off.
Are you making a point? It's still the landlord's responsibility to keep the common areas clean. If he has a problem with some tenants dumping stuff, then hire a security guard or put up security cameras.
I know the building was too tall for stick construction... but there is no reason for a concrete structure to burn like that. Unreal. That company should be shuttered, the people who own it should have their assets sold off and the money go to the families of the dead, the injured, and those that lost everything. The owners should also spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars. Sickening.
Let's not hang the contractors just yet. It was built in 1974. If it wasn't constructed to 1974 standards, that is on the code inspectors who had 40+ years to notice it.
It was stated earlier in this thread that in a recent renovation, the contractors installed a flammable cladding.
Mark, 45, a witness to the Wednesday's London fire, said the Greenfell Tower had recently been renovated with cladding added to the outside. He believed the cladding caused the fire's intensity.
"It was burning like paper, it wasn't the building, it wasn't the structure. That cladding - it was just like throwing fuel on the fire." he said.
Another witness, Sam, 23, was returning to his home on a street nearby Latimer Road at 1am.
"The whole thing just went up, it took off like a match to paper," he told Fairfax Media.
"Whole panels were coming off in flames, their hoses could reach only halfway up the building, and whole bits of the facade from the top, these panels were literally falling down. It was horrible."
So you are arguing that we need stricter regulations and a reduced influence of corporate lobbyists. I agree.
our code is still stricter than theirs is
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...g-to-happen-fire-expert-slams-uk-tower-blocks
Again, was the cladding code kosher when it was added? If not, why did the inspectors allow it to be installed?
Why would a highly flammable cladding be deemed kosher? Greed, corruption, a complete lack of human decency?
Again, If they used an approved material and installed it correctly, that is not the building designer/contractor's fault.
Just costs more and forces business to cut more corners. Half the inspectors are morons who don't know chit. Plenty of examples: Philly Salvation Army collapse, AC Parking garage collapse. MY favorite was the new condos in NOrristown Pa that were flagged as unsafe and the building condemned. Norristown was charging for permits but had no building inspector so they just had a secretary rubber stamp everything. The owners have mortgages but can't live there.
Plastic exterior...terrible mistake. Apparently put on recently. UK needs to look at fire codes. You are essentially encasing the building with fuel. Even modern sprinklers no good in this case -- the sprinklers can't soak the OUTSIDE of the building.
It would be the same problem with vinyl siding on an apartment building. I think you're limited to 3 story building to put vinyl on in most US jurisdictions. Definitely not a good idea for a 27-story building.
There is pretty much no way to make plastic non-flammable. It's made of petroleum and at the right temperature it will melt, vaporize and then burn explosively. Building exteriors need to be masonry, steel, glass, stucco, concrete, any kind of ceramic, stone.... But that's more expensive.
It would be the same problem with vinyl siding on an apartment building. I think you're limited to 3 story building to put vinyl on in most US jurisdictions. Definitely not a good idea for a 27-story building.
There is pretty much no way to make plastic non-flammable. It's made of petroleum and at the right temperature it will melt, vaporize and then burn explosively. Building exteriors need to be masonry, steel, glass, stucco, concrete, any kind of ceramic, stone.... But that's more expensive.
Wow just seeing this thread. I used to work for a company that manufactured fire retardant material. Not sure if it was around then, but now many structures wrap the beams with endothermic material. The thought is it will buy time for people to get out of large structures. The problem is elevator shafts, chaseways/ HVAC shafts, etc. send oxygen to the fire. If those beams get hot enough, the structure will be significantly weakened. IIRC that is what happened to the World Trade Center.
Horrible situation.
Oh yeah that must be it!
Some of you should try sitting on a board for a building at some point. The rich people aren't the problem. Nor are the neighbors.
The problem are those who will fight tooth and nail against a $5k assessment to install sprinklers, yelling and sometimes resorting to violence so they can remain in their inherited $700k ocean front apartment.
The other problem are those who believe everyone but them should do the work. Yet they should be able to complain about everything.
LdN
Someone who inherits a $700,000 oceanfront apartment qualifies them as one of the rich people, in my book.
But you're right - 100% of the blame for this disaster lies with the landlord who failed to provide a safe living environment for the residents after years of complaints, and on the (formerly) governing party in government for fighting tooth and nail against mandatory sprinkler laws and who cut spending to programs that assisted in retrofitting buildings with fire protection mechanisms.
