Thank you for the explanation. It makes much more sense now. No one is on the hook to pay compensation for deaths due to lack of safety measures. Add in self certifying and members of parliament defending it and it’s easy to see there’s little to encourage even the most minimal compliance. (Which party is it that supports lax safety codes, as to encourage more development?)
Around here even charities have meet fire code. Everybody does. Always. Even hundred+ year old churches!
It’s a council block in a rich borough. Only poor people live there so no lawmaker cares.
Christ almighty, it’s still going. Watching BBC news and a tearful reporter is standing in front of a building where half the windows still show flames. (Picture here too: https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/875091278349914112/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2Ftwitter.min.html%23875091278349914112) WTF has happened?
Lacking a sprinkler system, I’m dubious that there was a firefighting standpipe (wet or dry). Even if there were, any booster or external supply point would’ve been involved in the fire, too - or endangered by falling debris.
That’s not the sort of thing I mean (I’m talking inside the building) but in any case there doesn’t seem to have been anything like it available for use here.
My previous flat ended up with windows that couldn’t be opened due to my idiot landlord painting them shut from the outside, which I couldn’t access. It took YEARS to get them to agree to fix it. Years. A fire that blocked my access to the front door would have been instant death, but they didn’t care. Social housing landlords in England often act like slum landlords. There are some regulations - they’re meant to be fined for not completing repairs on time - but that never happens.
It’s possible we’re using different terms to describe the same thing.
In the States, it’s common to have a dry spinkler system, which is kept from activating by air-pressure valves - When fire heats the detector links, the airpressure is released, and water flood the pipes and begins sprinkling. An alternative system has external supply points where a fire engine can attach a large hose to supply high-pressure sprinkler water independant of any internal supply. Yet another system is a ‘wet’ system, in which pressurized water constantly in the pipes, awaiting a fire.
That all said, yes, I agree, there doesn’t appear to have been any modern firefighting systems in place.
Fuel, oxygen and heat. There’ll be hotspots all over the upper floors of the building, and it’s a nightmare for the fire/recovery services.
Edit: Worth watching Newsnight, Sam. They’re doing a good - and quite angry in places - job.
The reaction has been interesting - the level of distress and anger from reporters is way more than I’d have expected. Everyone I know is angry as well as sad because we know that certain govt policies play into making this more difficult to deal with. The borough won’t have anywhere to rehouse these people because a govt housing bill last year is forcing them to sell off most of their vacant stock. Ironically if they do have anything available it will probably be in a tower block because that’s the lowest value. I mean obviously no council would be able to rehouse this many displaced households but it’s likely they won’t be able to rehouse more than a handful, if that.
In case anyone thinks it’s insensitive to bring up politics immediately, some of the survivors are talking about it themselves.
And the residents before, of course. You bet this is political. :mad:
Monty Python already made a sketch about this:
The council have provided temporary accommodation in hotels for 44 families. 44!
There are well over 1000 empty properties in the borough. I’d be well up for supporting a campaign for compulsory purchase of some of the long-term empty homes, paid for out of the national purse because otherwise the council will go bankrupt and the council are not the only ones who’ve caused the problems with housing. I know people will be calling for council heads to roll and some probably should but the buck doesn’t stop there.
Some locals have been on TV saying they bought a load of phone chargers and gave cash to some of the survivors. Good thinking.
Would water bombers have helped ?, don’t know if the UK maintains any aircraft dedicated to that use. But with the fire climbing up that side of the building, makes me wonder if a water strike would have smothered it.
Water weighs about 8 lbs a gallon, it can aid in the collapse of a structure, the fire commander is doing all those calculations.
I’ve never heard of a dedicated water bomber. I have heard suggestions that the fire brigade should send in helicopters. 5o quote someone from another board:
Lots of reasons for not firefighting tall buildings from aircraft. Visibility, strong down and up drafts, targeting seat of fire, structural damage from tons of water suddenly hitting the building, risk of knocking people off the building or injuring them in the process, fanning of flames, overall rate of delivery of water.
Perhaps if it was a condemned building with no possible survivors (lots of people on the roof, almost definitely dead but you never know) in an uninhabited area it would make sense, but not here. With that smoke plume I doubt any aerial vehicle could get close enough to not risk shooting tons of water down on neighbouring structures while also killing the pilots.
ISTM that the fire brigade did the best they possibly could. And that includes the policy of telling residents to stay put - in a normal situation, that would be the best thing to do, especially in a building with one stairwell, because how else are the firefighters supposed to get in?
This just was not a normal situation and we don’t know why yet.
When I was a kid I lived in a block of flats, not a tower block but more like the Camberwell one that people died in in 2009. On my block a downstairs neighbour fell asleep smoking and her entire flat was a charred hole, but it didn’t spread (my neighbour died). That block was built in the sixties and really should have been less fire-safe than this one, which was built in the 70s after stricter legislation came into place due to a different fire. This fire should not have spread like that. It’s bizarre that it did.
I’ve read that one the tenants prior concerns was access for emergency vehicles.
That didn’t seem to be a factor during the fire. I didn’t see any reports that the firetrucks couldn’t get to the fire.
Here’s the quote I am referring to. It’s in the BBC live report already linked.
I heard that too. :eek: :smack: It reminded me of this story.
The children were told to stay where they were and pray for the firemen to arrive, even if they were not in imminent danger. :rolleyes: This cost a lot of them their lives, and led to the serious injuries of many, many more.
Has a cause for the fire been publicly confirmed yet? I’ve heard about the “Exploding Refrigerator” theory already, but was wondering whether someone official has come forward with what they think started the horrible, horrible thing. And whether there was accelerant present beyond the normal household sorts of things.
Although TPTB are probably still in body recovery mode, to be honest.
Could be due to the time of day. This happened in the middle of the night. Or it could be due to the immediately obvious serious nature of the incident (they’d have no qualms about damaging vehicles).
Or - which I think most likely - that particular concern might have been addressed. The block may well have had severely reduced access for emergency vehicles during the presumably long refurb. I’ve seen that happen. “Temporary” but severe access problems lasting for months. If that’s the case then it obviously didn’t cause problems with this fire, but it does tell you something about London councils and planning regulations when it comes to safety.