šŸ”„ Grenfell Fire

This is the final paragraph of the blogā€¦

" The Grenfell Action Group predict that it wonā€™t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the heath and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They canā€™t say that they havenā€™t been warned!"

Fuck me. I know no investigating has been conducted yet but it looks damming and disgraceful.

Philip Davies is a truly odious individual

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The only blessing is that the death toll isnt much higher. When I first saw the pictures I thought that few would escape.

This is very sad. Iā€™ve lived in a high rise for a short while in the past and can only imagine how terrifying it must of been for the residents.

I shudder to think how many lives will be affected, not only by injury/death but by losing everything they own. 150 flats - 400 to 600 people ā€¦ I really feel for them.

Genuinely one of the most tragic events Iā€™ve ever seen unfold in this country. Felt sick to my stomach listening to some of the accounts.

Cladding is fine as a concept. Itā€™s what you make the cladding out of. Donā€™t know what they made this out of, but according to eyewitness reports, the fire got from the fourth floor to the top in 20 minutes.

The other factor may have been the ā€œpolystyrene-likeā€ insulation material, coming off in chunks.

When you read the Glenfell action report, this really does look like a tragedy in slow motion. Thatā€™s the thing I canā€™t get out of my head; the horror that these people must have experienced before the fires took them. It also appears that if concerns had been listened to, it could have been entirely avoided.

Blag cladding, race to the bottom, why are we doing up (loosely termed) these towers of deprivation anyway? People need houses, if people choose to live like that fine, but people shouldnā€™t be placed there.

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This is one report about why there was cladding

grenfell-tower-cladding-fire-cause-improve-kensington-block-flats-appearance-blaze-24-storey-west-a7789951.html

My colleague said her good friend lives opposite and could hear screaming she wont forget. Sometimes the bad news seems endless.

Just got to Kos, so just catching up on this, but the cladding would probably be pretty fire resistant. However, what fixes it to the building? My bet is wooden battonsā€¦

@intiniki posted a link which suggests the insulation could be to blame.

Multiple problems. The installation may have a part to play, but the cladding was flammable(pictures show it burning). Fixings should be stainless steel(canā€™t have sections falling). The main problem though is this.

Chartered surveyor and fire expert Arnold Tarling, from Hindwoods, said the process can create a 25-30mm cavity between the cladding and the insulation. ā€œIt produces a wind tunnel and also traps any burning material between the rain cladding and the building," he said.

Anyone thatā€™s used a bunsen burner will understand. Put them all together and you get a disaster . Iā€™m struggling to understand how this was allowed. Aesthetics over safety?

BBC London news had a fire safety officer demonstrating how cladding / insulation burns - fucking quickly!

We donā€™t know the truth of the matter so canā€™t say what caused the building to burn like that, but my gut reaction is that those culpable will only get a slap on the wristsā€¦as always.

The cladding is stainless steel or something that has a high temp tolerance, blag internal foam between the two (kingspan like foam?) will burn like fuck once going. Slightly different but gloss paint once going is another bastard.

A London firefighter today described the insides of the flats as ā€˜like the third worldā€™. Speaks volumes.

Millions spent on doing them up, yet none of this money was spent on sprinkler systems, residents saying there were no fire alarms. Incredibly there was only one stairwell for the whole block. This is the 21st century FFS.

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Also worrying is the race to build as many new tower blocks for sale between Waterloo and Clapham. Seems like the wild west. Hopefully after today someone will check and take responsibility for ensuring corners arenā€™t being cutā€¦

We live in a new build block. Itā€™s not a high rise and if we jumped from our 2nd floor weā€™d break a few bits but hopefully survive? We donā€™t have cladding apart from possibly some bits on balconies. We do not have a fire exit only one door to the building which is near the stairs. If the fire is in the stairwell we are not sure how we would get out (apart from jumping). They could have put fire exits at each end of the building as there is space between flats. We havenā€™t noticed sprinklers either. Starts to make you think.

Youā€™re right about that but honestly, thereā€™s literally no fucking space anymore in London.

In damn near any other country, a concerted effort would have been made to quite simply build outwards; just expand the city as is necessary to cope with its growing population. Problem is that the Green Belt/Nimby combo in the leafy suburbs with their 7-figure houses quickly put paid to that idea. So instead, we cram into shoeboxes that are 8-foot wide and cost Ā£3k per month to rent.

This isnā€™t even a novel idea. After the war was over the plan was to do precisely that - and we did to a large extent, with eyes even further afield than modern-day zone 5/6 - there simply wasnā€™t anywhere near as much ideological opposition to the (shock horror) crazy idea of making London bigger to fit all the people in.

This is an interesting mini-documentary on the subject (honestly, its more interesting than the title suggests).

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Here in Dubai we have had a number of Tower Block fires.

All newly built and sprinklers did save lives. Causes ranged from discarded cigarettes and illegally stored waste through to electric spotlight bulbs.

Huge steps have been taken regular drills & inspections.

The point is the cladding had to meet the same building regs as the UK & EU.

Subsequent investigations revealed those rules were not fit for purpose & MOST cladding from about 2003 onwards is a fire risk.

A number of orders have been made forcing developers to install new fire proof spec materials (at significant cost) our apartment block needed special external balcony sprinklers to be installed and bans on bbq.

All of this can be googled here in official publications.That cladding has been used GLOBALLY it is a ticking time bombTemperatures at the Address Hotel fire - the NYE one on TV - reached over 3000C but no lives were lost due to the design rules and the sprinklers.

That is on top of any management/procedural/criminal errors that could have happened

Any Tower Block without sprinklers or working alarms is a death trap and people here would be charged with manslaughter

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