London Fire

[M107]

I remember years ago, the fire brigade would come around all the time and put a standpipe on the hydrant adn blast the thing for 5 minutes to clean it out i suppose. Never see that now.. The other day, i connected a 2 1/2" standpipe to the hydrant across the road from my house and opened it up. For about 5 seconds the water was pitch black, and then a double handful of stones shot out of the thing.. Just what the fire pump needs.....

I was at the hospital the other day and the fire brigade turned up [false alarm] I asked them about the testing of the hydrants and they said it is down to the "water board" now. Big surprise, but the "water board" not not care, and never do it at all..

It is like everything else, nobody, apart from the front line staff that have to sort out the ****, care about anything...

john...

We have a couple of guys that travel round the county testing & remarking  hydrants & wash downs.

 

[binky]

As for building checks I think it isn't a case of less buildings being checked, more a case of standards slipping, which as we all know seems to be happening in all sectors these days.

In my area Fire officers would random check rented domestic buildings, visit factories at least every other year to familiarise themselves with the property. I'm sure some of this still happens, but not to the same level as it once did. They will visit by request of course, but then the worse offenders are very unlikley to ever call. As for standards, I suspect the enquiry will find someone didn't do the job properly, like repair fire breaks.

 

[rapparee]

In my area Fire officers would random check rented domestic buildings, visit factories at least every other year to familiarise themselves with the property. I'm sure some of this still happens, but not to the same level as it once did. They will visit by request of course, but then the worse offenders are very unlikley to ever call. As for standards, I suspect the enquiry will find someone didn't do the job properly, like repair fire breaks.

We still get a visit every year from the fire brigade. They check our fire safety log book (my responsibility), emergency lights (my responsibility), and for accessibility to take a fire engine around the site 

Incidentally each floor, of which there were 26, contained 6 flats, now if we take an average occupancy of 4 tenants per flat, that equates to some 624 people, even allowing for people who escaped, people who were not at home at the time, and the fact that not all flats will have had 4 occupants, there is still potential for the loss of one hell of a lot of lives. I sincerely hope this is not the case .

I see Lilly Allen on ch4 news saying it is likely to be 150 dead.

 

[Evans Electric]

I noticed in one of the interviews on radio, the person refered to hearing "the gas popping as the fire spread ".    I'm pretty sure that tower blocks don't have gas in them since an explosion some years ago .

Then I realised she was , I think, refering to camping gas or butane .  I'm thinking in terms of the small gas canisters used for primus type cookers .   I would hope their use is not widespread in a tower block.

 

[Blue Duck]

Gas was recently installed I believe. Most new mains are run externally but aesthetics are clearly a priority in Kensington.

Don't believe the hype, there is a lot of media bias.  this was truly a horrific incident, the stories I hear are absolutely heart breaking, some people live steamed their deaths. 

Riots will happen again this summer if it isn't dealt with properly.

 

[binky]

angry crowds already gathering......

 

[ProDave]

The cladding manufacturer has said "it met building regs"  I have not yet heard anyone say "well building regs are wrong and need changing PDQ"

 

[Sharpend]

This demonstrates how stupid the human being is, who thought that it would be sensible to clad a building in a combustible material? 

Yes we all have a piece of timber here and there or the pvc gutter but the whole external face of a building which houses so many? Really?? 

It beggars belief when we can't use a combustible material for a cu, because of fire and ease of spreading yet it's ok to cloak a building with the stuff?? 

 

[Blue Duck]

The cladding manufacturer has said "it met building regs"  I have not yet heard anyone say "well building regs are wrong and need changing PDQ"

Fire regs were due for reform after the last tower block fire but 8 years later the government were still "looking at it" .

Was up for discussion until the recent election.

I read somewhere that up until the 1980s there was a requirement for any external cladding to  be fire proof but this was repealed.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

What an horrific thing to happen; my deepest sympathies are with all the victims and their families.

Unfortunately the media love this kind of thing to zero in on; Manchester bombing; London terrorists and now this huge fire sadly killing and injuring so many. What will happen next week then this fire will soon be forgotten  with the victims left to struggle and fend for themselves once out of the spotlight; we live in a truly sick society these days.

Many years ago my younger brother whilst living in an upstairs flat in Wakefield awoke to see a busload of passengers staring in on him; the entire front of the building had gone in an exposition. Cooking gas was supplied via big gas cylinders located in the basement; one of these cylinders had been leaking hence the explosion. After the usual outcry and media interest a collection was organised for the victims; my brother received very little indeed but later whilst having a quiet drink in his local pub he overheard a comment saying who does he think he is drinking on donations? My brother was totally uninjured but the big old Victorian building was severely damaged. 

Boscastle; Somerset Plains and Hebden Bridge spring to mind these all being massive floods that made so much media interest but I wonder how much support all those affected received after the MP's etc had visited? Perhaps next week will be more flooding given the way the weather is behaving.

This terrible fire needs investigating in a proper manner without the media fanning the flames and lots of finger pointing.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[rapparee]

Apparently health and safety standards are atrocious over in the UK. We were getting our Vesda system serviced today by a fella from Belfast. He told me he was working over in England a few months ago doing student accommodation. They went to one block and the landlord said they have a perfect system it never gives any bother, when he opened up the panel there was nothing connected to the loops. When he investigated the smoke heads he realised they had just screwed the smoke detectors to the roof with no connections. They ended up redoing the whole apartment block.

This is a genuine true story.

 

[Blue Duck]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/16/london-fire-latest-updates-grenfell-tower-fire-victims/

 

[OnOff]

Hi Andy, I know that for really high buildings they have wet risers instead of dry ones, but why is that?? I would have thought that a fire engine can pump water to a much higher head than the municipal water mains??

john..

19 storey place I'm based in has wet risers at 14 bar. Sprinklers go off and this triggers the basement sprinkler pumps. I was there when a fitting came apart on the 14th floor. Somebody decided to adjust it without isolating the system. Punched a hole through a fire door and caused a major flood.

What I like is the stair pressurisation system that keeps the stairwells at positive pressure and thus smoke free.

A few years back a massive stack of PUR foam went up at the site across the road and enveloped us in thick, acrid black smoke. Someone in our building, thinking we were on fire hit the break glass. Our stair pressurisation units (on the roof) kicked in and filled the stairwells with smoke from the external source! 

I was thinking stair pressurisation at Grenfell Tower might have helped but probably would have made it worse!

 

[Andy™]

surely it would be better to push air into the stairways from ground level. or maybe someone didnt tell the designer that smoke rises?

 

[phil d]

surely it would be better to push air into the stairways from ground level. or maybe someone didnt tell the designer that smoke rises?

Absolutely not! the dynamics of a fire are quite complex but if you push air from the ground upward you actually cause the fire to burn faster, you should feed the air at pressure from above, this cancels out the 'flue' effect.

 

[Andy™]

good point

 

[OnOff]

Absolutely not! the dynamics of a fire are quite complex but if you push air from the ground upward you actually cause the fire to burn faster, you should feed the air at pressure from above, this cancels out the 'flue' effect.

In the stairwells when the (roof) fans kick in, (they're about 2m diameter btw) you can indeed feel the pressure. It's quite noisy too. It takes some noticeable physical effort to go from the lift lobby into the stairwell (and vise versa) as the doors are in effect being pushed shut by the pressure.

As I say I've seen the system drag in black, acrid smoke in unusual circumstances.

 

[phil d]

In the stairwells when the (roof) fans kick in, (they're about 2m diameter btw) you can indeed feel the pressure. It's quite noisy too. It takes some noticeable physical effort to go from the lift lobby into the stairwell (and vise versa) as the doors are in effect being pushed shut by the pressure.

As I say I've seen the system drag in black, acrid smoke in unusual circumstances.

Exactly, the fans drag in from the roof and push air downwards, if the fans were reversed, or the air was pushed in at the ground floor it would actually feed the fire.When the brigade use ppv(positive pressure ventilation) to clear smoke from a building, they put a fan in the doorway and open all the windows,but they'll only do this after the fire is completely out, otherwise it will re ignite.

 

[OnOff]

Exactly, the fans drag in from the roof and push air downwards, if the fans were reversed, or the air was pushed in at the ground floor it would actually feed the fire.When the brigade use ppv(positive pressure ventilation) to clear smoke from a building, they put a fan in the doorway and open all the windows,but they'll only do this after the fire is completely out, otherwise it will re ignite.

Just read on another forum the suggestion that Grenfell Tower had a stairwell/corridor pressurisation system fitted as part of the refurb. I wonder if it would have just dragged in the smoke from the burning facade?

 

[Phoenix]

I noticed in one of the interviews on radio, the person refered to hearing "the gas popping as the fire spread ". (1)    I'm pretty sure that tower blocks don't have gas in them since an explosion some years ago .(2)

Then I realised she was , I think, refering to camping gas or butane .  I'm thinking in terms of the small gas canisters used for primus type cookers .   I would hope their use is not widespread in a tower block.(3)

(1)Many materials, wood being a key one, give off gasses as they burn which pop and crackle ( see this on the physics of a camp fire https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/39396) I could quite imagine PUR insulation behaving in a similar way, I imagine this is what the reference is too.

(2) Now I thought as you did, that sicne ronan point, that gas wasn't allowed, I am pretty sure that after the incident many towers had it ripped out, when at college, a tutor recalled a shortage of MK cooker switches (the big ones, the 6 inch square jobbies) at the time due to the installation of electric cookers in all these blocks, I have seen locally with two towers, one built either side of the incident, that the latter one, all the DNO feeders and distribution are sized bigger (as designed for 100% electric). But gas does seem to be installed in many places (and the news mentioned that the glenfell tower had to have a cracked gas main isolated by the gas board before the fire fighters could progress further) So I think gas has been put back into many of these places, I guess modern flame failure devices are considered reliable enough.... makes me un-easy though.

(3) Now that is an interesting one, one would certainly not consider camping gas stoves with propane and butane gas cylinders as appropiate to have in tower blocks, however if you were to go to currys and walk along the fridge isle and look at the compressor unit on the back, chances are just about everyone will have a label on it saying R600a. Now R600a is iso-butane (very similar to butane, the same number of hydrgoen and carbon molecules, but slight variation to arrangement) some units might be labelled as R290 (thats propane) R290a (thats a propane and iso-butane mix) or R600 (Butane). We all get un-easy about a camping gas stove in a tower, but what about the countless fridges thats have the equivelent of a few cans of the same inside!