Reports from London this morning sound just terrible. How could a modern building (constructed to "code") burn so fast and so badly?
Reports from London this morning sound just terrible. How could a modern building (constructed to "code") burn so fast and so badly?
For starters it's not a "modern" building, and traditionally council housing in England is built by the lowest bidder and then maintained to lower standards than it is built. There was an expensive renovation on the building recently, but my bet is that was just gilding the kindling, not anything that would have improved the safety of the structure.
From the BBC:
Grenfell Tower was built in 1974 by Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council.
A two-year £10m refurbishment - which was part of a wider transformation of the estate - was completed by Rydon Construction last year. Work included new exterior cladding, replacement windows and a communal heating system.
There was also extensive remodelling of the bottom four floors, creating nine additional homes, and improvements to communal facilities.
Don't forget, these are basically vertical slums. Assisted income housing built upwards instead of outwards. Anywhere that costs can be cut, to appease either taxpayers or line the pockets of bureaucrats, they will be cut...
There are many apartment buildings that are constructed with bricks but have wood floors.
I've read some comments in the UK press that the new outside cladding used when remodeling may have been flammable and apparently has been mentioned in conjunction with a fire or two in Australia. There's also been complaints by the residents dating back to at least 2014 about lack of fire safety, fire extinguishers being out of date and other issues like that.
Not to mention that the understaffed Fire Department appeared to have to fight the fire from the ground - no full explanation on that yet, but there were a couple of throwaway remarks that there might have been issues with the dry risers.
@Woody, I wouldn't think the building had wooden floors - most of these council-owned high rises from the 70s in Britain are made out of concrete. They may have floating plywood subfloors, though.
Was late for work reading about this this morning. Horrible situation. Even worse, the signs in the building said things like "If there's a fire and it's not actually in your flat, don't evacuate." 
A lot of talk about the flammable cladding. Apparently it goes up quickly in a vertical line, and then the fire spreads around the building to the other side. And images of the building with the exact burn pattern. Fire doors and such between floors mean nothing when the fire is spreading from the outside.
And lots of videos... oh so many videos... all labeled "NSFW" 
travellering wrote: Don't forget, these are basically vertical slums. Assisted income housing built upwards instead of outwards. Anywhere that costs can be cut, to appease either taxpayers or line the pockets of bureaucrats, they will be cut...
In London, apparently slums run $2500/month for rent.
Hearing accounts of inoperable lighting in stairwells, no sprinkler system, no fire alarms. Mid 70's construction is no excuse for that level of endangerment. My facility was built in the 40's and if there was a fire you'd be in danger of drowning from the sprinkler system.
This is a giant E36 M3show. There is a quote from one of the London newspapers that it is expected that no one above the 21st floor survived. Stuff about people throwing babies out of windows hoping someone would catch them. Horrific.
KyAllroad wrote: Hearing accounts of inoperable lighting in stairwells, no sprinkler system, no fire alarms. Mid 70's construction is no excuse for that level of endangerment.
Indeed. Any high-rise building without those critical fire safety features is a catastrophe waiting to happen, let alone a residential high-rise. Reprehensible.
The one picture I saw with the crew fighting the fire from the ground was frightening. The water was making it something like 1/4 of the height. I'm not sure what they intended to do, but it sure wasn't going to put out the fire.
[EDIT: Comment removed due to poor attempt at humor.]
You guys are way too serious. I edited my comment above. Of course, it still shows up in the quoted versions, but I can't do anything about that at this point.
In reply to T.J.:
Use a smiley if you're joking and it isn't obvious, we can't hear your inner voice through the text.
It's also not something to joke about.
This was a British socialized housing block built as cheaply as possible at approximately the lowest point of British economic power and industrial quality. Frankly, I'm surprised it was still standing at all. Think about British Leyland quality and then apply it to a block of flats.
Duke wrote: It's also not something to joke about. This was a British socialized housing block built as cheaply as possible at approximately the lowest point of British economic power and industrial quality. Frankly, I'm surprised it was still standing at all. Think about British Leyland quality and then apply it to a block of flats.
and then fill it with refugees and the poor. A truly sad and terrible situation.
KyAllroad wrote: Hearing accounts of inoperable lighting in stairwells, no sprinkler system, no fire alarms. Mid 70's construction is no excuse for that level of endangerment. My facility was built in the 40's and if there was a fire you'd be in danger of drowning from the sprinkler system.
Some of the other things that came to light:
The building would have been built BEFORE the MGM Grand disaster, which (apparently) caused a worldwide revamp of high rise building codes.
Apparently sprinkler systems aren't always retrofittable. The story is, pipes and water in them would add a significant amount of load to the structure, and the building might not be able to support the extra weight within safety tolerances. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Of course then one might say "tear it down and build new, don't grandfather". And then others would scream about government regulations making it hard to do business. And then we meet in the middle and people get killed...
Duke wrote: It's also not something to joke about. This was a British socialized housing block built as cheaply as possible at approximately the lowest point of British economic power and industrial quality. Frankly, I'm surprised it was still standing at all. Think about British Leyland quality and then apply it to a block of flats.
So we can assume it's an electrical fire?
Seriously though if the building was just remodeled how are we not at the point where someone makes sure the siding is fireproof? I could swear I've seen another story of this happening recently where the skin of the building went up like that and wondering why they even sell a siding that burns and spreads like that.
Reading more further, the building was concrete. AKA not flammable. No airspace in the walls (your ceiling is your upstairs neighbor's floor), etc. It almost certainly was the cladding igniting and carrying upward, given the building construction and how quickly the fire spread vertically.
Many reports of serious electrical issues there, including emergency work needing to be done after many residents reported appliances smoking from overvoltage.
In reply to Knurled:
It just seems we live in an age where cladding wouldn't burn so well.
There were reports early, right after it started, that the cause was a refrigerator malfunction on the 4th floor, but I haven't noticed that come up anywhere else.
Synthetic stucco applied over polystyrene foam would be my guess.
When I first caught a glimpse of this on the evening lies and bullE36 M3 I figured it was in some third world hellhole, not England.
In reply to Wall-e:
Modern stuff in general burns better than you'd think, more plastics, less asbestos (not that that's a bad thing at all in and of itself), etc.
For example https://www.youtube.com/embed/IEOmSN2LRq0
Some info on the cladding used in the remodel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire#Cladding It seems to be an aluminum composite and the core was potentially flammable with airspace behind it to help feed the flames even more, like a chimney. Great.
The new skin was an aluminum panel product which is basically 2 sheets of 1/16" aluminum bonded to a plastic core of various types, typically about 1/4" thick. This was installed in the modern "rainscreen" manner, which is in compliance with both codes and common best practice standards. Basically, the rainscreen theory acknowledges that water is going to get inside the outside skin of the building, and works to manage how it drains and finds its way back outside again.
This means there is usually a matrix layer behind the skin to allow water to travel freely... which of course can allow fire and superheated gases to travel as well. What appears to have happened is there was a layer of insulation applied to the existing exterior, which wrapped to the inside of the building at the perimeter of each window in order to reduce condensation and thermal transfer at this joint. Similar details are also not only required by various codes, but are also best practices for energy use reduction.
Unfortunately this insulation appears to have been flammable (either by specification error or substitution). Once the first fire started, it was able to burn through this gap from the interior to the exterior and spread up in the protected rainscreen space until it reached the next window to penetrate.
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