Big fire in Landan

Tower block on fire. No terrorist link sofa.

Updates to follow.

 

Mental ...

 

Thoughts with families

 

Oooffftt ^^^

 

Thoughts with all families involved, particularly those who have lost family, friends and relatives.

Someone should be very heavily sued for this. When giving planning permission for a high rise block of flats, surely one of the first questions that would/should have been asked (and verified) is "if one of the flats catches fire, are the other flats insulated?" If no, planning refused. Either the flats were badly deigned and should not have been allowed to be built or they were properly designed and the builders did not comply with the design and the planners didn't pick it up during construction. Absolutely disgusting that so may lives could be put at risk

 

That's what happens when cooking is banned between sunrise and sunset iirc

 

All the steelwork will have been fire protected. Not sure what else could have been done? Can't build flats out of fireproof material.

 

This is awful, I grew up a stone's throw from Grenfell. We played around the blocks on the estate all the time when we were kids.

Grenfell was always the one that looked nicer, the others on the Silchester Estate looked like Lego towers. There are plans to 'regenerate' the area so I doubt anyone will be in a hurry to re-build it, the whole tower block has been gutted.

Having worked in similar blocks in the area this sort of thing can happen at any time. There is little or no fire protection between floors and this fire starting on the 4th floor pretty much condemned everyone living above. Shocking.

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As a bare minimum requirement each floor should be fireproofed. If they can't manage that they shouldn't be allowed to build them.

 

Did the fire start in Pudding Lane?

 

Eddie waiting for the building to collapse <freefallpancake>

 

No building is fireproof. The UK has some of the highest safety standards in the world when it comes to Building Regs. We tend to use fire resistant materials which are designed to slow things down.

 

I used to live in Chesterton Road

 

You'd like to think that the steelwork would have been fire protected but this and the other blocks were thrown together in the 1960's and having seen first hand what a piss-poor job they did of the Edward Woods Estate half a mile up the road which was built around the same time I can't say that Grenfell would have been any better.

The cladding panels at Edward Woods were meant to be secured by 8 steel pins but on inspection prior to refurbishing the blocks some were found to have as few as two. They were referred to as Friday Afternoon panels meaning the fitters were keen to get off home on Friday and couldn't be ars*d doing a decent job.

Nothing like the level of fire protection modern construction techniques employ nowadays.

 

Thanks for explaining Friday afternoon panels

 

You are welcome.

All front doors should have had intumescent strips, the walls in communal areas should have had fire retardant paint etc but there are no fire stops or suppression measures in these flats. The stairwells run right up the middle of the blocks with no fire breaks so smoke can billow up the core and the lift shafts. Heat and fire from one flat will spread above, often due to no fire suppression in electrical and plumbing ducting between floors.

The residents had been advised to stay in their flats and await rescue but that relies on the fire being contained early enough, sadly in this case it spread so quickly they had little chance to get out. Latest reports saying people were tying sheets together to get out of windows to safety.

 

Just watched a tear jerking interview with one of the survivors who managed to report events so articulately before breaking down.

 

Murder charges should be brought imo