Grenfell Tower Fire | 14th June 2017

[esmufc07]

400-600 people living in the building apprently.

I'm hoping the casualty count is not too high, but I fear the worst.

 

[diarm]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility.

We don't know what caused the fire but it is immediately obvious that this building and others like it were flagged as massive fire risks long before this awful event. It's obvious the building didn't have the required fire alarm, prevention and reaction facilities to deal with an emergency.

Every person who was in a position to do something about these inadequacies, from landlord to constructors, council and government should be held to the highest levels of responsibility, not given enough time to hide behind sentiment until some new big story is sensational enough for them to dodge culpability.

I'm not British and have no loyalties towards any of your political parties. But my sister lives a stones throw away from that tower block and if people ignored safety here for greed, beurocracy or any other reason, they should be prosecuted whether you want to call it political point scoring or not.

 

[esmufc07]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility.

We don't know what caused the fire but it is immediately obvious that this building and others like it were flagged as massive fire risks long before this awful event. It's obvious the building didn't have the required fire alarm, prevention and reaction facilities to deal with an emergency.

Every person who was in a position to do something about these inadequacies, from landlord to constructors, council and government should be held to the highest levels of responsibility, not given enough time to hide behind sentiment until some new big story is sensational enough for them to dodge culpability.

I'm not British and have no loyalties towards any of your political parties. But my sister lives a stones throw away from that tower block and if people ignored safety here for greed, beurocracy or any other reason, they should be prosecuted whether you want to call it political point scoring or not.

Spot on.

 

[villain]

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The gentrification in the neighbourhood is staggering, if anyone has ever been in that area before then you will know just how unrecognisable it is now.

They've been pushing out residents for years, building amazing apartment complexes just a stones throw away but can only regenerate social housing blocks to the bare minimum.

 

[Dave89]

These buildings are supposed to be designed specifically to prevent something like this from happening and also to allow safe means of protection or escape if it does happen. So it's entirely fair to say "something's wrong" and try to find out what. It'd be ridiculous not to.

It's impossible for a fire to spread in the way this one did if the building itself was compliant with necessary fire regulations. Plus the fact it was assessed only a year ago and deemed to be ok (and the fact the fire apparently spread via the outside of the building) would suggest the cladding is the most likely cause.

We have this all the time at work where contractors want to cut corners on cost or time and don't understand or care about the implications. Something like this simply doesn't happen unless something somewhere wasn't doing what it was supposed to.

This is the key point.

 

[Raees]

Horrific scenes.. - pray the death count is not too high, but it looks awful.

 

[Bury Red]

Yep, definitely a no win game when all of the facts are not yet known. It seems an unusually intense and fast-spreading fire though- what's your initial take on that?

Best guess for me would be the new cladding panels or some paint/adhesive on the exterior which has fueled the fire and enabled the rapid spread. Reminds me a lot of the Sulafa tower fire in Dubai marina a couple of years ago.

 

[pauldyson1uk]

Reports I have heard are saying the fire started by a fridge exploding in one of the flats

 

[noodlehair]

This is the key point.

Yes...and the fact the fire safety advice clearly advises people to stay in their flats rather than evacuate means that the building NEEDED to be fully partitioned and protected to prevent a fire from spreading, and allow the fire brigade plenty of time to safely evacuate if required.

Obviously that isn't the case so it needs to be looked into urgently. Especially as there are other tower blocks in the same area, under the same management.

 

[pauldyson1uk]

Met Police saying 6 deaths so far, that will rise they say.

 

[Smores]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility.

This was the point i was trying to get at, these stories fade too quickly into the background. The more questions asked when its a big news story the better.

I'm sure people should be able to distinguish the difference between petty point scoring and statements made in good faith, it's just moaning for the sake of moaning not for any real concern.

Dreading seeing the figure for this. Its been a shitty couple of months.

 

[sglowrider]

Reports I have heard are saying the fire started by a fridge exploding in one of the flats

The residents' complaint about a low of power surges too... which if we are speculating that could have caused the fridge to explode.

 

[Bury Red]

Yes...and the fact the fire safety advice clearly advises people to stay in their flats rather than evacuate means that the building NEEDED to be fully partitioned and protected to prevent a fire from spreading, and allow the fire brigade plenty of time to safely evacuate if required.

Obviously that isn't the case so it needs to be looked into urgently. Especially as there are other tower blocks in the same area, under the same management.

Agreed, that's the main reason I suspect it is external spread and unfortunately has probably caught in many separate units as people were sleeping with windows open. It's not impossible after poor renovations though for the partitioning to fail as they knock through partitions and floors to install pipes and cabling and then rather than putting properly fire resistant material and seals around all conduits they just pack it out with expanding foam, skim it and paint it.

 

[rcoobc]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility.

We don't know what caused the fire but it is immediately obvious that this building and others like it were flagged as massive fire risks long before this awful event. It's obvious the building didn't have the required fire alarm, prevention and reaction facilities to deal with an emergency.

Every person who was in a position to do something about these inadequacies, from landlord to constructors, council and government should be held to the highest levels of responsibility, not given enough time to hide behind sentiment until some new big story is sensational enough for them to dodge culpability.

I'm not British and have no loyalties towards any of your political parties. But my sister lives a stones throw away from that tower block and if people ignored safety here for greed, beurocracy or any other reason, they should be prosecuted whether you want to call it political point scoring or not.

Great post

 

[villain]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility.

We don't know what caused the fire but it is immediately obvious that this building and others like it were flagged as massive fire risks long before this awful event. It's obvious the building didn't have the required fire alarm, prevention and reaction facilities to deal with an emergency.

Every person who was in a position to do something about these inadequacies, from landlord to constructors, council and government should be held to the highest levels of responsibility, not given enough time to hide behind sentiment until some new big story is sensational enough for them to dodge culpability.

I'm not British and have no loyalties towards any of your political parties. But my sister lives a stones throw away from that tower block and if people ignored safety here for greed, beurocracy or any other reason, they should be prosecuted whether you want to call it political point scoring or not.

This is important because this other fires have broken out in buildings like this in recent years, on those occasions the damage wasn't as bad as this.
However if more scrutiny was pointed at those directly responsible at the time, instead of misdirecting and saying 'this isn't the time' perhaps changes could have been made in time.

This is absolutely the right time to address these issues while the exposure is high, questions need to be answered and those responsible need to be held to account - regardless of party allegiance.

 

[Dave89]

This is important because this other fires have broken out in buildings like this in recent years, on those occasions the damage wasn't as bad as this.
However if more scrutiny was pointed at those directly responsible at the time, instead of misdirecting and saying 'this isn't the time' perhaps changes could have been made in time.

This is absolutely the right time to address these issues while the exposure is high, questions need to be answered and those responsible need to be held to account - regardless of party allegiance.

@Fergie's gum thinks you're scum

 

[Jippy]

Best guess for me would be the new cladding panels or some paint/adhesive on the exterior which has fueled the fire and enabled the rapid spread. Reminds me a lot of the Sulafa tower fire in Dubai marina a couple of years ago.

Remarkable there were no casualties in the Sulafa tower, just reading about it. Surely if a building has wood cladding, it would be treated to make it fire retardant?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

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The gentrification in the neighbourhood is staggering, if anyone has ever been in that area before then you will know just how unrecognisable it is now.

They've been pushing out residents for years, building amazing apartment complexes just a stones throw away but can only regenerate social housing blocks to the bare minimum.

I lived very near there for years. A lot of the gentrification has actually been driven by selling off apartments in social housing blocks like this. Wouldn't be surprised if the recent refurbishment was with a view to doing this at some point in the future.

 

[Drifter]

you will always get that, I have seen people on Facebook asking was it terror related

The person i was talking about as been posted on here .And he never mentioned terrorist . He was absolutely right though about the Urban Cleansing that is going on in and around London

 

[senorgregster]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility.

We don't know what caused the fire but it is immediately obvious that this building and others like it were flagged as massive fire risks long before this awful event. It's obvious the building didn't have the required fire alarm, prevention and reaction facilities to deal with an emergency.

Every person who was in a position to do something about these inadequacies, from landlord to constructors, council and government should be held to the highest levels of responsibility, not given enough time to hide behind sentiment until some new big story is sensational enough for them to dodge culpability.

I'm not British and have no loyalties towards any of your political parties. But my sister lives a stones throw away from that tower block and if people ignored safety here for greed, beurocracy or any other reason, they should be prosecuted whether you want to call it political point scoring or not.

I was going to post something along these lines. The US sees this type of sentiment frequently with gun deaths. Always too soon to discuss and score political points and then something else happens, like a celebrity caught with his pants down, and we've forgotten.

 

[Mockney]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility..

Yup

 

[senorgregster]

RIP those poor people. This is just horrific.

Everyone be sure to install several fire alarms and check them frequently. If you have a multiple floor house buy an escape ladder and put it under a bed. None of this would have helped these poor souls obviously but it could help you.

 

[adexkola]

This is important because this other fires have broken out in buildings like this in recent years, on those occasions the damage wasn't as bad as this.
However if more scrutiny was pointed at those directly responsible at the time, instead of misdirecting and saying 'this isn't the time' perhaps changes could have been made in time.

This is absolutely the right time to address these issues while the exposure is high, questions need to be answered and those responsible need to be held to account - regardless of party allegiance.

That should be done independent of the political scene. Does the vicinity not have a Housing Department or equivalent agency in charge of establishing and enforcing building codes?

Accountability is important, but I'm not a fan of politicians who know sweet feck all doing the job that career investigators and prosecutors should be doing. Especially when politicians are known as using the publicity from any event for personal gain.

 

[noodlehair]

Best guess for me would be the new cladding panels or some paint/adhesive on the exterior which has fueled the fire and enabled the rapid spread. Reminds me a lot of the Sulafa tower fire in Dubai marina a couple of years ago.

It will most likely be either the panels or fire stopping material within the block not being in place or being removed...but the later should have been picked up on inspection which was apparently done last year.

The investigation into the fire at Lakanal House showed similar...basically, renovation works not carried out properly, fire stopping either not replaced or damaged during the works, and the owner (in this case the Council) not taking responsibility to carry out mandatory checks.

Advising people to stay in their flat isn't necessarily wrong but the building should be fully compartmentalised (not sure if a real word) to slow the fire spreading sufficiently enough to allow the Fire Brigade to evacuate people safely.

There was also another case (can't find it as I can't remember the name of the block or where it was) where the investigation showed the fire was caused by replacement cladding which wasn't sufficiently fire resistant. The Council had employed a consultant on the cheap to oversee the work rather than having their own Building Regulations department oversee it, and so it wasn't overseen properly. Utterly baffling why that would happen but it's usually down to people being put in charge of things who simply don't understand enough about them.

 

[Moby]

Reading that blog is absolutely heartbreaking.

Absolutely agree with diarm and others who have said that the wrong doers should be brought to the fore absolutely right now. Couldn't care less if that leads to any sort of point scoring. Hopefully the punishments are appropriately dished out, for a crime of such catastrophic proportions.

 

[adexkola]

Reading that blog is absolutely heartbreaking.

Absolutely agree with diarm and others who have said that the wrong doers should be brought to the fore absolutely right now. Couldn't care less if that leads to any sort of point scoring. Hopefully the punishments are appropriately dished out, for a crime of such catastrophic proportions.

The priority should be establishing what went wrong, and ensuring that other buildings in violation are brought up to standard or evacuated. Not a witch-hunt for wrong-doers (establishing criminal negligence is a process that takes time anyways).

 

[rcoobc]

These buildings are supposed to be designed specifically to prevent something like this from happening and also to allow safe means of protection or escape if it does happen. So it's entirely fair to say "something's wrong" and try to find out what. It'd be ridiculous not to.

It's impossible for a fire to spread in the way this one did if the building itself was compliant with necessary fire regulations. Plus the fact it was assessed only a year ago and deemed to be ok (and the fact the fire apparently spread via the outside of the building) would suggest the cladding is the most likely cause.

We have this all the time at work where contractors want to cut corners on cost or time and don't understand or care about the implications.

Even if half the allegations are correct, it's beyond belief

No fire exits, no integrated fire alarm or sprinkler system, "fireproof" cladding that was actually the opposite, garbage left to pile up in hall ways.

RIP Everyone who has lost their lives in a truly horrible way.

 

[rcoobc]

Completely unrelated, but I've taken to checking my phone every morning, expecting to see just another thing that's gone wrong with this country - or the updated death toll from the night before. Not good for my mental health.

Horrible when things that are under our control go wrong like this

 

[swooshboy]

When big events like this happen I often read people complaining about political point scoring and usually I agree with them.

But then later, when those responsible should be held accountable, a new big story has landed, or some other distraction which allows governments, councils and authorities to dodge responsibility.

We don't know what caused the fire but it is immediately obvious that this building and others like it were flagged as massive fire risks long before this awful event. It's obvious the building didn't have the required fire alarm, prevention and reaction facilities to deal with an emergency.

Every person who was in a position to do something about these inadequacies, from landlord to constructors, council and government should be held to the highest levels of responsibility, not given enough time to hide behind sentiment until some new big story is sensational enough for them to dodge culpability.

I'm not British and have no loyalties towards any of your political parties. But my sister lives a stones throw away from that tower block and if people ignored safety here for greed, beurocracy or any other reason, they should be prosecuted whether you want to call it political point scoring or not.

Really good post.

Someone mentioned this earlier:

Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick - a former fire fighter - said the Government has resisted calls to install sprinkler systems in high-rise blocks in the wake of the Lakanal House tragedy in Camberwell in 2009, which left 6 people dead.

Mr Fitzpatrick, who is chairman of the all-party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, told LBC: "We've been pressing for fire sprinkler systems in buildings where we think it's appropriate - certainly over a height level and in places where there is vulnerability, care homes and in schools - and Government has been resisting that for some time."

But the MP for Poplar and Limehouse added: "There's obviously a huge number of questions going to have to be asked about what happened to Latimer Road but it's very early in the situation.

I think that the fact that he is a former firefighter means it is likely he has been fighting this cause for a while, so I have no problem with him hoping that something positive could come out of a tragedy like thus one.

 

[villain]

That should be done independent of the political scene. Does the vicinity not have a Housing Department or equivalent agency in charge of establishing and enforcing building codes?

Accountability is important, but I'm not a fan of politicians who know sweet feck all doing the job that career investigators and prosecutors should be doing. Especially when politicians are known as using the publicity from any event for personal gain.

I want to see more politicians being active in their communities & talking to the constituents & media when incidents like this happen, it's literally their job.

It should be done independently of party allegiance, anyone who is a politician should be outraged by this. It's usually the media who sensationalise headlines as usual, but I see nothing wrong with politicians being active and taking issue when incidents such as this occur. Especially if they happen as a result of council budgeting, housing & safety - which is what this looks like it could be - because that is a political issue.

 

[swooshboy]

http://news.sky.com/story/grenfell-tower-fire-a-man-jumped-his-whole-window-was-on-fire-10915045

"Witnesses have described seeing people throw babies and children from windows to try and save them from the Grenfell Tower inferno...Another resident, called Zara, said she saw a woman throw her son, who was about five years old, from a fifth or sixth floor window."

Absolutely heartbreaking to read that and to imagine yourself in that position.

 

[pascell]

Absolutely horrific what has happened, especially when it was all avoidable just by a few council members listening to the complaints from the residents.

Also, a £8-10m refurbishment project doesn't go ahead in high rise buildings without a Planning Officer/ Council members visiting the site. So surely when they visited the site, they could've read the complaints about the lack of Fire Safety beforehand and ensured that these measures were done as part of the project, obviously not and they've played a very dangerous game with many lives on the line.

I hope the landlord, local council and whoever else ignored the protests get ridiculed into the ground and hopefully prison time because tragedies like this shouldn't be happening in this day and age. There's plenty of fire safety measures out there that would've prevented this or prevented the spread of this so wildly and ensured fewer injuries/fatalities.

 

[noodlehair]

Agreed, that's the main reason I suspect it is external spread and unfortunately has probably caught in many separate units as people were sleeping with windows open. It's not impossible after poor renovations though for the partitioning to fail as they knock through partitions and floors to install pipes and cabling and then rather than putting properly fire resistant material and seals around all conduits they just pack it out with expanding foam, skim it and paint it.

Yep. I read some eyewitness report saying molten plastic was running down the side of the building...that shouldn't be there for a start. If it spreads via the outside then obviously the compartmentisation becomes irrelevant ...though from the pictures it still seems to have spread from one side to the other far too quickly, so the partitioning must have failed as well.

We were talking about this earlier and the problem is that although the fire brigade do advise people to stay put, that's on the basis the building does it's job, and the likelihood of all these buildings being perfect, particularly the older ones where work has been carried out to them multiple times since and they've not been designed to current specifications to begin with, is very low.

 

[villain]

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[jackofalltrades]

RIP.
Apparently, people were trying to save their babies by dropping them out of the window. Horrendous and brings to mind that photo of the falling man from 9 / 11.

 

[rcoobc]

RIP.
Apparently, people were trying to save their babies by dropping them out of the window. Horrendous and brings to mind that photo of the falling man from 9 / 11.

Which in itself was a weird thing to go viral (or whatever the 2001 term is). Hundreds of people were forced out of the twin towers due to the heat

 

[Smores]

Completely unrelated, but I've taken to checking my phone every morning, expecting to see just another thing that's gone wrong with this country - or the updated death toll from the night before. Not good for my mental health.

Horrible when things that are under our control go wrong like this

I've got to that point to be honest. I'm starting to think i should just stop reading/watching the news but perhaps that's a bit selfish and also defeatist.

 

[Bury Red]

Completely unrelated, but I've taken to checking my phone every morning, expecting to see just another thing that's gone wrong with this country - or the updated death toll from the night before. Not good for my mental health.

Horrible when things that are under our control go wrong like this

They always have though, we're still technically safer now than we ever have been in our history.

People talk of the terrorist risk here as if the IRA never happened and whilst every tragedy hurts major incidents like this are no more frequent than they used to be, it's just that the saturation media coverage 24/7 makes it feel so much more desperate.

I can remember as a kid when the M62 (now M60) west of Prestwich was named Death Valley because of the number of major multiple car pile ups that happened there in spring and autumn fog before we had better impact protection, compulsory seat belts, ABS and sat navs warning us about dangers. Every year there were countless stories about whole families dying in their beds due to poor fire prevention, chip pan fires, smoking, PU foam, the absence of smoke detectors etc where now it's a much rarer occurrence.

Ronan point, Woolworths in Manchester, Moorgate, Kings Cross, Bradford City, Aberfan, Hillsborough, Ibrox, Manchester Airport and on. Maybe we have become a bit too complacent and felt too safe and have undercut some of the emergency services that have always been there when disaster strikes which has seen a slight rise in fire related deaths in recent years but we're still far safer than at most times in human history.

 

[Rado_N]

Reported on Itv a baby was caught and safe after being dropped from the ninth floor. What a nightmare being in that situation. Unthinkable. Poor people.

Holy shit

 

[Castia]

fecking tragic

RIP.