27 storey block of flats on fire in London.

[DoctorTwo]

BBC link. Holy shit, almost the entire building is ablaze. Hope everybody got out safely.

Horrendous. Thoughts to all affected

Looks like Cote is probably right - more people saying its the cladding. And this blogpost offers up some more scary detail on how the cladding can spread the fire.

Plus the horrendous advice to stay put. And now evidence emerging that the people who ran out from the 7th floor and 17th floor survived.

Apparently the fire engines couldn't even spray water higher than the 4th floor. Is that possible? This is so horrible. I can't bear thinking about all those people just stuck in a burning building. Dreading hearing the fatality count.

And all the lives destroyed!

Local resident just interviewed on BBC said that gaps between the cladding at the corners of the building looked to have acted like a chimney and funnelled the flames up the building. He also said the fire took hold of the whole building within 15-20 mins as he watched it.

Standard and Guardian report a baby survived being thrown out of a window several stories up

And a 5-yr-old survived being thrown, but with broken limbs.
Dreadful to think of parents seeing the only way to save their little kids is to throw them out of high windows

6 people so far confirmed dead by the Met

I just heard this on LBC

'A lady had her baby at a window, she was gesturing to people below. She wrapped the baby up and dropped it out the window. About 9 floors up. A guy rushed forward and caught the baby. The woman's shadow dissapeared back inside'

I consider myself mentally tough but I have just been bought to tears by this

@Dizzybacon just makes you feel violently sick.

Dizzy that image is just awful . Thank goodness the baby was caught .

I would like to share my experience. When I lived in the UK I volunteered as a staff member at the air cadets. We were concerned about the quality of the materials in the building, and the poor quality of the fire extinguishers.

Our concerns were not listened to so when a senior officer came I did a experiment to prove it. I took a supposedly fire retardant curtain outside, put it on a plastic school chair and set fire to it. It burnt very quickly.

We tried to put it out with one of the supplied fire extinguishers. The fire extinguisher was pathetic, it couldn't do it.

The officer was horrified and told is there would be a full investigation.

I had a letter a week later stating future investigation is likely to show this was a isolated incident. The letter then went on to say I was being disciplined for unotherized use of the fire extinguisher

AudacityJones

That's possible, the pump needed to get water higher than that would be too big and powerful to fit on a fire truck

Kursk that's terrible but not surprising.

I'm currently putting a tender together for an energy efficiency project, including external wall insulation for a Local Authority.

It makes me feel sick just reading the documents and specification. I'm putting it away for today, I can't bear to look at it

A lady had her baby at a window, she was gesturing to people below. She wrapped the baby up and dropped it out the window. About 9 floors up. A guy rushed forward and caught the baby. The woman's shadow dissapeared back inside'

And a 5-yr-old survived being thrown, but with broken limbs.
Dreadful to think of parents seeing the only way to save their little kids is to throw them out of high windows

Oh god :(

I sincerely hope everyone who even remotely contributed to this is held responsible in the harshest way possible.

It should never be possible to burn an entire tower block down in such a short time. And wtf was wrong with that fridge. That's more than just faulty surely? I hope theres an Instant 're call.

For all those who get out alive my thoughts are with them getting rehoused God knows where by Kensington & Chelsea.....

The consumer units must be current 17th edition, these new units will cause appliances with a fault to trip. Makes me wonder if the electrics and CCUs had been upgraded to standard, if not it's quite possible an old appliance with a fault could be a fire hazard

Why aren't there sprinklers? Am I stupid to expect that? Or neighbours had to install sprinklers when they converted their loft. I'm sure they said it was because someone sleeping in a loft may not get out in time. What about a flipping tower block?
There's no way it was only six people dead. It's going to be way higher. This will be a national scandal.

Apparently the company who conducted the recent cladding work went into administration shortly afterwards. That doesn't sound very good if they were struggling to pay bills.

The contractor, RYDON CONSTRUCTION still has the project as one of its case studies on its website (for how long, who knows!)

The architect STUDIO E have taken their website down from public view, which is extremely concerning!

And the facade manufacturer, HARLEY FACADES (who make and quality assure the aluminium composite cladding used on this building and who have to provide the certification to confirm its fire protection properties) have removed any reference to this project and the products used.

Dizzy - wow.

I can see several lawsuits coming out of this. I hope the right heads roll. Those poor, poor people.

Wow. Talk about adding insult to injury.

To note several things:

It is wrong to suggest concrete won't burn. It will burn if it is hot enough. This is The reason if you work in a high voltage environment and a piece of metal is feeding flames you ensure current is discharged before attempting to fight a fire. A continuous feed earthing irregularly COULD potentially cause concrete to burn. It would have to be VERY f'ing hot though. If this was caused by substandard electrical works in the recent refurb that is a potential cause.

The cladding being a short gap from the building does make a difference. Google the 'trench effect'. If the cladding was preventing the fire from cooling down by trapping heat that will be what then caused the fire further up to 'flashover'.

However it happened it is awful. I felt sick hearing about the woman with 6 children. If there has been a significant failure in fire safety due to inaction on the part of management someone should go to prison for a long time.

Everything in the universe will burn in high enough temperatures. Nobody said concrete will never ever burn.

What makes concrete a great building material in a fire is that it:

• Is non-combustible, so fire resistant.
• Does not lose its structural properties in fire for many hours (unlike steel)
• Has a low rate of heat transfer, so protects structuralsteel as well as shields adjacent rooms during a fire
• Does not give out toxic fumes or drip molten material, even if it does eventually burn.

There have been lots of concerns about this building.

BBC

No, most tower blocks do not have a 'stay put' policy. I lived in one where a fire broke out and the policy was evacuate via the stairwell.

We don't have a policy - apart from don't use the lift - and last time we almost burned down our fire alarms didn't go off.

It's not just councils - it's anyone making money in projects who cut corners, turn blind eyes and hope for the best.