In the shadow of Grenfell Tower- thread four

[RhythmAndStealth]

Rest in Peace

Isaac Shawo, 5
Khadija Saye, 24
Mohammed Alhalaji, 23

At least thirty people confirmed to have died

Six further deceased victims provisionally identified

Many more people feared to have died. They have yet to be reunited with their names

Nineteen people still in hospital, with ten in critical care

Many people homeless and dispossessed

Many bereaved

Many traumatised

“…it is difficult to escape a very sombre national mood.” The Queen.

Three investigations launched- Fire, Police and Public Inquiry
£5m Government Emergency Fund created
£3m donated by public
Peaceful protesters demand justice and answers.

Thread three (includes links to threads one and two)

I can't remember where I saw it now but it was one of the non-news, residents' own videos, someone mentioned they'd had several fires even in that tower before over its 40 years of life, and before the cladding it was only ever the one flat which was damaged and could later be refurbished.

In the DJ Isla video as well she mentions this. She says that the people in the 999 call centre must have had no idea the building was so bad because normally in tower blocks the fire is contained to one flat, that you see it quite commonly that one window will be black, but the rest are unharmed.

If you watch the Panorama episode (which is not graphic BTW) you will see that the firefighters were able to put out the original fire very quickly. By all accounts, that part of their operation went very smoothly. There was definitely something catastrophically wrong for the rest of the building to go up like that.

My only comment about the old fridge (though I hope you don't mean here on mn?) was that I wondered if it was one of the old Beko ones that have been "fixed" since the fault (that burnt flats down in the past) was discovered. Because I have one in my kitchen here - I'm not knocking anyone for having an old, cheap fridge!

They already have gluteus.

Oh fudge, predictable though.

Yes, we watched the Panorama episode. Surprised to see it was put out originally, then as you say, something went catastrophically wrong for the fire to do what it did afterwards.

The pain felt by everyone involved, from residents, firefighters and call handlers. Just awful. There are no words really.

I read/understood it that the cladding and updating was being done anyway, and they found the EU grant for insulation after that, lowering the cost

Ok, so have we definitely established now that the entire fire was caused by a faulty fridge? As I am very unsure of this point, more unsure now people are saying the fire brigade extinguished that fire.

Wouldn't it have been obvious it was out of the window of that flat?

"Surprised to see it was put out originally, then as you say, something went catastrophically wrong for the fire to do what it did afterwards"

This just makes me think more and more that the fridge wasn't the actual cause of the fire, that there was something going on elsewhere in the building.

The power surges haven't been mentioned for a while. They had been happening for some time, causing electrical items to blow etc.
One big enough to set a fridge off could have caused a minor fire elsewhere, on the edge of the building, unnoticed and getting bigger?
They'll be able to check that out I suppose.

Beko fires
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14082886

I think it is established that there was a fridge on fire in the building, it isn't known whether that was caused by a faulty fridge or 'primary' power surge, or even a 'secondary' power surge from something else elsewhere catching fire (does that make sense?).
Then it isn't established if this fire spread to the cladding or whether it was a separate fire.

I think someone here did confirm that a faulty electrical item is more likely to catch fire than a working one, so it doesn't even have to have been one or the other.

I'll not speculate, but wait for the results of a fire brigade inquiry

I've seen comments all over :( I can't remember if it was MN

No official cause of the fire has been named yet. But it's not unlikely that an electrical item, which may well have been a fridge, can cause a fire which would eventually flash over (this can take about 5 minutes and those kitchens looked small) and if the window was open or exploded due to the heat, this would likely have set fire to the cladding if it was flammable (which anyone can see it was). From there due to the chimney effect the fire spreads upwards. Because pieces of the cladding melt and drop down it can also spread the fire downwards. Smoke from a fire in just one flat can be overwhelming; this is one reason for the advice for residents to stay in their own flats. Smoke from fires in several flats would have made escape very difficult indeed in a very short amount of time.

I don't think it's being contested that the fire started in that flat with the fridge, what I believe they're looking at is whether the fridge had some kind of fault or it was a maintenance problem (build up of dust, grease, old papers) or whether it was an electrical surge. It could even have been that a fire started near to the fridge for some other reason which caused the fridge to explode.

In any case it's well known that this type of cladding causes the spread of fire when not installed correctly because even the manufacturers of the cladding provide instructions on how it should be installed on higher buildings. The problem appears to be that the legislation is ambiguous and it's interpreted as a suggestion rather than a must do.

We've also seen fires spread in unexpected ways because of newly refurbished exteriors breaching firewalls, you can find the report for Lakanal House online and that's just a recent one, there were older fires as well.

Saucery, are you actually reading my posts?

Bertie, I was watching something about how shockingly quick flashpoint can be reached in a home only a couple of weeks ago. Very scary.

Yes. You keep banging on about tenants not doing what they should to prevent fires or containment of fires. Then you coat it liberally with bit of COURSE I am sure it is nothing to do with that

I'd go back and find quotes but it's hot and your posts are tedious, so I'll just ignore you I think

"No official cause of the fire has been named yet"

Thanks, that's what I thought too.

cathf The fire spread up the outside of the building and came in through the windows - no amount of fire doors would have stopped it spreading through windows I'm afraid.

Put it this way, if a fire starts in a kitchen, flashes over, breaks a window due to heat and the outside of the building is not flammable, it's not going to spread that way. It would probably have spread to the rest of the flat if it wasn't extinguished, but even if it got to and through the door at the entrance of the flat, the corridors are concrete and metal too. There's nothing there to burn. The contents of a single flat could indeed burn for a long time, several days perhaps, but if it has nothing to spread to then it won't spread. That's how we contain smaller fires such as campfires or hearth fires. The same theory applies just on a larger scale.

Fire needs fuel, oxygen and heat remember to burn. If there's no more fuel to burn, it will eventually burn itself out. If it does find more fuel and has a ready supply of oxygen it can and will spread extremely fast.

Doh, I meant

...a faulty electrical item is more likely to catch fire due to a power surge than a working one

There's a graphic here which shows how non flammable building exteriors keep fire contained whereas flammable cladding causes exactly this kind of rapid spread.

www.constructionmanagermagazine.com/onsite/lakanal-house-price-failure/

About halfway down (second image).

Grenfell survivors face months of recovery doctors warn

If you want to see some electrical safety stuff about cheap or badly made appliances/chargers etc look at bigclivedotcom on youtube. Most of his stuff goes over my head but yes - you'll see there that if there's a fault or safety mechanisms are missing it doesn't take much for electronic items to heat up to a dangerous degree.

It's actually fairy irrelevant what caused this fire. We already have findings from other tower block fires that the cladding is flammable and causes the fire to spread rapidly. The recommendation to legislate against flammable cladding has already been made.

Even if (and the chance is minimal) this fire was nothing to do with the cladding, we already know that cladding is very very dangerous. I would like legislation against it (and tightening up other building regulations- such as sprinklers in all tower blocks) to be in the Queen's speech tomorrow, although sadly I doubt it will be.

British Red Cross Responds to Grenfell