Scrutable

The images very much look like there was a problem with cladding.

And issues with the fire alarm not being believed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-50438177

Looks like the crown of the building is alight, which is what happened at grenfell, and allowed the fire to spread to all sides.

Reportedly the cladding is not the same as Grenfell Tower's, I guess we'll have to wait to find out what happened.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:54 am

The images very much look like there was a problem with cladding.

And issues with the fire alarm not being believed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-50438177

Anecdotally there are always problems with fire alarms in student halls. They go off all the time because of people burning toast, smoking indoors or pushing the button for a laugh. Everyone ignores them. I always did wonder what would happen if there were a real emergency.

Yarp, as well as reports of "no alarm" there seem to be others saying they heard the alarm but didn't move until someone banged on the door telling them there was an actual fire in the building. 'Ace Love': Top journalist baiting there.

username wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:50 pm

Yarp, as well as reports of "no alarm" there seem to be others saying they heard the alarm but didn't move until someone banged on the door telling them there was an actual fire in the building. 'Ace Love': Top journalist baiting there.

Not sure what you mean? Quite easy to understand that the alarms could have been sounding on one floor, but not on others.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:29 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:54 am

The images very much look like there was a problem with cladding.

And issues with the fire alarm not being believed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-50438177

Anecdotally there are always problems with fire alarms in student halls. They go off all the time because of people burning toast, smoking indoors or pushing the button for a laugh. Everyone ignores them. I always did wonder what would happen if there were a real emergency.

Or even just using hair spray or not closing the en-suite door when showering .

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:06 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:29 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:54 am

The images very much look like there was a problem with cladding.

And issues with the fire alarm not being believed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-50438177

Anecdotally there are always problems with fire alarms in student halls. They go off all the time because of people burning toast, smoking indoors or pushing the button for a laugh. Everyone ignores them. I always did wonder what would happen if there were a real emergency.

Or even just using hair spray or not closing the en-suite door when showering .

Quite possibly! Clearly my uni friends and yours had different interests

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:29 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:54 am

The images very much look like there was a problem with cladding.

And issues with the fire alarm not being believed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-50438177

Anecdotally there are always problems with fire alarms in student halls. They go off all the time because of people burning toast, smoking indoors or pushing the button for a laugh. Everyone ignores them. I always did wonder what would happen if there were a real emergency.

We had a room fire at college when I was there, and the assembly point was the JCR - opposite the college bar. We mosied into the JCR and after about 20 mins, someone told us that it was a real fire and the fire engines were already in attendance.

I've remembered that as a lesson that there can be no obvious sign of fire except for the alarm, even when it's sizeable and only about 30 metres away.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:05 pm

username wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:50 pm

Yarp, as well as reports of "no alarm" there seem to be others saying they heard the alarm but didn't move until someone banged on the door telling them there was an actual fire in the building. 'Ace Love': Top journalist baiting there.

Not sure what you mean? Quite easy to understand that the alarms could have been sounding on one floor, but not on others.

Twas a response to boaf. He had said he wondered, given the high number of false alarms in halls, what would happen. Now we have some eye-witness accounts, which amongst other things contain people a. Saying there was no alarm, as well as b. Saying they heard the alarm but ignored it until someone actually told them the fire was real.

Eta The name 'Ace Love' which has appeared churnalised into loads of accounts as an eye witness is a joke, no?

We were coming home last night when two fire engines passed us with the lights on from MCR into Bolton. Fire looked huge.

Building was reclad in 2018 with coloured laminate panels. Sticking combustible materials vertically to the outside of residential buildings is still a really bad idea.

Several factors that made a difference to survival here -
Not a skyscraper, multiple exits, immediate evacuation strategy, separate fire and evacuation command.

Some questions about the combustibility of the panels come up here. From my point of view as a lay-person I cannot tell if the fire has burned from the inside to set fire to the outer panels or the other way around (other options may be possible of course).

I certainly would not place complete faith in eye-witness accounts saying the fire climbed up the outside of the building, as that's all eye-witnesses would be able to see- they would not be able to see internal fire spreading routes, fire in walls, fire getting through floors etc. I guess reports will fill in the gaps in due course.

More on HPL Cladding.

The first moments of this report from fire certainly seems to suggest that there were serious problems with the cladding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjlC8ntG--E

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:25 pm

The first moments of this report from fire certainly seems to suggest that there were serious problems with the cladding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjlC8ntG--E

I agree, but they are reporting what they can see from the outside; if there's a flashover fire inside at five or six hundred degrees celcius a lot of materials are going to disintegrate (even if they are not contributing significantly to the fire).

The building looks (again, to my untrained eye) to be constructed with an outer skin (HPL), steel stud (containing insulation),a and an inner skin(plasterboard). 12 mm Plasterboard *should* withstand fire for about 30 minutes, depending on the intensity of the fire; once that is breached the outer skin is exposed to very high temperatures, so it's * possible* that the damage seen to the cladding started from within rather than without, and also spread from within, not without, and that rather than burning with great intensity it's friable at high temperatures.

Obviously it's also possible that the cladding cause the fire to spread, but I posit that given the information we have (coupled with the theoretical fire resistance of HPL) it's not possible to draw any conclusions currently, no matter how keenly we might wish to. I'm sure there are *loads* of other possibilities that haven't occurred to me.

username wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:58 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:25 pm

The first moments of this report from fire certainly seems to suggest that there were serious problems with the cladding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjlC8ntG--E

I agree, but they are reporting what they can see from the outside; if there's a flashover fire inside at five or six hundred degrees celcius a lot of materials are going to disintegrate (even if they are not contributing significantly to the fire).

The building looks (again, to my untrained eye) to be constructed with an outer skin (HPL), steel stud (containing insulation),a and an inner skin(plasterboard). 12 mm Plasterboard *should* withstand fire for about 30 minutes, depending on the intensity of the fire; once that is breached the outer skin is exposed to very high temperatures, so it's * possible* that the damage seen to the cladding started from within rather than without, and also spread from within, not without, and that rather than burning with great intensity it's friable at high temperatures.

Obviously it's also possible that the cladding cause the fire to spread, but I posit that given the information we have (coupled with the theoretical fire resistance of HPL) it's not possible to draw any conclusions currently, no matter how keenly we might wish to. I'm sure there are *loads* of other possibilities that haven't occurred to me.

I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that the cladding started the fire, but it seems pretty clear that the cladding on the building is carrying fire, both upwards and (through dropping burning material) downwards.
As you say, it could be that the internal fire is distributed pretty evenly around all the interior apartments, and this is giving rise to the appearance that it's the cladding that is burning all round the building, whereas it's just the interior inferno punching through. It could be that.
It just doesn't seem more likely to me.

Look at us, scruting, scruting hard ffs!!

username wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 17, 2019 12:22 am

Look at us, scruting, scruting hard ffs!!

Yes, you can scrute me and hopefully I can scrute you. I think that's how it's meant to work.

That first picture there shows the crown on fire rather than the bulk of the external cladding. Don't know if the cladding below it then ignited from it later on though.

irrelevant, but I thought the last line was, umm, apposite...

Did you read the reviews? There's one, "Too hot, still on fire, would not recommend". Still gave two stars though.

Surely it’s way past time that they moved to using combined heat and smoke detectors? Smoke detectors alone are way too prone to going off almost randomly. We have the technology, it might be more expensive but the cost of having alarms disbelieved is far higher.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:32 am

Surely it’s way past time that they moved to using combined heat and smoke detectors? Smoke detectors alone are way too prone to going off almost randomly. We have the technology, it might be more expensive but the cost of having alarms disbelieved is far higher.

I used to develop fire sensors twenty years ago and even then, the smoke detectors in large buildings* did indeed increase their sensitivity in response to both raised temperature and rises in temperature** - we were just developing digital systems where the heat sensors would have been integral.

If you look at the fire detectors in kitchens, you will often see that they just have an exposed thermistor visible and no chamber for smoke detection because of the problems with smoke from burnt toast etc.

There is a lot of engineering effort into reducing false alarms whilst ensuring the systems manage to detect the standard fire conditions***

Carbon monoxide detectors often have good resistance to false alarms, although there were problems with garages, and (I seem to remember, ambient conditions in cities like Athens). I remember Siemens used to be proud of their fuzzy logic in fire detection (that's a buzzword I haven't heard for a while).

Anyway - a bit of loser length post




*Ones with central control systems.


**Using thermistors to control the gain of the smoke sensor (either optical or ionisation), with one slugged behind some material to slow its response relative to the other. The digital system simply used a single thermistor and reported the temperature back to the control panel, where that and the smoke sensor response were combined.


***From memory, they're in standards like EN54, and UL 268, as well as Australian standards - that used to cover most major markets.

Well exactly, if we had such a thing as building fire standards it would be nice to think that proper fire detectors would be mandated in large residential buildings. What you actually get is someone wandering around with a clipboard putting a tick in a box because there is some form of fire detection with no regard as to the false positive rate.

If people got paid to leave the building when a fire alarm occurred, compliance might be improved.

I wonder if there is a reasonable source of funding for such an incentive.

Um.

‘Right Fred, it’s your turn to set off the fire alarm this week… yes of course we’ll back you up if you’re quizzed, we were all definitely sure we could smell burning from somewhere, always better safe than sorry innit?’