Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

l have a fear that there are going to be quite a few fatalities.:(

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

I'm sure there will be many lives lost, and some of them will be children. Lots of families lived there.

Number of fatalities confirmed.

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpres...ll-tower-fire/

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:(

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Terrible. Sadly it's inconceivable that many lives haven't been lost here in the most appalling manner. With the exterior of the building so extensively damaged I'd have thought the cladding applied to it might be a factor in that but we're obviously going to have to wait for the experts to confirm what caused the fire, why it spread so rapidly and why, according to witnesses, the block's fire alarms failed.

Let's hope this doesn't turn out to be as big a tragedy as it's starting to look. Thoughts and prayers for all those who've died, lost loved ones and been injured.

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Six people have been confirmed dead after a huge fire raged through the night at a west London tower block, and police expect that number to rise.:(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40269625

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Not just that but apparently residents have complained for months, years even, about the poor safety of the building. Faulty wiring and so on.

Look at this blog from November from tenants in the building: https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpres...ing-with-fire/

:mad:

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We lived for many years on the 11th (top) floor of a block of flats. It was overclad after a few years. Many pointed out that the material could burn and act as a chimney taking any fire quickly up the outside, burning through the plastic frames of the new double glazing.

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Yes I've been listening to representatives of various groups all morning and it does seem as though a whole can or worms has been opened with this tragedy.

Sadly but typically, with the flames still burning, Ken Livingstone just couldn't help bringing Boris Johnson into the debate this morning before knowing the facts about what's happened and the extent of any factors which may have exacerbated the disaster. There'll be time enough for us to judge all that but it isn't now.

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If you watch the video on this page you have to wonder how more have not died. :(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-engl...t-london-flats

The water being sprayed just looks hopelessly unlikely to do anything.

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So very sad to see this on the news this morning, What a terrible thing to happen and how many more flats refurbished with this material, God Help them

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l still fear the death toll could rise very significantly as there are still quite a lot unaccounted for.

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12 people been confirmed dead now.:(

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As sad as the whole incident is, I watch it all unfold till after 4am and from the first footage seen I could tell that the cladding had caused the fire to spread so fast.

Those blocks by their nature should keep the fire contained in the flat. However that didn't happen and much like that building fire in Dubai recently it looked just like that with the fire reaching up and round the building in mere minutes.

So whether it was the cladding or the material underneath it will of course be investigated.

I also heard a resident and witness state that it was his neighbour on the 4th floor, whose fridge caught fire.

I fear the death toll will rise by a large number once the building is fully searched.

You cannot even imagine the thoughts that went through parents minds as they dropped there precious children from high up, and hoping they had a slim chance of being caught.

Huge respect for those who ran to try and catch them.

I hope all survived 😦

---------- Post added at 21:49 ---------- Previous post was at 21:42 ----------

Having heard the policy is to stay put, this needs reviewing.

As for the way the fire spread so fast on the outside of the building, I can see people doing a lengthy prison term.

Then there are the emergency services whom ran into hell on earth, respect.

As the guy from Manchester said "Were supposed to be a divided county, like hell"

It's amazing watching the response from people supplying all the people who have lost everything with things to get them back on their feet. Especially the little girl given a teday bear which she will treasure for a long time.

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This man is a disgrace

http://www.lbc.co.uk/news/london/wes...local-funding/

Trying to make a political point when the dead haven't even been counted.

There has been no investigation yet, nobody knows why it started, why it spread the way it did.

The cost of refurbing that building was £8.7 million.

He's vile.

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I don't think so, I think he has a point.

But then again, after everything that has been said prior, I find it more of a disgrace from Theresa May to say 'Lessons need to be learnt from this'.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entr...b09ad4fbe45929

Somehow her words to say there will be an investigation doesn't give me too much hope.

Totally devastating and heart wrenching to watch and hear what people are saying.

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For those that can you may wish to help here.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfund...term=YbWRRPZEM

Most of the residents have lost everything and only have what they stand up in. They need help now not when the "Official" process kicks in.

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Not one that needs making while they are still counting the dead.

Trying to score points off this is exactly why this man should never be in charge.

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I think the Looney left supporters need to give it a rest with every little thing they can find to out the Tories.

The building had 8.7m spent on it so what the need to do is look at the company doing it and add up the costs as to where the 8.7m actually went and look to the company contracted to do the buildings.

Unlike Labour who seems to think money is endless you can't just keep giving money away which is more realistic I would have considered the money to do the flat up was a huge amount. So Lessons do need to be learned from this.

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Yes, lessons need to be learnt but to try to make political capital out of a tragedy is irreprihensible.

The guy's a butthole!

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The idea with large scale residential accommodation is to contain any outbreak of fire long enough for the fire brigade to get there. If a centralised fire alarm system was there then hundreds of people would have tried to leave the building at the same time, each time somebody burnt the toast. Usually there would be no need to evacuate the whole building.

The boundary walls, ceiling and floors of each flat should be fire resistant. Is it possible that the common walls, ceilings, and floors between flats were not fire resistant? That would have helped the fire spread more easily. If the exterior cladding was flammable, that would have helped the fire bypass any fire resistant walls etc.

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Actually The exit route should be smoke free if all building regs are met. ie Communal areas outside the flat door are protected with with access doors fitted with intumescent strips sealing the doors in event of fire.
The fire escape access doors should be also simarlally be protected. We should not pre-empt it by speculation either.

Although the intumescent strips only really activate with heat forming a tight seal they should resist smoke before the heat gets there If doors are fitted properly

So, in event of fire walk outside your flat into the communal area, walk to the fire escape and if everything has been fitted correctly walk down the smoke/heat free stairwell and exit.

For everything to work as it should all communal doors,flat front doors and flat kitchen doors should be fitted with firedoors and door closers.

Due to the time the fire broke out there is also the problem of the fire alarm reportedly not working. The LFB enquiry will reveal all and should not be ignored by local or national government.

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There are different practicalities between a building with a handful of flats and 120.That will be the reason for the advice for them to stay put. Each flat is meant to be fire-resistant in it's own right. That should limit the rate of spread of any fire to other flats. It would seem the rate of spreading of the fire was the problem. If you were to assume a rate as short as 30 minutes to reach an adjoining flat, then only a few flats should be affected before the fire brigade got there.It should have taken several hours to reach the top floor.

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Sadly politicians from all colours have been doing that since the year dot and will continue to do it.

If I lived in a tower block I'd be getting smoke hoods and perhaps even sorting a emergency bag with photocopies of essential documents

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No he doesn't! Any evidence that any cuts to
LA funding directly or even indirectly contributed to this disaster. I'll bee happy to see it. Do you have any?

You don't think lessons should be learnt?

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Absolutely, cutting the funding budget by 40% can only have helped the situation, same as closing 10 fire stations in London and cutting 50% of that boroughs fire services will of only helped.


More like we're sick of that phrase being trotted out tragedy after tragedy without any lessons ever seemingly being learnt at all.

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Sadly come the next tragedy those exact same phrases will still be trotted out by politicians who come out and pay insincere lip service during these tragedy's and then go back in their box and do diddly squat about it TD.

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Just a few weeks ago Corbyn's cronies were telling us how they'd not be making political capital out of the Manchester attack in the immediate aftermath. That approach didn't last long did it. It was just too big an opportunity to have another dig at the Government before the facts could either corroborate or contradict their claims. Nasty people like Livingstone who have a long history of causing insult regardless of the circumstances. Anyone would think disasters never happened on their watch and they always learned the lessons regardless of minor details like cost, practicality etc... :rolleyes:

We have a huge legacy of decades old tower blocks in the UK, what did Labour do about these tower blocks during their 13 years in office? Did they modernise them all? Did they stop at nothing to remove every possible risk factor from high rise living? Why didn't they insist that sprinkler systems were universally installed and retro-fitted when they were running the show? Does anyone really think that had this not happened and Corbyn been elected that he'd have immediately set in place a huge nationwide programme to tackle this sort of thing? Where was that commitment on such a pressing issue in his manifesto? This is nothing but the sort of political muckraking and opportunist point scoring that Labour specialise in and frankly anyone who seriously believes they'd have done anything different is deluded.

If it turns out, as it seems, that the major problem here was an unforeseen issue with the type of cladding and other materials used on this refurbishment how on earth is that the Government's fault? Presumably the materials will have passed all the relevant tests required by the agencies responsible for such matters and been given the green light so what more could have been done until this happened and exposed the reality that in a certain, perhaps highly unlikely, set of circumstances this could occur? What has Theresa May got to do with any of this except for the fact that she's a target for some very desperate and nasty people?

This world is full of disasters waiting to happen and if our government dedicated itself to eradicating very possible risk the UK would grind to a halt. In the real world judgements have to be made and things like cost v. risk considered. Yes it's all very well people jumping on the bandwagon demanding this that and the other be done but when they're asked to pay the higher prices, bear the increased taxes and suffer the inevitable disruption, regulatory burdens etc. etc. they whine about it. How many people can't even be bothered to ensure fire doors are shut in their buildings? I've been in plenty where the residents jam them open for their convenience. What can HMG do about that I wonder? In an ideal world we'd all have nice detached houses with nice safe gardens, sadly we live in the real world and there's nothing any government can do to remove every iota of risk in our lives.

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I hope the Firefighters get some kind of recognition for what they did. Bravery beyond the call .. respect to them.

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There have clearly been failures here. We need to calmly see who is responsible and what could have been done to stop it. I agree it's too early to assign blame but this will likely be government, national or/and local, failures. Were warnings given? Were they heeded? Would better regulations help stop similar failures in future?

Let's wait and see what happens.

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Met Police confirm 17 dead with further fatalities expected.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...y-latimer-road

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Show me evidence. If there's evidence I'll back it.

But until then, keep your speculation and theories where they belong.

---------- Post added at 11:13 ---------- Previous post was at 11:11 ----------

That's what we should be doing, that's what Corbyn should be doing instead of mouthing off with no evidence.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Totally agree, using this tragedy, when we don't even know the full facts and some people doing the usual pathetic political point scoring from their armchair, is totally disgusting and shows the lack of morality.

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As I understand it the firebrigade were on site in 6 minutes. How would more funding improved this response? :shrug: Just a cheap shot on the back of a tragedy.

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Of course Labour have never cut anything have they? Nobody's ever died, been injured or suffered as a result of anything Labour have done, failed to do or anything they've had to cut/scale back. :rolleyes:

If Labour were so concerned about fire risks in old unsafe tower blocks they could have made the retro-fitting of sprinkler systems a legal requirement years ago. Why didn't they do it when they had that huge parliamentary majority for over a decade and were spending money like there was no tomorrow? It's typical of the usual suspects here to jump on the nasty party, anti-Tory, bandwagon when they have nothing at all to say about the failure of their preferred party to tackle the massive problems they have a habit of highlighting when in opposition but do precious little about when in power.

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I've been mainly listening to this all unfolding on the radio and must say I haven't yet heard any mention of any official presence other than the front line emergency services. There's understandably a lot of chaos on the scene with large numbers of well meaning volunteers trying to do their bit etc. but seemingly nobody really overseeing what's going on and organising the relief effort on the ground. Surely someone in officialdom ought to be co-ordinating all this and if they're not, why not? :confused:

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In America they send out the National guard to help with things but we don't seem to have any type of organised group helping and organising things here.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

If you'd had to throw your child to safety I'm sure you'd have questions you wanted answering immediately rather than wait for a public enquiry to be concluded and it's recommendations ignored like with the lakanal house inquest and what I offered wasn't speculation or theories but facts, how relevant they are remains to be seen

---------- Post added at 15:15 ---------- Previous post was at 15:14 ----------

According to a fireman earlier they used to respond in under five minutes

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Well, according to the London Fire Service reports, the response time for the last couple of years is fairly static (around five and a half minutes).

http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/Docume...ce-2015-16.pdf Page 28.

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Apparently someone has just said they might never get a final figure of how many died in this tragedy but the figure in these coming days is likely to rise to not that far short of three figures sadly.:(

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Think he was talking pre austerity...

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I may be wrong but there doesn't seem to be much interest amongst the great and the good for rehousing some of these unfortunate people. Wasn't long ago that all manner of lefty luvvies and politicians were telling everyone how they'd happily house some refugees. It'd be a bit odd if our own needy citizens weren't worthy of similar assistance wouldn't it though so I'm sure they'll be queueing up to do so shortly.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Every family from Grenfell Tower that needs to be rehoused will be rehoused locally, housing minister Alok Sharma tells MPs.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...b0d5ab311e8064

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He looks like a political version of an ambulance chaser - except trying to increase popularity rather than increasing profit.

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There seems to be a growing anger as to why our Prime Minister hasn't met with the survivors, residents and volunteers.

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All l know is she just spoke to the emergency services earlier today.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/polit...-a3566041.html

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http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/Docume...times-2015.pdf pages 20 & 22

Table 5.1 Average first appliance attendance time shows average time in 2010 was 5:30, in 2015 it was 5:38 (Kensington & Chelsea was 4:36 in 2010, 4:44 in 2015).

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Makes you wonder where all this spare [local] housing has appeared from.

Yes, I'm sure thats top of the list of things those people are angry about.

More likely just people trying to stir up anti government (or anti Tory) nonsense.

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She just doesn't have the common touch, or has Asperger's (which would explain a lot)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7791726.html

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'That is the question as from what l have read there are quite a few empty houses in the borough not being occupied currently.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

There's a lot of people offering accommodation or hotel rooms for free to the victims, times like this the best side of human nature come out, I heard one woman say she had 21 studio flats they were welcome to use and another offer her flat in Hackney.

Apparently there's 2000 empty flats and houses in the area. I don't think it nonsense either for the residents to be angry about the pm coming to visit and not meeting a single victim of it

Thank you Hugh :tu:
Might podcast the interview later and see exactly what he was talking about

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Asperger's???

Seriously you are a nasty piece of work and a complete troll.:upyours:

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1. Ignore the emotional opening statement.

2. You've offered nothing in relation to this incident, because you can't, because WE DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED YET

Let me know if you need it explaining.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

If you google Theresa May and aspbergers it links to the autism forum, people there speculate she has it, doesn't mean she does of course, just that Mr K isn't the only one who has thought it.

It's not just me that'll need it explaining to, there's a hell of a lot of people demanding answers

http://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/mps-dem...s-in-sombre-p/

They're just lucky you're here to explain it to them to

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Agree. Very poor taste indeed. Pathetic.

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I can't explain anything because:

WE DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED YET

Let me know if I can explain further, you know, for the hard of thinking.

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My stepson has it he was 14 when they finally diagnosed him with it Now 23. She hasn't got it and I am sure it would be common knowledge if she had it's hard to hide. However I think this going around the internet will be just the typical Looney lefty tripe that seems to float about these days.

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Thats enough of the sniping at each other, get back to the subject.

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Maybe because until there is an investigation there is nothing more she can do. She wont be able to answer any of their questions it would make her look stupid. perhaps once things are settled down a bit she will pay a visit to them.

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There was a report that a guy knocked on a neighbours door and said I have a fire in my kitchen my fridge has caught alight.

What happened about this report.

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A lot of people are claiming it's social cleansing.
Theresa didn't want to know the victims. and by all accounts the council won't take their finger out of their arse either.

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There's plenty of questions that can and have been asked and can be answered without knowing the full cause of the fire like some of those posed in parliament today, I'd have thought being such a deep thinker you'd have realised that.

---------- Post added at 23:43 ---------- Previous post was at 23:40 ----------

That's one of the questions pierre doesn't think can be explained, why the council haven't coordinated any of the local volunteering, people from all over the country have come down to help but no one from the council as of this afternoon

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I mentioned that in my earlier post. He was in a flat on the 4th floor. Where it is reported the fire started. He said that his neighbour woke him up banging on the door and after they all got outside the mant was talking to the firemen about the exploding fridge.

---------- Post added at 23:50 ---------- Previous post was at 23:47 ----------

Generally it just to show she actually cares. Speaking with some of the survivors a bit like The London Mayor did and same with Jeremy Corbyn and thy were praised for doing so.

Many people see it as disrespectful or that she doesn't care. However the excuse was that she only met the emergency services as she was gathering info on wether an enquiry was needed. Of course it is!

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What's the saying? he doth protesteth too much?

you have to wonder why the council don't want to know. why they just stand back and let the public fend for themselves.

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Why can't some leave their bloody politics out of this thread for once.:rolleyes:

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Because some people don't seem to be able to coexist with anyone who isn't blue to their core. They need to get out more.

Cheers

Dave

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Apparently the cladding put outside the tower is banned on Germany and the US due to safety concerns. There were nonflammable versions but cost only slightly more but which were not used.

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Apparently it would have cost £5,000 more which is a drop in the ocean compared to making peoples accommodation safer and saving lives..

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To drag politics back into the mix. How about an interview with the new labour MP for Kensington who incidentally lives in the borough..

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...MCNEWEML6619I2

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I wonder what it's going to cost now all that cladding will have to be removed and replaced ...

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Something that should have started yesterday IMO. Whatever the actual cause and failings are found there seems to be a consensuses that this cladding dramatically increased the speed at which the fire spread. A consensus which is only backed up by the fact it's already been banned in several countries as it's highly flammable.

There are reportedly six towers which this specific cladding. They should have it removed ASAP as well as money made available to start the process of ensuring each tower block has working fire alarms and sprinkler systems.

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There were recommendations made to install fire suppression systems and sprinkler systems in tower blocks in 2013 but none of it was acted on as also The All-Party Parliamentary Fire and Rescue Group has been demanding changes to building regulations on fire safety since 2013.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ower-fire.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...f-sat-10620357

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You don't have to be a fire safety expert to see that the outside of the building was on fire, and ferociously so. There is no way a fire in a fourth floor kitchen should spread to the top of the building under any circumstances whatsoever. There simply shouldn't be enough flammable material in the basic fabric of the building to allow it. Yet someone thought it was a great idea to put flammable material all the way up the outside of the building, pretty much ensuring that any fire serious enough to blow out any one window could then spread right across the whole structure. This is an utter, utter national scandal of the highest order, and would have been so even if nobody had died. But a lot of people did die, and it seems some of them are so badly burned they may never be identified.

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The gutter Press is on form I see:

Did EU regulation mean deadly cladding was used on Grenfell Tower?

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You don't need to be blue to the core to be able to recognise leftist garbage, the majority of voters in this country managed to do that just fine.

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:tu:

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I was listening to an expert on this sort of thing and he was saying how critical a number of other factors are in order to make this cladding system safe - both in terms of other materials used in conjunction with the cladding and the correct installation of measures to prevent the spread of fire via the stack effect for example. It seems to me that any one of them not implemented correctly could have compromised the entire installation. What'll be critical is identifying whether this is a localised issue due to, say, incorrect installation or a fundamental misunderstanding of the fire risks associated with this cladding. We saw with 9/11 that (if you don't happen to believe they were blown up by the CIA or whatever) buildings which were designed to be able to cope with virtually anything collapsed in the extreme conditions resulting from the impact and ignition of aviation fuel from 2 jet liners. IIRC all the design testing done confirmed they shouldn't have collapsed but they did nonetheless and I'm still not sure they've found out what went wrong with 100% certainty and whether anything has been done to prevent the same thing happening again in any of America's other huge buildings.

Another big problem I can see here is the information being given to residents. They were told to stay put and in this case, with hindsight, that may not have been the best option. Had they all decided to evacuate ASAP the death toll may have been reduced but on the other hand in the panic and smoke things could have turned out far worse. Right now anyone living in one of these blocks is going to be wanting clarity on what to do in the event of fire and how likely are they to want to follow the current advice? God forbid we have another entirely preventable tragedy caused as a result of the uncertainties resulting from this one.

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In normal circumstances the advice to stay put in your flat is sound. The cellular structure of multi storey is sound and no fire should spread to an adjacent flat.

Those who don't feel safe staying put should be able to leave via the fire escape/stairwells as these again being sealed off by fire doors should be free of smoke and should fire arrive at them the intumescent strips in the door frame should hold fire back for 30mins minimum.

I know jumping to conclusions should be avoided but it does appear blindingly obvious that the combustability of the cladding has led to this unfortunate disaster. The cladding appears to have circumvented every inbuilt safety measure and allowed the fire to spread everywhere above the source with such rapidity.

I would much rather the money that is going to be spent on a public enquirey (which will be millions governments don't mind spending) be spent be spent on improving safety, making sure any cladding materials are non-conbustable and installing sprinlker systems at least in the communal areas and exit stairwells. I'm sure residents won't mind having a free shower in the event they need egress from the building in the event of fire.

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It's a really difficult situation clearly. I'm pretty sure I heard a former fire brigade safety officer saying that the main problem in the communal areas isn't so much the fire as toxic smoke and sprinkler systems won't help with that. The link below would seem to confirm the problem. In this case toxic smoke/fumes and fire was entering the flats via the exterior of the building so again sprinklers wouldn't have been totally effective. How feasible would it be to retrofit sprinklers inside all the blocks I wonder? It does seem like a sprinkler system inside the flat in which the fire started could well have prevented this tragedy but even so there'd still be the potential for external fire sources to set the cladding ablaze. :shrug:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40297466

The guy in question here seems to be pretty fit looking and he made it from the 14th floor to the 4th before collapsing. Luckily a firefighter got him out but older, more vulnerable people would never have made it.

Respect to anyone who's prepared to go into that sort of environment, however well trained they are!!

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Did any of you listen to the recording? The reason I ask is that he was responding to a question about the recommendations of the report into the fire at Lakanal House in 2009, and why the government has not implemented the recommendations (note: The interviewer said they had not, Jeremy made it clear he did not know if they had). Jeremy suggested that one possible reason is the local authority cuts.

That is not what the headline says, but that is what the recording says. I am no fan of Jeremy Corbyn (look at my previous posts on here and facebook for evidence of this).

In this instance, I don't believe he was using the fire for political capital. He was answering a question asked by the interviewer.

I agree that implementing the recommendations would cost money, and that money is not infinite. Those are facts of life. I also agree that Labour have been a bit too ready in the past to borrow money (however they dress it up).

However, the interviewer bought up the report into the Lakanal fire, and said that one of the main recommendations had not been implemented. Jeremy did say he didn't know if this was the case. However, another fact of life is that the Government HAS cut a lot of funds from local authorities. This MAY be one reason that the recommendations were not implemented (assuming they were not).

On a related note, I find it odd that the government is asking local authorities to make cuts because they cannot afford to finance them, yet they can find billions of pounds to finance their own needs, and seem able to ignore the billions in taxes that large companies escape by channeling their income out of the country. That's not something I've started feeling recently, that's something I've felt for a long time.


The problem is that most people think that the way to deal with fire is to buy something to help prevent it, and if a fire happens, get out and let the fire brigade deal with it.

That is good advice, as far as it goes, and what we, as people, should generally do.

When designing, building and refitting buildings, dealing with fire is nowhere near as simple as that. There is a lot of science and modelling that goes into the prevention. I've seen this first hand, as one of the groups I do technical support for is a research group dedicated to fire safety and evacuation, and they frequently get called in to advise on designing and refitting buildings.

With regard to evacuation, they apparently do two things. One is advising on design of escape systems/routes to enable the most people to escape. These routes would contain systems or features designed to keep the route protected in the event of fire.

The other is to advise on the implementation of "refuge areas". These are areas within building that include features designed to protect the occupants for as long as possible, so that hopefully the fire brigade can get to them.

Most reasonably large buildings use both now, with the refuge areas used to protect those who cannot make the fire escapes (such as wheelchair users). The average refuge area will have enhanced fire protection, should be kept clear of any obstructions and will have fire doors offering enhanced protection. In this case, as the residents were apparently advised to stay indoors, I would expect that the exterior walls, doors and windows to each flat would all have good fire protection. I would also expect good fire doors in the corridors leading to the flats.

The problem is, you can have the best fire protection in the world, but all it will do is give the occupants a few extra minutes. It sounds like, in this case, the fire spread too quickly (possibly due to the exterior cladding), and it would probably have overwhelmed whatever systems were in place in the building, even assuming the refit did not compromise them.

I can see the point about criticising Theresa May's assertions that we need to learn lessons. While I actually agree that we do need to, they do say this at every major disaster, and yet it frequently seems lessons are not learned. This fire should not have been so bad. It's impact should have been limited by the systems put in place after the recommendations of the previous report. It's incidents like this that make it feel like stating we need to learn lessons are just template responses from some politician's guide on how to deal with major incidents.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

30 people confirmed dead now with it set to rise in the coming days.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...latest-updates

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

The 'learning of lessons' comes at a price and clearly every government in our history has had to make decisions which are based on cost not what they'd like to be able to do if they could and had a never ending supply of money and resources. Frequently lives are lost because of that.

Armies are sent to war without the best possible equipment, hospitals are run without being able to offer every possible drug or treatment etc. It may well be possible to solve some of the problems with these blocks as a result of lessons learned from this disaster but it will never be possible to eradicate every potential for catastrophe in our towns and cities no matter how many lessons are learned. That's the problem all governments face - how best to spend the limited resources they have.

---------- Post added at 12:59 ---------- Previous post was at 12:37 ----------

As regards all those 'empty' properties Corbyn suddenly wants to seize control of:

https://order-order.com/2017/06/16/s...aim-is-a-myth/

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

It is the heat which makes smoke rise. If a sprinkler system is active it cools the smoke and it drops down to floor level. Science 101.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

The smoke and heat were outside, and any sprinklers are where exactly?

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Had they been fitted they would have been in the communal area outside the flat front door giving a safe area within the core of the building to escape.

I'm glad you are sensible to think that everything was outside and consdider no people were affected by smoke and heat on the inside. Perhaps with your opinions you should be recuited for the public enquiry so that we can have another whitewash of the facts.

I wonder how everything above the 4th floor is incinerated when everything happened outside?

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Company confirms cladding for Grenfell Tower was cheaper, a more flammable option.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...mnis-exteriors

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

The spreading of the fire was the problem. That occurred outside and in less than 30mins the building was engulfed.


---------- Post added at 13:51 ---------- Previous post was at 13:43 ----------

But who specified it?
Why should buildings only 22m high magically not be a problem. The fire spread not only upwards, but sideways across a floor.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

It seems to me that you should rarely go for the 'more flammable' option. :erm:

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

I suggest you tell that to the London Fire Brigade safety officer I was paraphrasing. They were his words not mine, since I am not an expert in such matters.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

I would guess it's due to ease of evacuation. A building that is 100 m wide by 10 m high * 10 m deep will have more room external fire exits than a building that is 10 m wide * 10 m deep * 100 m high.

The actual figure of 22m probably means nothing, and was likely only chosen because they had to set a limit purely so they could enforce it.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Members are reminded not to insult each other. There is no justification for it and we will not tolerate it under any circumstances.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Protesters enter Kensington town hall as tempers fray.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...latest-updates

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

People need to forget political ideology here, stop bickering and find the INDIVIDUALS who were either neglegant or directly engaging in corrupt and selfish practices so that they can be dealt with by the full weight of the book of the law.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Well yes but it also can be that there were institutional failures here. Failures from the people who manage the property, failures from the council and failures from the government.

It isn't just that the building was allowed to be in that state, it's also that the residents warned repeatedly that this could happen and were ignored.

This should never have been allowed to happen. As well as prosecuting anyone who is found to be criminally negligent we need to go after the systems that allowed it.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

The "protesters" are doing nothing except harming their cause.
They will quickly lose public sympathy if they start being violent.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Thankfully its stopped but those with influence certainly need to start listening..

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

They are making completely unreasonable demands.

No one is going to give them answers "Now", and what do they even mean by "Justice" ?

The investigations have barely begun.

Re: Huge fire at West London tower block
 

Don't think anyone really stops to think that the people you're demanding answers from dont actually have them themselves yet.

I've just watched a load on TV outside of Kensington Town hall holding anti tory plaques with back Corbyn at the bottom... I can't seriously be the only person annoyed at that regardless of who I voted for.