All smoke and mirrors on true level of fire risks
YESTERDAY two very different items hit the headlines in the national news. First we learned how An Bord Pleanála has refused permission for plans to build Dublin’s tallest building — a 22-storey tower block for a site owned by developer Johnny Ronan at Tara Street, facing the Liffey in the centre of Dublin.
Second, a fire ripped through the 15-storey Metro Hotel in Ballymun, gutting a number of upper floors. Miraculously the 150 people inside the hotel and apartment building appear to be safe at the time of writing. The fire was fought by 60 fire officers, eight water pump units and two aerial units and was one of the biggest fires dealt with in high-rise buildings in recent times.
The head of Dublin’s fire authorities yesterday came out to assure people that this was “no Grenfell”. It is less than a year since the horrific fire in the 24-storey residential building in London.
But just after lunch yesterday, SIPTU representatives of firefighters involved in tackling the Ballymun blaze called a press conference. They highlighted claims that, despite various warnings on their part to Government over the years, Dublin firefighters are still not properly equipped to fight blazes in high-rise buildings of the sort that are becoming the norm in the capital.
Representatives of SIPTU and Fórsa members in the Dublin Fire Brigade are seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy, concerning the provision of adequate training, resources and risk assessments to deal with the threat of high rise fires.
Brendan O’Brien of SIPTU, said: “Dublin Fire Brigade firefighters believe that the high-rise fire in Ballymun, last night, has starkly illustrated why their repeated demands for high-rise firefighting training as well as the provision of adequate resources and risk assessments must be acted on.
“Since 1981, there has been no increase in the provision of high-reach fire appliances, despite the city having grown considerably since then.”
Veteran firefighter Shane McGill, said: “In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire in London last June, we participated in a task group established by the minister to examine fire safety in high-rise buildings. Sadly, to date the concerns we have raised at this group in relation to training, resources and risk assessments have been ignored.”
Yesterday one seasoned Dublin city fire fighter who attended the Ballymun fire told me that if someone had appeared stuck at an upper floor balcony or window on Wednesday night, there was no ladder long enough to reach them.
The two 30-metre ladders at the scene would have perhaps managed to reach the sixth floor and not much further. Dublin City fire services have had two 30-metre ladders since the early 1980s in a period when 42-metre ladders (which could extend their reach by at least another three floors) have been widely in use with other fire services throughout Europe. This has also been a period in which our fire services have been forced to buy secondhand surplus equipment from the UK and other European services.
More worrying still, fire service members claim that despite urging their bosses (as recently as within the last two weeks) for a “proper plan” to tackle high-rise fires of the type that are becoming more usual in our cities, there has been none forthcoming. The firefighter told me: “We need to know whether we are to instruct people to stay in situ until we put out the fire or rescue them, as happened with Grenfell; or whether they should try to evacuate the building themselves.”
Despite knowing that many buildings in Ireland have Grenfell-type cladding on them (this one did not) he says fire fighters here aren’t equipped with an easily-accessible database to tell them which ones do, before they get to the scene. In Britain and Northern Ireland, they operate a system called “What’s Behind the Door” which tells firefighters about building before they get there.
“We also need to know that building regulations are being properly enforced on fire — because they weren’t all through the Tiger years. We need all high-rise buildings to have a proper fire assessment as they are in other countries, before anyone occupies them.”
Aside from the long-standing towers we have had in situ over many years, such as Liberty Hall and the now-demolished Ballymun residential blocks, high-rise buildings have not been the norm in our cities. But with apartment building regulations recently relaxed and Build-to-Rent investors circling Dublin, the Government has recently talked about Ireland’s cities having to “grow up, rather than grow out”. True high-rise is on the way, but how can this happen if the occupants won’t be safe from fire?
The Ballymun blaze also distracts from the fact that we have an inherently explosive fire risk problem remaining as a legacy from the enforcement-free Tiger years — one which hasn’t gone away and which Government seems intent to keep brushing under the carpet. Some construction sources I have spoken to estimate that 70pc of blocks built in the Tiger years are in breach of fire regulations.
Yesterday I issued questions to the Department of Housing asking why the Ministerial Report into fireproofing of Irish homes initiated in 2015 has not yet been released three years on. It was commissioned following a blaze in Kildare in which fire tore through many adjoining homes with unusual ease. There was no answer at the time of going to press. Speculation is that the report has been buried because its findings are absolutely incendiary. There should be absolutely no more buildings constructed over six storeys in any Irish city going forward until our fire services are equipped for them. End of.
The ladders would have reached the sixth floor, and not much further