Eight failures that left people of Grenfell Tower at mercy of the inferno
A LITANY of failings in building regulation and safety rules have left residents in tower blocks vulnerable for decades. Despite constant warnings from fire experts, nothing has been done to improve fire-proofing standards, or even review the current situation. Here are the eight times that the victims of Grenfell Tower were let down.
A change in the law
Until 1986 all buildings in London fell under the London Building Acts, which ensured that external walls must have at least one hour of fire resistance to prevent flames from spreading between flats or entering inside.
But under Margaret Thatcher’s government, those rules were replaced by the National Buildings Regulations and the time stipulation was scrapped.
Instead, materials used on the outside of buildings now only had to meet “Class O” regulations and show that they did not add to the heat or intensity of a fire. Crucially they did not have to be non-combustible.
For the past three decades fire safety experts have warned that the “Class O” designation was based on small-scale tests conducted in laboratory conditions and did not properly evaluate cladding in a live fire.
A recent London Fire Brigade investigation into the Shepherds Court tower block fire in west London in August 2016 found that external cladding had helped the fire to spread.
They found that when exposed to high flames the metal sheet of the cladding had melted away, setting the inner polystyrene foam on fire and allowing “flaming droplets” to fall onto lower floors while helping flames to spread higher up. Fire chiefs wrote to every council in London to warn them of the dangers but no action was taken.
Dangerous cladding
A leading fire safety expert warned government advisers three years ago that a tragedy like the Grenfell Tower inferno would happen unless they changed rules to ban cheap, flammable insula- used on the outside of buildings. Arnold Turling said Grenfell Tower had a gap between the panels that acted as a “wind tunnel”, fanning the flames, and allowing the fire to spread.
Mr Turling, a member of the Association of Specialist Fire Protection, said: “Any burning material falls down the gaps and the fire spreads up very rapidly – it acts as its own chimney.”
Three years ago Mr Turling addressed the British Standards Institute’s seventh annual fire conference in London, at which government fire safety adviser Brian Martin was present.
“I said we will have this type of cladding fire in this country and it will lead to large numbers of deaths,” he said.
Following the Shepherds Court fire, the insurer RSA wrote a report warning that flammable material in insulation panels “melts and ignites relatively easily”. They concluded: “This allows extensive and violent fire spread, and makes fire fighting almost impossible.”
However, Harley Curtain Wall Ltd said that it had installed cladding with polyisocyanurate inside, a material better than most at resisting fire in tests.
No government review
After six people died in the Lakanal House fire in south London in 2009, the All-party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue (APPFSR) group called for a review of building regulations.
They argued that 4,000 tower blocks across London were at risk. The coroner on the Lakanal House inquest also recommended the government simplify regulations relating to fire safety.
In 2013, Sir Eric Pickles, then communities secretary, promised a review with an updated version of building regulations published in 2016-17.
However, no review has been completed despite assurances from the former housing minister Gavin Barwell, who is now Theresa May’s chief of staff.
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said the work was “ongoing” and would not give a date for when the updated regulations will be published.
A single staircase
Residents in Grenfell Tower gave retion peated warnings that a single staircase was their only means of escape.
Tower blocks in Britain still only have to have one staircase, unlike other countries in the world.
Russ Timpson, of the Tall Buildings Fire Safety Network, said his “foreign colleagues are staggered” that there is no requirement for a second staircase as he called on the Government to look again at fire safety regulations.
Residents fleeing Tuesday night’s blaze complained that stairs were blocked, full of smoke and had no sprinkler systems fitted. Firefighters struggled to get to the upper levels.
The flats had recently been refitted and fire experts said gaps in the walls where new pipes were installed could have allowed flames and smoke to spread quickly.
Missing sprinklers
There was no central sprinkler system at Glenfell which members of the Fire Protection Association (FPA) said would have “undoubtedly” cost lives.
MPS from APPFSR said they have called for sprinklers to be fitted on the outside of tall buildings for years, but said those calls have been ignored.
Currently, sprinklers only need to be fitted up to 30 metres high, but in tall buildings such as Grenfell it is impossible for fire hoses to reach the upper floors. Jon O’neill of the FPA said: “To have had sprinklers in that building would have created an environment where it would have been easier to rescue people and increase survivability.” However, in 2014 the housing minister Brandon Lewis refused to make building developers fit sprinklers, over fears the cost could discourage building.
Missing fire doors
London Fire Brigade said claims that doors were not fire-proofed would form part of its inquiry.
Two separate sources have told The Daily Telegraph that not all the front doors in the tower block were fireproofed. Official fire brigade advice to stay put in the event of a fire is based on fire doors offering protection to residents told not to leave the building.
Regulations state that all tower blocks being built must have fire doors on the flat, the stairwell and the riser doors, which give access to the pipes.
Building regulations are not retrospective, so cannot force the installation of modern equipment on old buildings. However, Richard Brownlee, managing director of Surrey Fire and Safety Ltd, said that it would be expected that fire doors were installed as part of any refurbishment.
Inspections
According to information released by Kensington and Chelsea Council under the Freedom of Information Act, the last time that Grenfell Tower was subject to a full Fire Risk Assessment was December 2015.
Every building must have regular fire risk assessments but there is no specific time frame. Industry experts say that best practice is every 12 months.
It is also a requirement to have a fire risk assessment carried out if there is a “material change” to the building. The refurbishment to Grenfell Tower was completed in May 2016 and yet it does not appear that any safety checks were carried out. The council did not respond to a request for comment.
Firebreaks
Fires on the outside of cladded buildings should have been controlled by firebreaks – gaps in the external envelope to prevent the continuous burning of material.
Under Building Regulations 1991, developers are warned that they must install systems to prevent flames from leaping from floor to floor.
However the Fire Brigades Union, the Loss Prevention Council and the Buildings Research Establishment have frequently warned that guidance is not adequate in the event of a fire.
Dr Stuart Smith, a building surveying and fire safety lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, said: “Once the fire had got into the cladding, the rate at which that burns, I’m not sure fire breaks would work anyway.”