Tower block fire - london

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Is there a chance that the outside is severely burned but the inside is not too bad? I'd guess that the external temperature would ignite things inside the flats but it might have burned around the outside quite quickly...

Just heard that there is a fire in the middle of the building... Damn.

Looking at the pictures, you can see the fire deep inside the building, so I suspect it's pretty bad.
 
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I'm stunned that some people managed to hold out and survive that. Some of the pictures show at least 3/4 of the building burning at the height of it.

On this note I am sure I heard on the BBC that the fire was on the outer sections of the buildings and not it in its core. Hopefully people managed to wait it out in the core of the building and as the fire/smoke subsides more to the windows to reach out for help.

EDIT: just seen the above posts - really hope there isn't a fire in the centre, that would make survival impossible :(
 
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Apparently survivors are being found inside. Barricaded themselves in and used wet clothes to seal gaps around doors.

serious query, though it might sound stupid:
if you're above a fire and trapped like this, if everyone on those floors turned on all taps full blast and flooded their apartments/floors, would it be of any benefit? theoretically the wet/flooded floors could reduce temperature, and smoke coming from higher vents etc would still be an issue, but would water flooding down from, say, three or four higher floors be able to retard the fire?
 
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Is there a chance that the outside is severely burned but the inside is not too bad? I'd guess that the external temperature would ignite things inside the flats but it might have burned around the outside quite quickly...

Just heard that there is a fire in the middle of the building... Damn.
Live pictures still showing fires inside. It appears they can only use an unmanned hose system at the moment. This is horrendous.
Andi.
 
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serious query, though it might sound stupid:
if you're above a fire and trapped like this, if everyone on those floors turned on all taps full blast and flooded their apartments/floors, would it be of any benefit? theoretically the wet/flooded floors could reduce temperature, and smoke coming from higher vents etc would still be an issue, but would water flooding down from, say, three or four higher floors be able to retard the fire?
I'd imagine those systems aren't designed for everyone to be using their taps at once. Pressure would be miserable and barely have any impact.
 
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serious query, though it might sound stupid:
if you're above a fire and trapped like this, if everyone on those floors turned on all taps full blast and flooded their apartments/floors, would it be of any benefit? theoretically the wet/flooded floors could reduce temperature, and smoke coming from higher vents etc would still be an issue, but would water flooding down from, say, three or four higher floors be able to retard the fire?
Doubt it - wouldn't get enough water through, and the heat would evaporate it off soon enough.

I wonder if a 'fire break' would work in principle. Basically throw everything from an entire floor or two out of the window so there's no fuel for the fire. Not really realistic, especially with the cladding outside of the building spreading the fire.
 
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Suprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more offen tbh. The amount of people who smoke and drink late at night, well recipe for disaster.
 
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I am amazed there haven't been more of these high rise infernos, packing people above one another for umpteen floors, with each group of people having their own cooker and electronic gizmos, in some areas with a lot of people often living a lifestyle where alcohol and drugs make them careless. It's remarkable that this is the first big blaze in a high rise for ages in the UK. One has to hope that most have had a remarkable escape. I believe it would be financially impractical to build such towers in a way that fire could not spread at all, it's a risk brought on by having to house excess population density in major conurbations.

Ahh jsmoke beat me to it and more succinctly too....
 
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With regards CDM, from a designers POV it states;



You would be doing so if your detailing conformed to current regulations and manufacturers installation details. Someone mentioned something similar in Southampton? I don't recall a fire spreading like this in the UK before today ?

Several examples of building fires where cladding is in question can be googled in Dubai and other Arab countries. Dependant on the timeline this could present as a foreseeable risk.
 
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That blog isn't very good reading.

That's literally unbelievable.

Unbelievable how they've been complaining to the authorities, management, everyone since 2013, especially reading stories about smoke billowing out of people's appliances and things fusing out randomly, due to a dodgy building power supply..

Sounds like the end result of utter incompetence
 
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I am amazed there haven't been more of these high rise infernos, packing people above one another for umpteen floors, with each group of people having their own cooker and electronic gizmos, in some areas with a lot of people often living a lifestyle where alcohol and drugs make them careless. It's remarkable that this is the first big blaze in a high rise for ages in the UK. One has to hope that most have had a remarkable escape. I believe it would be financially impractical to build such towers in a way that fire could not spread at all, it's a risk brought on by having to house excess population density in major conurbations.

Ahh jsmoke beat me to it and more succinctly to....
Seems to me, as a layman, that if fire couldn't spread on the outside of the building, then it actually would be difficult for fire to spread much at all. At any great rate anyway. Concrete structure with fire doors would do a pretty good containment job. Not especially expensive
 
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Several examples of building fires where cladding is in question can be googled in Dubai and other Arab countries. Dependant on the timeline this could present as a foreseeable risk.

Its irrelevant to cite occurrences in other countries as the regulations that would need to be adhered to could be vastly different (there may not even be any at all). If it was Europe then its more relevant as we have a more or less level standard but even then there are variants. As Jim Mcloughlin (technical fire officer) just said on Sky though, our regs don't really cover this element of construction enough and its been used more and more.
 
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Wow that's terrible, just watching sky news and seeing the tower block on fire :(.

RIP to the ones who have lost their lives, hopefully they can get the rest of them out safe. But from what I was hearing, death toll could rise :(.
 
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