Soldato
I hope I'm very wrong, but I've got a horrid feeling fatalities could be over 100.
Tower block fire - london
- Thread starter robfosters
- Start date
why?
Soldato
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they were testing it, plus the first guy dropped his radio and stopped to grab it which you wouldn't be doing in an emergency.
it's still better than inflatable bouncy castles full of burning debris, ropes and leaving the sick and the children to die, or hitting concrete.
although again it's better to have a functioning fire alarm, a sprinkler system and a building that's not flammable.
It's not hard to see how the estimate of 400+ residents is reached. There's some information on the building here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ed-at-grenfell-tower-london-fire-visual-guide
20 floors with same layout - four 2-bed flats and two 1-bed flats per floor.
Given the pressure on housing in London, 2 persons per bedroom as an average isn't unlikely, so that gets you to 400 straight away. Then there's probably some flats with higher occupancy to take that figure higher.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ed-at-grenfell-tower-london-fire-visual-guide
20 floors with same layout - four 2-bed flats and two 1-bed flats per floor.
Given the pressure on housing in London, 2 persons per bedroom as an average isn't unlikely, so that gets you to 400 straight away. Then there's probably some flats with higher occupancy to take that figure higher.
Caporegime
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- 18 Oct 2002
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LA fire department with an air cushion (note - not an 'oxygen' cushion)
https://www.fresnofiretraining.net/docdirectory/300 TE/306.005.pdf
These things are generally only rated to 70ft, another I found was 40m but was actually quite small.
People don't know and aren't trained to jump out of huge buildings.
If you put one out rated at 40m, then someone on a floor above is going to jump anyway, they'll explode the device and die on impact anyway. Someone who is only 7 floors up will jump but think he needs to push off from the building and will miss the thing.
It's in no way practical. These things are mostly used for situations like jumpers off bridges/shorter buildings, with no fires around and one person. People were stuck in their rooms all over at different windows, it would take several dozen hours to get them all out that way and a lot would miss, jump from higher than they should, even telling someone on the 9th floor not to jump would be nearly impossible in loud conditions. Then you have the fire the heat was so intense they were staying away from the building, it was unsafe at many points for firemen to be close enough to the building to deploy something like this.
It's impractical in any possible way you could think about it. The time needed between jumps to fill it up, the positions of everyone, the danger of getting close enough, the inability to communicate and even the windows on the building themselves. High rise windows aren't designed to open all the way or be easy to get out of meaning many people will have to smash the windows and effectively just flop out over them.
Very few departments have them anywhere in the world because they are of such completely limited use.
The other problem is, imagine you have 100 people who see the thing and so decide to jump and end up dying when if they stayed put it turns out the fireman would eventually get the fire under control and they wouldn't die.
I would bet that in any department that has them there is a strict rule that they don't get used unless the full height of the building is lower or at the limit of the height the air cushion is rated for. IE if it's rated for 40m(the biggest I could find) you wouldn't use it for a building of 60m high precisely for the reasons above.
Soldato
Such terrible and shocking news. Some of the images are truly harrowing. Can't imagine how it'd feel being in that situation. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones and everyone who has lost their home! As always the community spirit and support of each other is good to see.
Soldato
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ever set fire to a spiders web?
It would be much more effective to put additional emergency escape systems into place.
Im sure you could spray it with some totally not carcinogenic compound that wont give anyone landing on it cancer in the immediate future.
Soldato
If the can't afford sprinklers do you think they'll have money for that ? Things are difficult for councils and they're only going to get worse.
yes there are lots of reasons why they're of limited use and impractical - still better than jumping onto concrete though
Soldato
According to one of the books from my childhood, asbestos suits were the latest thing for firefighters.
Soldato
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How hard would it be to create an inflatable platform capable of rising 20+ floors high? I am not sure what sort of material could withstand the sort of heat coming from a fire like that, but I assume there must be something. Imagine being able to erect a temporary skyscraper, alongside a structure which is on fire or likely to collapse? Problem solved. Could even flood compartments in it with water to give stability.
Granted, this is probably less practical than a sprinkler system. But it boggles my mind to think that they cannot easily rescue those people.
Granted, this is probably less practical than a sprinkler system. But it boggles my mind to think that they cannot easily rescue those people.
Soldato
So not only until something goes wrong do they actually acknowledge there were concerns but now they're going to act on them?? WTF is wrong with these people!!
Soldato
I'm sure it'd be easier to just build buildings that aren't death traps. Older buildings aren't going anywhere due to the crazy land prices and greed of owners
The problem is it'd take way too long to inflate. It could hypothetically be done, but creating something which could inflate fast enough would involve a frame, which would kind of defeat the purpose of it being quick to erect and portable. Even if it were possible, you'd need to surround the building with them otherwise the occupants would have to travel across a potentially lethal building to get to it.
It's not a bad idea though, with enough development and financing I'm sure something could come of it.
Which is exactly why Thompson's idea is decent. We're stuck with crap buildings, so might as well come up with safe exit devices.