A burnt-out apartment in the Grenfell Tower 24-storey building in London.
A burnt-out apartment in the Grenfell Tower 24-storey building in London.
I have spent the last week at an International Standardisation Organisation meeting in London talking about the ongoing development of personal protective clothing for firefighters.
But, as you will imagine, there was a lot of discussion at the meeting regarding the Grenfell tower fire on June 14, in West London.
Despite all the dramas London residents have experienced in recent weeks, life there still seemed quite normal.
A taxi driver, talking about the recent terror attacks, said that he had seen off the IRA of the 1970s and he would see off these scoundrels (he didn't use that word).
While it is early days, there are a considerable number of known facts as to how and why the Grenfell fire was as disastrous as it was, the blaze at the 24-storey block in west Kensington claiming at least 80 lives.
The other morning, the Times newspaper reported that the local council required a £293,000 reduction in the cost of the tower block's cladding out of a budget of £8.6 million. So a likely result of this was a version of the cladding was installed that was not suitable for the building.
This is probably supported by the fact that this cladding has already been withdrawn from use in high-rise buildings -- but too late, because so far there have been 147 other buildings found in London fitted with non-compliant cladding.
But other factors contributed, and the history of why this building was designed the way it was, is undoubtedly a contributor.
There was only one stairway fire exit, so while residents were trying to go down the stairs, the first firemen were trying to go up the stairs. There were neither sprinklers nor smoke alarms in each apartment, and there were no automatic door closers on the exit doors of each apartment -- as a consequence when residents fled their apartments and left the doors open, as the fire got established in each apartment the smoke (and fire) quickly spread to the corridors and stairwells.
I would not like to be a member of that council.
People, especially young children quickly got lost while trying to flee because of the panic and smoke.
Disaster area: A police officer stands near the burnt Grenfell Tower apartment building standing testament to the tragic fire in London on June 23.
I spoke to one senior fire officer on duty that day who said the fire crews frequently swapped the breathing mask they were wearing to help the children breathe while they carried them down the stairs. Not best practice for firefighters, but one could completely understand why they did it.
Some 20 firemen were injured, but most reported for duty the next day. One was hit by a falling resident and suffered serious shoulder injuries.
Sir Ken Knight, retired former chief officer of the London Fire Brigade, told me he had been appointed to a special public inquiry in order to produce an urgent assessment of matters that contributed to this disaster. It is to come up with quick issues that need to be addressed about similar buildings in Britain.
Unfortunately, it seems lessons learned in recent years in other parts of the world had not been picked up in Britain.
In Melbourne in 2014, similar external cladding burned up the exterior of a new Melbourne high-rise -- the only thing that saved this building was the fact that sprinklers in each apartment stopped the internal flame spread. Some may remember the exterior building fire in Dubai not long ago. Same issues.
Ironically, the ability of UK fire services to inspect buildings and report on deficits by law was removed some years ago, and the power of the Home Office fire section has been diminished from what I remember nearly 30 years ago. So presumably the lack of a fire service report on the building at the design stage was a factor.
It's inconceivable that the local council will escape responsibility and the deputy leader responsible for housing has already resigned. A question has been asked if there is any link between these legislative changes and the fact that more than 300 British parliamentarians are landlords.
Because Whanganui District Council has some 270 residential flats -- though none high-rise -- I have asked questions about the fire security in these units.
They are predominantly occupied by seniors who may have some degree of limited mobility. Again, the same questions: does the council check the fire security in each unit each year; are there smoke alarms and are the batteries changed regularly; are there brigade call points in each set of units linked directly to the fire service etc.
I am awaiting answers, because we need to be responsible landlords.
It's a familiar story -- if we fail to learn the lessons of history, we will experience and repeat the lessons of history.
In a recent Chronicle article, I wrote about the importance of standards. In a modern society, with all the accoutrements for living we have, they are more important than ever for our safety.
David Bennett is chief executive of Pacific Safety International and a Whanganui district councillor.
