Sprinklers could have been installed at the Grenfell tower block at an estimated cost of £200,000, claims the Fire Sector Federation (FSF).
Fire engulfed the Grenfell tower block in North Kensington, London on June 14, 2017 and has so far claimed 30 lives.
The building had been subject to a £10m refurbishment that saw the bottom four floors remodelled to create nine new homes, plus the addition of rain screen cladding, replacement windows and curtain wall façades. Internally, a new communal heating system and smoke extraction and ventilation system were fitted.
Survivors report being alerted to the fire by neighbours fleeing the building down a single stair case.
FSF, a forum for organisations in the fire and safety sector created to advise and help shape policy on fire-related issues, said that although a fire on such a scale is unprecedented in the UK, there have been a number of similar incidents here and around the world.
The federtion added that it has expressed major concerns about the apparent disjoint in the processes that aim to ensure fire safety within the built environment, as well as concerns about the combustibility of certain modern building materials.
Alan Brinson, a member of the European Fire Sprinkler Network said: “This fire is similar to The Address fire in Dubai on New Year’s Eve 2015. The difference is that building had sprinklers and nobody was killed.”
Grenfell Tower was built in 1974 without sprinklers as regulatory guidance in England has only required sprinklers in high-rise residential buildings since 2007. Although the tower was refurbished in 2014/2015, there was no requirement to fit sprinklers at the same time, which FSF estimate would’ve added about £200,000 to the cost of the project.
Jon O’Neill, managing director of the Fire Protection Association told The Independent that a sprinkler system would have saved lives and ‘created an environment where it would have been easier to rescue people and increase survivability.’
I watched this unfold from the beginning of amateur live coverage. I’m not a fire protection engineer but from the footage, it certainly appears that the fire spread by consuming the insulated facade along the exterior with the heat causing the glazing to fail, introducing flame spread to the interior of the building in multiple, simultaneous locations.
Exterior sprinklers may be impractical (though a dry pipe or pre-action type system would enable coverage in freezing climates) but interior sprinklers or water curtains spraying the glazing from the interior upon heat activation could have prevented or at least slowed the intrusion of fire to the interior as it passed along the facade, enabling it to skip over and burn out. This was shown at the Address Dubai hotel fire and the Monte Carlo fire in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, the sprinkler system at The Address was quickly overwhelmed as they aren’t designed to have dozens of heads on each floor activate. However, everybody got out there and the fire department could have utilized the fire department connection and pump as much water as possible into the system, shutting off zones to the lower floors as the fire had been extinguished and passed the floor to maintain pressure. Having sprinklers is like having a 24 hour fireman on duty in each room. In all likelihood, if it was a refrigerator fire, a single sprinkler head may have kept the fire inside the kitchen. In 1991, One Meridian Plaza experienced a fire that consumed 8 floors, only stopping once it reached a floor with sprinklers (sprinklers were in the process of being installed following the 1988 First Interstate Bank fire).
The smoke ventilation system should have (or at least in the U.S.) introduced positive ventilation pressure to the stairwell, keeping smoke out. But this depends on proper fire doors staying closed. If doors were left open, it may have had the undesired effect of introducing more outside oxygen to the fire. Furthermore, the intake for the fans may have been in a location that actually drew smoke from the exterior. This needs to be investigated as well. The stairwell should have been a refuge keeping smoke out.
Water curtains and sidewall sprinklers have been very effective in increasing the fire rating of a glazed opening, buying precious time for occupants to escape.
It took several deaths from high-rise fires in the 1980s to mandate sprinkler retrofitting in the U.S. and they are now nearly universal and required when buildings are renovated to a certain degree. The refurbishment at Grenfell already resulted in running hot water loop and gas risers, that would have been the cheapest and least disruptive time to install a sprinkler riser. It’s a crime for management to blame residents for not installing sprinklers. It is management’s legal and ethical obligation to provide the safest structure as feasible. I can only hope that the U.K. has now learned what the U.S. learned in the 1980s and unilaterally requires retrofit of sprinklers. I can’t believe they have only been required in new construction since 2007. In addition, if the facade is proven to be the vector of flame spread, these materials need to be banned and existing installations need to be altered to achieve a sufficient fire rating.
Every single one of these deaths could have been prevented for what amounts to a rounding error in the scope of the entire budget. I would not live or work in a high rise without a sprinkler system.
I am so sadly reminded of almost the first comment that the Dean of Engineering at St Andrews said at our first lecture. “Break Nature’s Laws, and both detection and punishment will be immediate.” [He didn’t add “no matter how many lawyers you pay to cover-up for you” but I will]
Sadly, too often the punishment to suffered by the innocent, the guilty are exonerated and the messengers shot!
“communal…..smoke extraction and ventilation system were fitted.”
I am going to fly a ‘kite’ here: but having read this I am reminded yet again of one of the first aspects to my Engineering experience(s). Woods of Colchester (Xpelair, Aerofoil fans) were the market leader in the late 50s (yes, sadly that long ago!) when I did a student (as opposed to a craft) apprenticeship there. One of the aspects of this was to spend time with the ‘trouble-shooter’ – I can even remember his name, Alex Moss- who visited installations which for whatever reason had failed. We visited a restaurant (with extraction from its kitchens) which were directed up the building (about 3 storeys high) to exhaust from the roof. The amount of crud, grease, congealed ‘fat’ and so on in the flue had actually started to affect the air-flow : so that the motor in the fan was running hot, and the windings failed. A change (such as described in this article about the cost (minor) of a sprinkler system -which was NOT installed) whereas a centralised flue carrying foul/boiler/cooking air from lower to upper floors. That is where i would start looking for the cause of such a rapid spread.
Peter Szerszen’s comments offer yet again a reasoned and rational approach (that I trust anyone trained in the sciences/Engineering would be able to emulate and go along with) -from the outside- of possible errors and solutions to this terrible event.
As far as sprinklers go? I gather one factor considered, by the authorities, against them was always the possibility of small boys with matches/lighters having fun by seeing how many they could set off from a single ‘strike’ [The authorities were fearful of the insurance claims for damaged belongings in apartments so deluged.] Presumably, after this horrific fire, the writs are already piling-up against the doors of those likely to be involved.
Reading of the possibility/likelihood of ‘fire-doors’ being wedged/left open: I was reminded of the work on ammunition hoists etc, in which my father was involved before and during the early part of WWII. This was the mechanism(s) for getting shells and charges from magazine to turret on large navy vessels. There were of course ‘fire-doors’ in-between decks: but it was well known and common practice that there were left open to allow greater speed in delivery. The list of capital ships which exploded after a minor top-sides ‘hit’ which travelled down the shafts were many.
The fatalities in this case as in most fires were from smoke. Sprinklers do not prevent smoke, so would only be effective if they put the fire out before it could spread out of the initial floor affective. This would require sprinklers through every room in the 24 storey building, with a fully charged pipework and an automatic pump and water reservoir, I don’t see that costing £ 200K to purchase, install and maintain and test.
The first objective should be to raise the alarm and evacuate everyone to a safe location. As this was not done in the case, reliance on sprinklers to put the fire out before there is any significant smoke is replacing the reliance on passive 1 hour fire barriers to prevent fire/smoke spreading with that of reliance on active sprinklers to extinguish in time to prevent fire/smoke spreading.
GD: sprinklers in every room in 24 storey building with pipework pump reservoir, don’t see £200K to purchase install maintain test :: nor did I hence reaction remarked in Updated: Grenfell fire highlights ‘serious failure’ and cladding concerns. Not implausible nor impractical.
Perhaps if they had installed the sprinklers, they wouldn’t have had enough money left for the cladding.
Perhaps they had their priorities wrong.
What about the lack of Smoke detectors as well as the sprinklers. Appears the residents were alerted by their own neighbors.
Shame also that the UK and other Countries never learn, 2007 to change building protection codes – totally unacceptable in the Architectural/Engineering field of design!
Hope those responsible for the renovation and material suppliers are questioned and prosecuted for possibly cutting corners and saving the quoted 200,000Pounds
Each building needs a “brain” that monitors the building’s fire life safety systems. The name of that “brain” is called a Building Data Recorder. You can read more here http://www.koritech.com or simply search these terms “building data recorder”. There is no excuse today, especially with the growing Internet of Things (IoT). But does anyone really care? Sadly, the answer is: not really…
How could we as Engineers ave allowed these materials to be not properly tested and allowed to be used to such deadly effect. We must take some of the blame.