8 ms·

London’s Grenfell Tower Fire Was No Ordinary Accident

81 points by DiabloD3 9y ago

Stranger43 9y ago
A big part of the problem is that pretty much all of the brutalist concrete building of the 70ies have problems if they aren’t straight on fire-traps they are mold infested places suffering from what the authorities often call sick building syndrome(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796751/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796751/) combined with a massive urban housing crisis and a civic religion that forbids spending any significant money on infrastructure primarily used by the poor. It's a combination of decades worth of neglect to a set of buildings that were from day one at the edge of what we knew how to build and maintain due to a demand that they were kept cheap enough to be affordable on the declining working class wages. Fixing it is not going to be a few replaced panels here and there but a massive 10 year redevelopment plan to replace a lot of old 70ies crap with new buildings, in a political climate where nobody the political systems care about actually wants social housing to be a thing, and as always when there is a real problem the western way is to plug ears, close eyes and chant some feel good mantra.
jmkni 9y ago
The last time this came up, somebody posted this link to the 1984 Adam Curtis documentary, The Great British Housing Disaster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7i5-baJAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7i5-baJAs It's worth a watch, even over 30 years ago it was known that cladding posed a fire risk to high rise buildings in the UK, if you jump to 45 minutes in they are talking specifically about this.
Lazare 9y ago
I would summarise the article's arguments as follows: A state-owned, and state-managed block of apartments burned, causing a horrible loss of life due to a string of horrible decisions made by state employees and politicians. This is clearly the fault of corporations, capitalism, and politicians who were not involved in the decisions. Also, Thatcher. And Americans. Especially Silicon Valley. And Republicans. I'm open to the idea that there's a larger context which is important to understand, but I'm somewhat sceptical of a conclusion so tidy as "every onewho directly caused this is innocent; everyone I disagree with is actually to blame".
- stuaxo 9y ago
  You're twisting and simplifying this greatly. It is in fact elements of the state that have been vilifying the poor. The state put in place the systems that mean the lowest bidder gets the job. The companies put the cladding in place then saved money further by not using the flame retardant cladding. Making this to state vs private doesn't make sense, when both are part of the system that caused this. The comment is so far from reality, it reminds me of one of the funniest things I've heard some Americans say on a train, near London; Kid: "Do British people love the government", Dad: "Yes they do". I almost spat out my coffee, it was such a hilarious misrepresentation.
  - Lazare 9y ago
    > The state put in place the systems that mean the lowest bidder gets the job. The companies put the cladding in place then saved money further by not using the flame retardant cladding. Actually, no. The paper trail is clear; the council requested the contractors switch to more dangerous, aluminium cladding to save money. This wasn't about private sector greed costing lives; this was a decision made in the public sector. According to this article[1] linked from the citylab piece: "One document - a list of requested savings sent to contractors in July 2014 - details potential savings of £693,161, reducing the cost of the contract from about £9.2m to £8.5m. It includes £293,368 that would be saved by fitting "aluminium cladding in lieu of zinc cladding". [...] The savings were part of an ongoing effort by the council and the local tenant management organisation to drive down the cost of the refurbishment. [...] the change was typical of constant pressure by councils [...] this led to the appointment of a different contractor in 2014 which was then asked to make savings including on the cladding. The entire process was driven by the local council, and the money saved went to the council, not the contractors. > Making this to state vs private doesn't make sense, when both are part of the system that caused this. Sure, the contractors and the council were part of the same system. And in this system, the council hired the contractors, and told them to cut corners; when the first contractors didn't cut enough corners, they found new contractors who could cut more corners. Just because different actors are part of the same system doesn't mean their actions, responsibility, and culpability are equal. (And many of the actors mentioned in the citylab piece, such as silicon valley, aren't even part of the system.) [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40453054 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40453054
buro9 9y ago
I am probably an exception on HN. I live in a London tower block, on the 19th floor. The block I am in was subject to a BBC documentary a decade ago for being a high fire risk building. The containment measures originally designed into the building have long been compromised by short-term upgrades to kitchens and bathrooms. The service riser is now a chimney that freely joins every flat in a vertical quarter of the building into a single contiguous fire channel. We have no sprinklers, we have a single fire escape, but there is no fire alarm. The theory is that containment will hold and so it is best that people stay put. That the emergency services will need to come up the fire escape, and this is why Grenfell residents stayed put. But even were people to orderly try and use it, there is no means to raise the alarm. Internal fire doors do not create a seal. Internal doors in the flats have been removed over time and not replaced by the landlord (the council). Central heating was removed and replaced with a communal oil burner for a radiator system. The central heating ducts remain, joining flats vertically, joining rooms of flats, filled with dust and not sealed off. Simply put, I live in a death trap. I am more fortunate than my neighbours. Despite having been homeless when I was younger, I now have a salary that allows me to save for a deposit and to find another place to live. But London rents being what they are I cannot move now and still save for a deposit... if I did I would be consigning myself to never own the property in which I live. So I must stay, and deal with the fire risk, manage it as best I can, whilst I save for a deposit. If anyone ever wants to know why startups should have a market to permit existing shareholders to buy shares from employees holding options... this is it. Life gets in the way. I'm sitting on share options that could provide a transformational effect on my life, that could let me sleep at night and live in much lower stress levels. It's hard to give 100% to work when any night could be the night I am burned alive. I sleep fitfully, restlessly. I am so desperate for a way out... but it takes time, I only have a salary and the IPO is too long away (even if gets announced tomorrow). Fire risks are real, the terrible neglect of housing is real, and it doesn't help everyone but if you're a founder and you want to know how to help someone... provide liquidity to your employees.
- tiplus 9y ago
  I had similar fears in my last appartment building (12th floor) after a deadly fire in the neighbouring tower. I ended up buying a long rope at a climbing outlet and some used climbing gear. There are also more expensive fire proof rope ladders but the rope worked for me.
Pica_soO 9y ago
One question nobody dares to ask aloud. How many high-danger buildings like the Grenfell Tower ware there? I guess a list and a map of this would be enough to set a revolution into motion. Im sure, the usual suspects will show up- defending this atrocity with the same excuses socialist use on Venezuela. "This is not really capitalism.." "The people who lived inside choose to live there- they where free to leave - until they were not.." "This is not a systematic failure, but the failure of person XY, a morally outrageous being we should shun into the dessert.." "On the map, its in a state, thus if there is a state, the execution was not pure enough.." Silence in the comment below- seems even fanatics know shame.
- Joeboy 9y ago
  > One question nobody dares to ask aloud. How many high-danger buildings like the Grenfell Tower ware there? 228, according to the assessment commissioned by the government. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/25/grenfell-fire-228-buildings-at-risk-across-uk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/25/grenfell-fir... Edit: Now I've read it, there'a actually an answer in the article itself, although it's now superceded by the number above: > Earlier this month, the government admitted that 181 other high-rise buildings clad in similar material have failed fire safety tests
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    228- each of them home to 300 people? That are estimated 68400 people in a constant life threatening danger.
    - PaulRobinson 9y ago
      In some cases more, in some cases less. And yes, there is a general sense that the Government has no clue what to do about this. People are scared.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  What?
trhway 9y ago
fires of aluminum clad buildings like Grenfell or that in Saudi Arabia reminded about Navy ships with aluminum (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(CG-26)#Collision.2C_fire.2C_and_reconstruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(CG-26)#Collision.... ) or other light alloy (like Al/Mg on some USSR/Russian destroyers) superstructures - good idea for whatever reason like speed and weight until fire breaks out (galley stove or missile hit, doesn't matter) and the thing goes off like a firework. On the other side - M2 Bradley does have aluminum armor.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Weird how wikipedia do not make much mention of aluminum as a fire hazard. Most of the focus seems to be on how it does not have the tell tale signs of melting that say iron has. It has half the melting point of iron, and shows no yellow-orange glow until it just collapse. Basically it kinda seem to be all fine unless you have a thermal camera, until it just flops into a liquid. now powdered aluminum do go off like firework when exposed to an open flame.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Aluminum oxidizes so rapidly that you can't even normally connect to it unless you take all kinds of precautions to make sure that the bare aluminum does not instantly grow another layer of oxide (which is non-conducting). And that's at ambient temperatures and the normal oxygen content %age of the air. Hence the existence of special aluminum connectors which keep the joint under constant pressure for the life of the connection, you can see these at work in lightweight powerlines. Complications can quickly cause real problems because as the skin forms the resistance of the connection goes up and this causes power to be lost increasing the temperature of the joint. This can lead to a runaway effect, if you're lucky the whole thing disconnects before something bad happens, if you're unlucky you have an electrical fire on your hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring So even if aluminum has lots of really good properties for wiring it is still only used in a relatively small number of specialized applications. Another spot where you will find Aluminum and its rapid oxidization property exhibited clearly is in solid rockets (as fuel) and fireworks (to give you some nice colored effects).
m-i-l 9y ago
Not to detract from the other important points in the article (prevention is better than the cure), but no mention of the fact that the fire bridge for a city full of tall buildings didn't have any tall ladders or means to help the people at the windows to escape (maybe also due to government cutbacks): apparently one that was 30m tall (enough to reach the 10th floor) was dispatched 24 mins after the first fire crews[0], and the tallest one in the country a few hours later but that was still just 42m tall[1] (for reference Grenfell Tower itself is 67m high). [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40602144 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40602144 [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40357535 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40357535
- dageshi 9y ago
  From googling it doesn't seem like there are any ladders anywhere that'll go to 67m.
  - m-i-l 9y ago
    According to reference [1] above "Bronto Skylift, based in Finland, develop aerial platforms which can reach heights of more than 100m (328ft). According to managing director Harry Clayhills, the firm's fire platforms are used by more than 100 brigades in 16 countries around the world."
    - hncommenter13 9y ago
      Wow, interesting. These [1] are some seriously long aerials. In San Francisco, fwiw, the SFFD's largest aerial ladder is 100 ft fully extended. This is the mechanical one on the truck. SFFD trucks also carry a 50-ft wooden ladder, but it's seriously heavy and rarely used, as it requires six firefighters to raise and lower. For those interested, here's some data on high-rise fires in the US, including the prevalence of sprinklers [2]. [1] http://www.brontoskylift.com/en/hla http://www.brontoskylift.com/en/hla [2] http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/fires-by-property-type/high-rise-building-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
- 9y ago
jpz 9y ago
This article could have been lifted straight from The Daily Star. Is the submitter of this article a member of Momentum by any chance?
- PaulRobinson 9y ago
  Rather than making an ad hominem attack, how about you actually explain why you think the author is wrong?
  - jpz 9y ago
    It's not an ad hominem attack to suggest someone is a member of Momentum, if they are proud of being so. The author certainly thinks extremely highly of Corbyn and McDonnell, and very lowly of Cameron, Thatcher, Tories, as well as "so-called New Labour" (to quote them.) Thus my entirely reasonable guess they have a rather specific political affiliation.
    - contravariant 9y ago
      Rather than simply noting that the author has a political opinion, perhaps you can try to explain why you think the author's opinion is wrong?
      - jpz 9y ago
        I didn't feel the author's opinion was wrong, I felt the article was far-left poppycock. The very subheading "The catastrophic fire that killed at least 80 in London was the inevitable byproduct of an ideology that vilified the poor" is so extravagant, that I felt the best criticism of it was that it was clearly political writing, and not reportage. The causes of Grenfell, as other commenters note in this article, are complex: 1) dated fire regulations poorly applied 2) some errors in judgement of perceived risk I would posit - just the same as there is lowered perceived risk of ruin in financial bubbles - there has clearly been cognitive errors in the understanding of the risk of this cladding and general understanding of fire risk. For instance, it's the case this cladding has also been widely applied in Australia, and post-Grenfell they are hurrying to take it down. I don't conclude Australia is in the grip of "an ideology that villified the poor" in using this cladding, rather, cognitive errors in the perception of risk have occurred. 3) the council's economic behaviour - they were squeezing costs on refurbishment costs, a cost control exercise was also participated in by the housing body for the building, many of whom are not Tories, and some of which were nominees from the resident's association Thus, saying it is "the byproduct of an ideology which vilified the poor", and then quoting housing policy of the last 20 years, referencing modern affordability issues (irrelevant to the history of construction and maintenance of Grenfell), throwing in "Cameron", "Thatcher", "New Labour" - all of whom post-date the shoddy and cheap construction of this one-tower-well building - just appears to be the far-left grinding their same-old axes. Rather than debate the article point by point, which other commenters do, it strikes me that the more interesting observation to make is that the author speaks with an underlying voice. While my comment may appear to be an appeal to ridicule, to me, Stalinists are hopeless to debate, as are most people with fixed ideological positions. McDonnell and Corbyn whom are the only politicians paid respect in this article, whom were very vocal supporters of Chavez and Maduro for tearing down the state, and also have a long history with Stalin.
rwmj 9y ago
There's a lot wrong with the British housing market. In fact, almost every aspect of it from provision, social housing, prices, renting, taxation, to the actual process of buying and selling — is demonstrably broken. But ... the Grenfell Tower fire was a specific failure of building and fire regulations, and it could still have happened even if the housing market was working and councils had been building housing for the poor. The cladding was installed for environmental reasons — it reduces heat loss so you need less energy to heat the building. Now we learn that this sort of cladding is much more dangerous than was generally understood, we replace the stuff on other buildings, and move on. This is mostly orthogonal to fixing the housing market or "neoliberalism".
- fennecfoxen 9y ago
  Yeah, it's a pretty terrible article that just plays up blaming "NEOLIBERALISM UNCHAINED" and Capitalism for wrecking what they feel would be the just and righteous state of the UK housing market. This may or may not be all well and good, but there is only the most tenuous of connections to the actual policies that are connected to the fire, specifically: The richest borough spent money fighting global warming through insulation, reducing their energy bills, and making the poor people's housing look good in the process (but without paying sufficient attention to its fire safety rating). THE MONSTERS. CAPITALISM KILLS. (Play up the "making it look good!!" and the "not paying sufficient attention to safety" angles, whilst totally ignoring the use of this material in other places, and general UK-wide building standards which just shrug off the idea of sprinklers.)
- gadders 9y ago
  Not to mention the fact that although Kensington and Chelsea council has been Conservative since forever, the same cladding was also found on blocks in Labour council areas. Sadly, a lot of the narrative around the disaster and the resultant protests have been pushed by people like the Socialist Workers Party and their ilk.
- notahacker 9y ago
  Yup. Reading the article, one would think the idea of using lower cost materials on a construction project was a cunning idea conceived by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. It isn't, people substitute cheaper materials on their own very expensive properties all the time, and if councils are really preoccupied with saving money over all else they wouldn't have spent £9m on refurbishing Grenfell in the first place. (If you've ever lived in a comparable building, you'll understand why fitting insulating cladding was thought to be a good idea...) There are serious questions to be asked about an architectural design which apparently involved flammable lining products in close proximity, a chimney of air and no firegapping between stories should or could have been identified as a fire hazard, there are questions about how it was installed, and questions about whether the council's poor communications with the residents over fire safety contributed to fewer evacuations (one of their big concerns was apparently concerns over a gas pipe in the stairwell which appears to be one of the few things that didn't go seriously wrong). And there are wider questions about whether standard instructions to stay put are appropriate for the building are appropriate and whether regulations ought to be changed to require mineral wool insulation and/or sprinklers on tall buildings in future. It's also not a bad time to raise questions about cutting firemen numbers in London even though it isn't thought that lack of manpower to tackle the blaze was a problem. But crudely reducing it to a "bad neoliberals hate poor people" to score opportunistic political points actually works against learning those lessons. Poor implementation Grenfell's refurbishment programme is no more a scathing indictment of "neoliberalism" than Ronan Point's collapse was a scathing indictment of the desire of the government to take the lead in housebuilding following WWII. The construction industry did learn from that one. (Ironically, to the extent that "neoliberalism", or Thatcherite housing policy, was particularly relevant to this tower block, it was in having the effect of passing some of the leases into the hands of relatively wealthy private owners who had every interest in the building surviving to make a fortune on selling the flats in a few years' time)
Rjevski 9y ago
"determine whether criminal charges should be brought against culpable parties" How is that even a fucking question? Many people died - whoever is responsible for the design flaw or cutting corners SHOULD pay.
purplezooey 9y ago
Just Stop Putting Conservatives Into Office. Just Stop. why... hasn't the world learned this yet. just stop doing it. stop.

81 points by DiabloD3 9y ago

A big part of the problem is that pretty much all of the brutalist concrete building of the 70ies have problems if they aren’t straight on fire-traps they are mold infested places suffering from what the authorities often call sick building syndrome(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796751/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796751/) combined with a massive urban housing crisis and a civic religion that forbids spending any significant money on infrastructure primarily used by the poor. It's a combination of decades worth of neglect to a set of buildings that were from day one at the edge of what we knew how to build and maintain due to a demand that they were kept cheap enough to be affordable on the declining working class wages. Fixing it is not going to be a few replaced panels here and there but a massive 10 year redevelopment plan to replace a lot of old 70ies crap with new buildings, in a political climate where nobody the political systems care about actually wants social housing to be a thing, and as always when there is a real problem the western way is to plug ears, close eyes and chant some feel good mantra.

jmkni 9y ago

The last time this came up, somebody posted this link to the 1984 Adam Curtis documentary, The Great British Housing Disaster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7i5-baJAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7i5-baJAs It's worth a watch, even over 30 years ago it was known that cladding posed a fire risk to high rise buildings in the UK, if you jump to 45 minutes in they are talking specifically about this.

Lazare 9y ago

I would summarise the article's arguments as follows: A state-owned, and state-managed block of apartments burned, causing a horrible loss of life due to a string of horrible decisions made by state employees and politicians. This is clearly the fault of corporations, capitalism, and politicians who were not involved in the decisions. Also, Thatcher. And Americans. Especially Silicon Valley. And Republicans. I'm open to the idea that there's a larger context which is important to understand, but I'm somewhat sceptical of a conclusion so tidy as "every onewho directly caused this is innocent; everyone I disagree with is actually to blame".

stuaxo 9y ago
You're twisting and simplifying this greatly. It is in fact elements of the state that have been vilifying the poor. The state put in place the systems that mean the lowest bidder gets the job. The companies put the cladding in place then saved money further by not using the flame retardant cladding. Making this to state vs private doesn't make sense, when both are part of the system that caused this. The comment is so far from reality, it reminds me of one of the funniest things I've heard some Americans say on a train, near London; Kid: "Do British people love the government", Dad: "Yes they do". I almost spat out my coffee, it was such a hilarious misrepresentation.
- Lazare 9y ago
  > The state put in place the systems that mean the lowest bidder gets the job. The companies put the cladding in place then saved money further by not using the flame retardant cladding. Actually, no. The paper trail is clear; the council requested the contractors switch to more dangerous, aluminium cladding to save money. This wasn't about private sector greed costing lives; this was a decision made in the public sector. According to this article[1] linked from the citylab piece: "One document - a list of requested savings sent to contractors in July 2014 - details potential savings of £693,161, reducing the cost of the contract from about £9.2m to £8.5m. It includes £293,368 that would be saved by fitting "aluminium cladding in lieu of zinc cladding". [...] The savings were part of an ongoing effort by the council and the local tenant management organisation to drive down the cost of the refurbishment. [...] the change was typical of constant pressure by councils [...] this led to the appointment of a different contractor in 2014 which was then asked to make savings including on the cladding. The entire process was driven by the local council, and the money saved went to the council, not the contractors. > Making this to state vs private doesn't make sense, when both are part of the system that caused this. Sure, the contractors and the council were part of the same system. And in this system, the council hired the contractors, and told them to cut corners; when the first contractors didn't cut enough corners, they found new contractors who could cut more corners. Just because different actors are part of the same system doesn't mean their actions, responsibility, and culpability are equal. (And many of the actors mentioned in the citylab piece, such as silicon valley, aren't even part of the system.) [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40453054 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40453054

buro9 9y ago

I am probably an exception on HN. I live in a London tower block, on the 19th floor. The block I am in was subject to a BBC documentary a decade ago for being a high fire risk building. The containment measures originally designed into the building have long been compromised by short-term upgrades to kitchens and bathrooms. The service riser is now a chimney that freely joins every flat in a vertical quarter of the building into a single contiguous fire channel. We have no sprinklers, we have a single fire escape, but there is no fire alarm. The theory is that containment will hold and so it is best that people stay put. That the emergency services will need to come up the fire escape, and this is why Grenfell residents stayed put. But even were people to orderly try and use it, there is no means to raise the alarm. Internal fire doors do not create a seal. Internal doors in the flats have been removed over time and not replaced by the landlord (the council). Central heating was removed and replaced with a communal oil burner for a radiator system. The central heating ducts remain, joining flats vertically, joining rooms of flats, filled with dust and not sealed off. Simply put, I live in a death trap. I am more fortunate than my neighbours. Despite having been homeless when I was younger, I now have a salary that allows me to save for a deposit and to find another place to live. But London rents being what they are I cannot move now and still save for a deposit... if I did I would be consigning myself to never own the property in which I live. So I must stay, and deal with the fire risk, manage it as best I can, whilst I save for a deposit. If anyone ever wants to know why startups should have a market to permit existing shareholders to buy shares from employees holding options... this is it. Life gets in the way. I'm sitting on share options that could provide a transformational effect on my life, that could let me sleep at night and live in much lower stress levels. It's hard to give 100% to work when any night could be the night I am burned alive. I sleep fitfully, restlessly. I am so desperate for a way out... but it takes time, I only have a salary and the IPO is too long away (even if gets announced tomorrow). Fire risks are real, the terrible neglect of housing is real, and it doesn't help everyone but if you're a founder and you want to know how to help someone... provide liquidity to your employees.

tiplus 9y ago
I had similar fears in my last appartment building (12th floor) after a deadly fire in the neighbouring tower. I ended up buying a long rope at a climbing outlet and some used climbing gear. There are also more expensive fire proof rope ladders but the rope worked for me.

Pica_soO 9y ago

One question nobody dares to ask aloud. How many high-danger buildings like the Grenfell Tower ware there? I guess a list and a map of this would be enough to set a revolution into motion. Im sure, the usual suspects will show up- defending this atrocity with the same excuses socialist use on Venezuela. "This is not really capitalism.." "The people who lived inside choose to live there- they where free to leave - until they were not.." "This is not a systematic failure, but the failure of person XY, a morally outrageous being we should shun into the dessert.." "On the map, its in a state, thus if there is a state, the execution was not pure enough.." Silence in the comment below- seems even fanatics know shame.

Joeboy 9y ago
> One question nobody dares to ask aloud. How many high-danger buildings like the Grenfell Tower ware there? 228, according to the assessment commissioned by the government. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/25/grenfell-fire-228-buildings-at-risk-across-uk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/25/grenfell-fir... Edit: Now I've read it, there'a actually an answer in the article itself, although it's now superceded by the number above: > Earlier this month, the government admitted that 181 other high-rise buildings clad in similar material have failed fire safety tests
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  228- each of them home to 300 people? That are estimated 68400 people in a constant life threatening danger.
  - PaulRobinson 9y ago
    In some cases more, in some cases less. And yes, there is a general sense that the Government has no clue what to do about this. People are scared.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
What?

trhway 9y ago

fires of aluminum clad buildings like Grenfell or that in Saudi Arabia reminded about Navy ships with aluminum (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(CG-26)#Collision.2C_fire.2C_and_reconstruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Belknap_(CG-26)#Collision.... ) or other light alloy (like Al/Mg on some USSR/Russian destroyers) superstructures - good idea for whatever reason like speed and weight until fire breaks out (galley stove or missile hit, doesn't matter) and the thing goes off like a firework. On the other side - M2 Bradley does have aluminum armor.

digi_owl 9y ago
Weird how wikipedia do not make much mention of aluminum as a fire hazard. Most of the focus seems to be on how it does not have the tell tale signs of melting that say iron has. It has half the melting point of iron, and shows no yellow-orange glow until it just collapse. Basically it kinda seem to be all fine unless you have a thermal camera, until it just flops into a liquid. now powdered aluminum do go off like firework when exposed to an open flame.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Aluminum oxidizes so rapidly that you can't even normally connect to it unless you take all kinds of precautions to make sure that the bare aluminum does not instantly grow another layer of oxide (which is non-conducting). And that's at ambient temperatures and the normal oxygen content %age of the air. Hence the existence of special aluminum connectors which keep the joint under constant pressure for the life of the connection, you can see these at work in lightweight powerlines. Complications can quickly cause real problems because as the skin forms the resistance of the connection goes up and this causes power to be lost increasing the temperature of the joint. This can lead to a runaway effect, if you're lucky the whole thing disconnects before something bad happens, if you're unlucky you have an electrical fire on your hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring So even if aluminum has lots of really good properties for wiring it is still only used in a relatively small number of specialized applications. Another spot where you will find Aluminum and its rapid oxidization property exhibited clearly is in solid rockets (as fuel) and fireworks (to give you some nice colored effects).

m-i-l 9y ago

Not to detract from the other important points in the article (prevention is better than the cure), but no mention of the fact that the fire bridge for a city full of tall buildings didn't have any tall ladders or means to help the people at the windows to escape (maybe also due to government cutbacks): apparently one that was 30m tall (enough to reach the 10th floor) was dispatched 24 mins after the first fire crews[0], and the tallest one in the country a few hours later but that was still just 42m tall[1] (for reference Grenfell Tower itself is 67m high). [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40602144 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40602144 [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40357535 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40357535

dageshi 9y ago
From googling it doesn't seem like there are any ladders anywhere that'll go to 67m.
- m-i-l 9y ago
  According to reference [1] above "Bronto Skylift, based in Finland, develop aerial platforms which can reach heights of more than 100m (328ft). According to managing director Harry Clayhills, the firm's fire platforms are used by more than 100 brigades in 16 countries around the world."
  - hncommenter13 9y ago
    Wow, interesting. These [1] are some seriously long aerials. In San Francisco, fwiw, the SFFD's largest aerial ladder is 100 ft fully extended. This is the mechanical one on the truck. SFFD trucks also carry a 50-ft wooden ladder, but it's seriously heavy and rarely used, as it requires six firefighters to raise and lower. For those interested, here's some data on high-rise fires in the US, including the prevalence of sprinklers [2]. [1] http://www.brontoskylift.com/en/hla http://www.brontoskylift.com/en/hla [2] http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/fires-by-property-type/high-rise-building-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
9y ago

jpz 9y ago

This article could have been lifted straight from The Daily Star. Is the submitter of this article a member of Momentum by any chance?

PaulRobinson 9y ago
Rather than making an ad hominem attack, how about you actually explain why you think the author is wrong?
- jpz 9y ago
  It's not an ad hominem attack to suggest someone is a member of Momentum, if they are proud of being so. The author certainly thinks extremely highly of Corbyn and McDonnell, and very lowly of Cameron, Thatcher, Tories, as well as "so-called New Labour" (to quote them.) Thus my entirely reasonable guess they have a rather specific political affiliation.
  - contravariant 9y ago
    Rather than simply noting that the author has a political opinion, perhaps you can try to explain why you think the author's opinion is wrong?
    - jpz 9y ago
      I didn't feel the author's opinion was wrong, I felt the article was far-left poppycock. The very subheading "The catastrophic fire that killed at least 80 in London was the inevitable byproduct of an ideology that vilified the poor" is so extravagant, that I felt the best criticism of it was that it was clearly political writing, and not reportage. The causes of Grenfell, as other commenters note in this article, are complex: 1) dated fire regulations poorly applied 2) some errors in judgement of perceived risk I would posit - just the same as there is lowered perceived risk of ruin in financial bubbles - there has clearly been cognitive errors in the understanding of the risk of this cladding and general understanding of fire risk. For instance, it's the case this cladding has also been widely applied in Australia, and post-Grenfell they are hurrying to take it down. I don't conclude Australia is in the grip of "an ideology that villified the poor" in using this cladding, rather, cognitive errors in the perception of risk have occurred. 3) the council's economic behaviour - they were squeezing costs on refurbishment costs, a cost control exercise was also participated in by the housing body for the building, many of whom are not Tories, and some of which were nominees from the resident's association Thus, saying it is "the byproduct of an ideology which vilified the poor", and then quoting housing policy of the last 20 years, referencing modern affordability issues (irrelevant to the history of construction and maintenance of Grenfell), throwing in "Cameron", "Thatcher", "New Labour" - all of whom post-date the shoddy and cheap construction of this one-tower-well building - just appears to be the far-left grinding their same-old axes. Rather than debate the article point by point, which other commenters do, it strikes me that the more interesting observation to make is that the author speaks with an underlying voice. While my comment may appear to be an appeal to ridicule, to me, Stalinists are hopeless to debate, as are most people with fixed ideological positions. McDonnell and Corbyn whom are the only politicians paid respect in this article, whom were very vocal supporters of Chavez and Maduro for tearing down the state, and also have a long history with Stalin.

rwmj 9y ago

There's a lot wrong with the British housing market. In fact, almost every aspect of it from provision, social housing, prices, renting, taxation, to the actual process of buying and selling — is demonstrably broken. But ... the Grenfell Tower fire was a specific failure of building and fire regulations, and it could still have happened even if the housing market was working and councils had been building housing for the poor. The cladding was installed for environmental reasons — it reduces heat loss so you need less energy to heat the building. Now we learn that this sort of cladding is much more dangerous than was generally understood, we replace the stuff on other buildings, and move on. This is mostly orthogonal to fixing the housing market or "neoliberalism".

fennecfoxen 9y ago
Yeah, it's a pretty terrible article that just plays up blaming "NEOLIBERALISM UNCHAINED" and Capitalism for wrecking what they feel would be the just and righteous state of the UK housing market. This may or may not be all well and good, but there is only the most tenuous of connections to the actual policies that are connected to the fire, specifically: The richest borough spent money fighting global warming through insulation, reducing their energy bills, and making the poor people's housing look good in the process (but without paying sufficient attention to its fire safety rating). THE MONSTERS. CAPITALISM KILLS. (Play up the "making it look good!!" and the "not paying sufficient attention to safety" angles, whilst totally ignoring the use of this material in other places, and general UK-wide building standards which just shrug off the idea of sprinklers.)
gadders 9y ago
Not to mention the fact that although Kensington and Chelsea council has been Conservative since forever, the same cladding was also found on blocks in Labour council areas. Sadly, a lot of the narrative around the disaster and the resultant protests have been pushed by people like the Socialist Workers Party and their ilk.
notahacker 9y ago
Yup. Reading the article, one would think the idea of using lower cost materials on a construction project was a cunning idea conceived by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. It isn't, people substitute cheaper materials on their own very expensive properties all the time, and if councils are really preoccupied with saving money over all else they wouldn't have spent £9m on refurbishing Grenfell in the first place. (If you've ever lived in a comparable building, you'll understand why fitting insulating cladding was thought to be a good idea...) There are serious questions to be asked about an architectural design which apparently involved flammable lining products in close proximity, a chimney of air and no firegapping between stories should or could have been identified as a fire hazard, there are questions about how it was installed, and questions about whether the council's poor communications with the residents over fire safety contributed to fewer evacuations (one of their big concerns was apparently concerns over a gas pipe in the stairwell which appears to be one of the few things that didn't go seriously wrong). And there are wider questions about whether standard instructions to stay put are appropriate for the building are appropriate and whether regulations ought to be changed to require mineral wool insulation and/or sprinklers on tall buildings in future. It's also not a bad time to raise questions about cutting firemen numbers in London even though it isn't thought that lack of manpower to tackle the blaze was a problem. But crudely reducing it to a "bad neoliberals hate poor people" to score opportunistic political points actually works against learning those lessons. Poor implementation Grenfell's refurbishment programme is no more a scathing indictment of "neoliberalism" than Ronan Point's collapse was a scathing indictment of the desire of the government to take the lead in housebuilding following WWII. The construction industry did learn from that one. (Ironically, to the extent that "neoliberalism", or Thatcherite housing policy, was particularly relevant to this tower block, it was in having the effect of passing some of the leases into the hands of relatively wealthy private owners who had every interest in the building surviving to make a fortune on selling the flats in a few years' time)

Rjevski 9y ago

"determine whether criminal charges should be brought against culpable parties" How is that even a fucking question? Many people died - whoever is responsible for the design flaw or cutting corners SHOULD pay.

purplezooey 9y ago

Just Stop Putting Conservatives Into Office. Just Stop. why... hasn't the world learned this yet. just stop doing it. stop.