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Apartment doors, walls and floors can withstand many hours of continuous burn. The building would never be on fire, at worst you’d have one apartment or one flo

Apartment doors, walls and floors can withstand many hours of continuous burn. The building would never be on fire, at worst you’d have one apartment or one floors public areas on fire before it’s put out. If my apartment was on fire, no alarms would sound in the building, only within my apartment, it doesn’t matter to my neighbours. There’s certainly scenarios in which you might need to evacuate, like a bomb threat, but we are speaking about internal fire, in which case there’s more danger in hundreds of people fleeing in panic down stairs (whether that’s 1 stair case or 2) than staying inside.

dpark 5y ago
> there’s more danger in hundreds of people fleeing in panic down stairs (whether that’s 1 stair case or 2) than staying inside. Is there? I’ve never seen people panic when a fire alarm goes off. Maybe if the fire alarm is going off as the building is filling with deadly smoke people would panic. But then that seems appropriate (or at least better than sitting and waiting to die of smoke inhalation). Pretty sure the Grenfell situation would have ended better by having everyone evacuate. And yes, the incompetent cladding work makes that a special case. But a huge amount of our codes are for a special case. Every so often it saves 70 lives.
- sofixa 5y ago
  The problem isn't only a potential panic. While the people are evacuating, how does the fire brigade get to where they need to combat the fire in the apartment?
  - dpark 5y ago
    This is sort of a comical response. The building is engulfed in flames and plan is to keep the stairwells clear. If the concrete and fire doors are doing their supposed job, then the fire brigade can just wait. If the concrete and fire doors are not doing their job, then getting people out is far more important than getting the fire brigade in.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > If the concrete and fire doors are doing their supposed job, then the fire brigade can just wait. Wait until the people in the apartment on fire die? (Either it starts in an apartment, or a common are which would block the escape of inhabitants living on there or higher)
      - dpark 5y ago
        I’m struggling to understand the scenario you’re describing. So the alarm goes off because an apartment is on fire. In response to this, everyone else waits until the fire brigade shows up to attempt to exit? I’m pretty sure if people are going to evacuate, they’ll do this in response to the alarm, and not wait and block the stairs. Also I’m pretty sure the fire brigade can tell them to get the out of the way to get up the stairs if necessary. How narrow are these stairs anyway? And why did everyone not evacuate before the fire brigade showed up? I just find the “apartment on fire, but everyone is blocking the stairs so the fire brigade can’t get to the burning apartment” scenario to be far fetched. Are there documented cases of this? Because there is at least one documented case of people sheltering in place and the building burning around them.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> Apartment doors, walls and floors can withstand many hours of continuous burn. 24 stories of Grenfell were engulfed in an hour - the fire bypassed the doors, walls and floors, by going up the outside. > The building would never be on fire The entire building was on fire. 72 people died. > The problem with Grenfell was that building regulations had been violated, at which point, all bets about safety are off. Mistakes get made. Hence redundancy, like two staircases. If you're going to design for 'no mistakes ever made' then don't bother with any fire systems as a fire is a mistake in the first place.
- pas 5y ago
  The correct approach is to design for the biggest common mistakes, not for all mistakes ever. We already do this for floods, earthquakes, wind load, etc.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    This cladding was common. They’re still trying to remove it from buildings now.
    - pas 5y ago
      Trying. Because the UK government absolutely does not give even a single fuck. Housing is a shitshow everywhere. (A symptom of completely bonkers politics in general.)
- sofixa 5y ago
  > 24 stories of Grenfell were engulfed in an hour - the fire bypassed the doors, walls and floors, by going up the outside Because the exterior was flammable, which isn't the norm and is actually criminal.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > is actually criminal So is arson. Newsflash: sometimes people do criminal things. But we try to design to cope with it rather than just saying ‘but they aren’t allowed to start that fire so no need to guard against it.’ And it turned out it was the norm, hence the huge panic to fix it in so many buildings.
michael1999 5y ago
I never feared fire when living in a high rise, and never had to evacuate except for drills. But here’s a recent counter example where shelter-in-place can go wrong. https://www.thestar.com/news/2021/toronto-fire.html https://www.thestar.com/news/2021/toronto-fire.html

dpark 5y ago

> there’s more danger in hundreds of people fleeing in panic down stairs (whether that’s 1 stair case or 2) than staying inside. Is there? I’ve never seen people panic when a fire alarm goes off. Maybe if the fire alarm is going off as the building is filling with deadly smoke people would panic. But then that seems appropriate (or at least better than sitting and waiting to die of smoke inhalation). Pretty sure the Grenfell situation would have ended better by having everyone evacuate. And yes, the incompetent cladding work makes that a special case. But a huge amount of our codes are for a special case. Every so often it saves 70 lives.

sofixa 5y ago
The problem isn't only a potential panic. While the people are evacuating, how does the fire brigade get to where they need to combat the fire in the apartment?
- dpark 5y ago
  This is sort of a comical response. The building is engulfed in flames and plan is to keep the stairwells clear. If the concrete and fire doors are doing their supposed job, then the fire brigade can just wait. If the concrete and fire doors are not doing their job, then getting people out is far more important than getting the fire brigade in.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > If the concrete and fire doors are doing their supposed job, then the fire brigade can just wait. Wait until the people in the apartment on fire die? (Either it starts in an apartment, or a common are which would block the escape of inhabitants living on there or higher)
    - dpark 5y ago
      I’m struggling to understand the scenario you’re describing. So the alarm goes off because an apartment is on fire. In response to this, everyone else waits until the fire brigade shows up to attempt to exit? I’m pretty sure if people are going to evacuate, they’ll do this in response to the alarm, and not wait and block the stairs. Also I’m pretty sure the fire brigade can tell them to get the out of the way to get up the stairs if necessary. How narrow are these stairs anyway? And why did everyone not evacuate before the fire brigade showed up? I just find the “apartment on fire, but everyone is blocking the stairs so the fire brigade can’t get to the burning apartment” scenario to be far fetched. Are there documented cases of this? Because there is at least one documented case of people sheltering in place and the building burning around them.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> Apartment doors, walls and floors can withstand many hours of continuous burn. 24 stories of Grenfell were engulfed in an hour - the fire bypassed the doors, walls and floors, by going up the outside. > The building would never be on fire The entire building was on fire. 72 people died. > The problem with Grenfell was that building regulations had been violated, at which point, all bets about safety are off. Mistakes get made. Hence redundancy, like two staircases. If you're going to design for 'no mistakes ever made' then don't bother with any fire systems as a fire is a mistake in the first place.

pas 5y ago
The correct approach is to design for the biggest common mistakes, not for all mistakes ever. We already do this for floods, earthquakes, wind load, etc.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  This cladding was common. They’re still trying to remove it from buildings now.
  - pas 5y ago
    Trying. Because the UK government absolutely does not give even a single fuck. Housing is a shitshow everywhere. (A symptom of completely bonkers politics in general.)
sofixa 5y ago
> 24 stories of Grenfell were engulfed in an hour - the fire bypassed the doors, walls and floors, by going up the outside Because the exterior was flammable, which isn't the norm and is actually criminal.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > is actually criminal So is arson. Newsflash: sometimes people do criminal things. But we try to design to cope with it rather than just saying ‘but they aren’t allowed to start that fire so no need to guard against it.’ And it turned out it was the norm, hence the huge panic to fix it in so many buildings.

michael1999 5y ago

I never feared fire when living in a high rise, and never had to evacuate except for drills. But here’s a recent counter example where shelter-in-place can go wrong. https://www.thestar.com/news/2021/toronto-fire.html https://www.thestar.com/news/2021/toronto-fire.html