Netizen 24 GBR: Grenfell Tower report: How the fire began on the fourth floor and spread throughout the block in minutes

By On April 16, 2018


One of the most extraordinary aspects of the BRE report into the Grenfell Tower disaster is that it hammers home how a fire in a single fridge-freezer can go on to consume a 24-storey building if adequate fire safety mechanisms have not been put in place to stop it.

This is an abridged version of BREâ€™s suggested narrative of how the inferno started and the route it took as it spread:

1 The fire began on the fourth floor

It started in Flat 16 in a fridge-freezer situated within one metre of the kitchen window. This window was in the tilt-open position. Constructi on of the window breached building regulations and failed to provide â€œany substantial barrierâ€ to the fire taking hold in the facade outside.

2 The facade ignited

Once the flames breached the window, BRE suggests several options as to what happened next: that the flames ignited the â€œhighly combustibleâ€ polyethylene core of the aluminium cladding; that they ignited the â€œcombustibleâ€ foam insulation; or that they took hold of the â€œflammableâ€ materials around the window frame. Or several of these things could have happened at once.

3 Flames fanned up, across and down the facade

BRE believes the fire spread up the column adjacent to the kitchen of Flat 16, assiste d by â€œcombustible components in the construction and lack of appropriate subdivision of this fuel to prevent one component involving the nextâ€. Flames also spread laterally, aided by the same shortcomings. The impact of flames entering the cavity between the concrete and the facade was exacerbated by the lack of adequate cavity barriers. These failed to seal the gap and created what appears to be a calamitous chimney-like effect. Downward fire spread also occurred, â€œas a result of burning droplets of polyethylene falling and igniting combustible materials belowâ€.

4 Fire entered the other flats

As flames fanned out across the facade they encountered windows of other flats. BRE believes the same deficient construction around the window that l et the fire escape from Flat 16 now afforded it a route to spread back into the other apartments.

5 Fire burned within the flats

Once the blaze was in any one apartment, it would burn from room to room at a speed that depended on whether or not doors inside were closed. Any single flat, once caught up, â€œwould be substantively destroyed, as a flat is normally designed to be a single fire compartmentâ€.

6 Fire and smoke entered the lobbies and stairwell

As residents fled, the lack of door closers meant some front doors did not automatically close, allowing flames and smoke to billow out of flats into the central core, including the lobby and stairwell, impinging on the means of escape for residents further up the tower.

BRE do not provide a specific timeframe for this suggested sequencing.

Waste chute rooms could have saved lives

Devastation: A photograph of one of the ravaged lobbies, which shows (arrowed) how the exterior fire-resisting doors preserved all of the waste chute rooms

The report says: â€œIt is worthy of note that every one of the waste chute rooms has survived intact, having been protected by the fire-resisting doorâ€.

These rooms were accessed from the lobby on each floor and situated near the stairwell. It raises the poignant possibility that if trapped residents had sought shelter in the waste chute room on their floor, they might have been saved.

The report shows photographs from the 13th floor which contrast the fire-damaged lobby and exterior of the waste chute room door with the barely blemished interior of the waste chute room itself.

It says: â€œBin chute rooms have been largely undamaged. Whilst the fire has been kept out of these rooms, it is unclear whether the atmosphere within these rooms would have sustained life [during the fire].â€

Sprinkler system might not have made a difference

The fact that the tower had no sprinkler system means that, like many buildings erected in the Seventies, it did not conform to current building regulations which require that blocks of flats over 30 metres tall have sprinklers inside each flat. But w hat was the impact?

BRE says once the fire had taken hold across the facade and ignited more than four flats, a sprinkler system was â€œvery unlikelyâ€ to have made â€œany appreciable differenceâ€.

Sprinklers could only have altered the outcome if they had â€œprevented the fire from leaving Flat 16 and igniting the claddingâ€.

Yet if a sprinkler had been installed in the middle of the kitchen ceiling, they said, â€œit is possible the chassis of the fridge freezer might have shielded the fire from the sprinklerâ€. This will be tested by reconstructing the fire in Flat 16 off-site and testing a sprinkler system.

How close was the Tower to collapse?

BRE says that the fire burned â€œat a level of severity which would significantly impact upon the fire resistance of the structure for between nine and 12 hoursâ€.

The original tower block, built with reinforced concrete in 1972, had floor slabs 10 inches thick and walls 12 inches thick, which tapered to eight inches from above the 13th floor.

Standard fire resistance tests show that eight-inch walls provide only six hours of fire resistance.

Victims of the Grenfell Tower fire

32 show all Victims of the Grenfell Tower fire

1/32 Final death toll: Just some of the victims who were killed in the Grenfell Tower blaze PA




Five-year-old Isaac Paulos Family Handout


Victoria King, 71, and her 40-year-old daughter Alexandra Atala were among those who died in the blaze PA


Alexandra Atala, 40, the last victim to be named and pictured from the Grenfell fire Metropolitan Police


Gloria Trevisan and Marco Gottardi


Rania Ibrahim and her two daughters


Raymond Bernard


Nadia Choucair


Grenfell victims: father and daughter Hashim Kedir, 44, and Firdows Hashim, 12, PA


Mehdi El-Wahabi, 8, lived on the 21st floor of Grenfell Tower Met Police


Ligaya Moore, 79, a Filipino living in the tower Met Police


Artist Khadija Saye PA


Victim: 12-year-old Jessica Urbano Ramirez was killed in the fire


Victim: Farah Hamdan, 31, pictured with her baby daughter


Mohamednur Tuccu PA


Biruk Haftom, 12, has been named among those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire Metropolita n Police


Grenfell: Biruk's mother, Berkti Haftom, 29, also died in the blaze Metropolitan Police


Victim: Sakina Afrasehabi, 65, died in the Grenfell Tower fire PA


Fatima Afraseiabi


'Well respected': Grandmother-of-six Sheila Smith was killed in the Grenfell Tower blaze Met Police


Hamid Kani was found on the 23rd floor PA


Steve Power


Mohammed Al-Haj Ali Syrian Solidarity Campaign


Denis Murphy PA


Young victim: Jeremiah Deen, two, died in the blaze Met Police


Zainab Deen

28/32 Tony Disson


Mariem Elgwahry PA


Ali Yawar Jafari PA


Nora Huda


Kedir Hashim: His wife and their three children died

However, the thicker lower walls and floors exceeded the girth for which tests have been conducted. This appears to have saved the building from collapse. BRE conducted independent tests to assess â€œspallingâ€ (break-up and buckling) of the concrete and exposure of the buildingâ€™s reinforced steelwork to determine how close to collapse it was.

It concluded: â€œThe physical evidence confirms parts of the structure very close to their point of failure.â€ Had the building been built to the lower requirements of current building regulations, â€œit is likely the tower would have collapsedâ€.

Source: Google News

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