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Sky news,question ."you should have known about the cladding",this and other questions mean that [although the Fire Brigade had some failings),they are being thrown under the bus.
How were they supposed to know about the cladding?.
They are talking about the symptoms but not the cause.If the cladding wasn't on there,you wouldn't have had everything that happened afterwards.C.O.W.,stands for Clerk Of Works ,he signs off work that has been done on a building for a council.WHERE IS HE ?,why isn't he there answering questions?.
Usual crap, they have picked on a set of fall guys,and hammering it all home.At the moment there is a poor guy talking about his experience on the day.But where is a representative of the company that put on the cladding?.
This is the usual standard when it comes to apportioning blame where it needs to be put,that is becoming the norm today.It is quite frankly disgraceful.
How were they supposed to know about the cladding?.
They are talking about the symptoms but not the cause.If the cladding wasn't on there,you wouldn't have had everything that happened afterwards.C.O.W.,stands for Clerk Of Works ,he signs off work that has been done on a building for a council.WHERE IS HE ?,why isn't he there answering questions?.
Usual crap, they have picked on a set of fall guys,and hammering it all home.At the moment there is a poor guy talking about his experience on the day.But where is a representative of the company that put on the cladding?.
This is the usual standard when it comes to apportioning blame where it needs to be put,that is becoming the norm today.It is quite frankly disgraceful.
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hey have picked on a set of fall guys
No they haven't. We already know it was wrong to fit the cladding. But that doesn't excuse the firemen for their mistakes. |
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One more thing,i know many a high rise block of flats built in thee 50's,some 6 storeys high,some L shaped,where they had emergency stairs at each end of the building so if a fire broke out in one place you could go to the stairs the furthest away from the fire and get out easy.
Another block that was near me, 12 storeys high had emergency stairs accessed through a door off everybodys living room,in the centre of the block. I noticed some years ago,a fire in a newer block that started in the centre section that,having no stairs at the ends, meant that the only way out was to go through the fire to the stairs in the middle.A case of absolutely no common sense at all !!!!. |
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When you buy a car,you don't expect it to be made of combustible material.As a fireman you expect a normal set of circs.I don't think anybody asked before they got to Grenfell if the building was made of combustible material.Such a question would have brought looks that one gives to a person as if they're a "loony".
Yes they had failings,but why not start looking at the start of the chain of events,namely the supposed "brains"in charge at the beginning. If they had done there job correctly,everything afterwards wouldn't have happened. I hope the news media moves to examine their culpability as well.Shall we see?.Any confidence that this will happen?.what happens from this moment will define how low this country has sunk,or if there are people of principle who refuse to let the real culprits off the hook.We shall see. |
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Probably the chief factors that is for sure.
Should not have been used. They still have to look at all factors? |
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Crippen,you used the word Firemen,surely you mean the Fire Brigade COMMANDERS,that were in charge at H Q.?.you have to be specific.The FIREMEN,had to make do with the info (that was incorrect) that they had been given.The ordinary firefighter should not be smeared for any failure by those above them,and much further up.
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The fire service DID KNOW the construction industry KNEW archirects KNEW several fires around the globe happened before Grenfell with this very cladding. Educate yoursel pipedreamer, they should this they should that is puerile at best. Over 100 buildings in this Country are still clad in this sh1t. WHAT are the various agencies including Government and the fire service doing about it.!.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/15/cladding-in-2014-melbourne-high-rise-blaze-also-used-in-grenfell-tower
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Nothing fox. They'll do as little as possible, that's the point.
This government doesn't care about living conditions for the working class and will continue to deflect, demur and generally do anything but put their hands in their pockets and make their lives safer. They'll sit and cross their fingers and get their mates in committees and the media to throw the likes of firemen under the bus when the next tragedy happens. |
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how does the bloke at the bottom who started get a free ticket on this one but the firemen (who didn't) get lambasted?
Wrap a draughty tall building foil ready to be cooked(like you do with turkey) a bloke with inadequate equipment sets fire to the place what do you expect and a free(immunity) for all the sub and sub sub letters graft collusion buck passing obfuscation are words that spring to mind |
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Fox "educate Yourself".Look Carefully,i defended the FIREMEN,not those above them.How is it the fault of ordinary Fireman who is maybe not privy to reports from all around the world.How is he in charge of this.YES it was and/or should have been known to those at levels ABOVE the FIREMEN,and if you look,it was those that I criticised.
Remember,i defended the Firemen,not those above them.You are not specific as to who you blame.You refer to the Fire service,do you include firemen in this?. Surely you mean the "brains department".How do you see any reception that an ordinary Fireman would receive if he tried to tell his superiors that they were failing in their job?. Could you please amend your statement to reflect this. |
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government just unlucky it happened in kennsimgton and Chelsea anywhere else would have been fish and chip paper months ago, the fact it happened on the other side of the millionaires row has given those usually ignored,paid off etc a voice, its there everyday as a reminder if it was on a council, sink estate somewhere would have been demolished long ago
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loads of different nationalities ,languages etc but people should remember ,no this stay put policy is from people who,ve for years stood watching people drown in lakes,die in buildings,cars etc because of elf and safety taking to extremes by fire,ambulance,police services etc,sometimes joe public pushing services aside whilst they help save lives
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must be galling for the emergency services to sit there and listen to mrs may,johnmson criticising your work after they've spent 10 years cutting the emergency services to the bone
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they went into that building knowing that cladding was wrong and not knowing what else could be wrong and get slated yet win a sports game and you get knighted
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I feel sorry for the fire service.They will turn up and try to save us all without prejudice.
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You made your point pipedreamer.
Firemen take orders from their superiors. I think we already knew that, no one thought firemen on the job just turn up and all act independently. There's always someone there to tell them what to do. I mean that's why they're firemen in the first place. |
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from 2014 onwards multiple letters were sent to successive housing ministers warning them of the dangers of this type of cladding and nothing was done. one of them, gavin barwell, was ennobled by mrs may.
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orders from the top like the polis Common Purpose
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Box ticking. Leave it to the men on the ground and they would have evacuated far sooner.
Sadly noone is allowed to think on their feet anymore. |
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When theses blocks were built each flat would have been a self contained unit in the event of a fire. Fire spread from flat to flat would have impossible from the outside as the exterior cladding (if any) would have been fire resistant. All hallways and stairs would have been free of materials, ceiling linings and wall coverings, which could ignite, so any fire coming from a flat into the circulation spaces couldn't increase nor spread. The liklihood of a fire spreading out from a flat on fire,into the circulation spaces, would be remote anyway as all flats would have, at least, a 30 minute fire door on them. Fire doors and smoke stop doors on all of the stairway approaches would have kept the stairs free from fire and/or smoke.
The "remain in your flat" was ideal advice IF, AND IT'S A BIG IF, the building was maintained to the same standards as it was originally built Nothing in building regulations requires any standards for ongoing maintenance. So fire doors get taken off and sold, burned or used as table tops, self closing devices on doors are broken or disconnected. Furniture is stored or dumped in stairways and corridors. Pretty soon the fire resistant building is, unknown to the Fire Brigade, no longer fire resistant. But their advice is still honest but misplaced. Add in local building control officers who sanction the addition of fire spreading exterior cladding and... Don't blame the Fire Service for something they have no responsibility for. Local authority building control are responsible for checking maintenance requirements and all other additional building work... not the Fire Brigade. Grenfell was turned into a death trap because, after years of neglect, the building condition and Fire Safety advice were working against each other. The Fire Service didn't know how sh1tty the fire precautions had become... building control did. Blame them. |
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Spot on PP.
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pipedreamer, apologies for that remark, no one is blaming the brave firemen and women its the fire service chiefs who are to blame for the ridiculous outdated stay in your flat advice that is applied to all buildings in the country, FFS!. The cr@p outdated fire regs need overhauling.
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Some great posts on this thread.
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They don't even know how many and there are hundreds of thousands more homes to be found as they flood in
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sorry - they don't even know how many or who they were ie sub sub letting etc
how many did a 'runner' |
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boxingthefox... blaming FS chiefs is ridiculous.
Only two things contributed to Grenfell, lack of maintenance and cr@p cladding. In a properly maintained high rise with no fire spreading cladding there would be no disaster. There have been fires in high rise buildings since they were first built back in the 1950's with no problems. Cost cutting refurbs by local authorities, trying to tart up their building stock, have led to a series of high rise fires over the recent years. "Stay in your flat" was/is a national piece of advice followed by all Fire Services. It's not senior managements fault this advice is given. Blame Building Controls, The Fire Service College, the Home Office, et al... all of these bodies promulgate information and advise Brigades and they in turn implement it. You'd need to be a very brave senior officer to tell the Home Office inspectorate that you're going to ignore their advice on high rise fire safety. |
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I'm not replying to every post I have done this to death previously. Here's one
The problems are many aka this is just one. From the express..EU regulations set out rules for buildings’ energy consumption with Britain signed up to the 2010 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Under the directive, the UK is required to report to the European Commission on progress towards national energy efficiency targets each year. Article 24 of the directive was cemented into UK law in April 2014 and a Government report says “bringing as many residential and commercial buildings as possible up to a high level of energy performance is a priority for the UK Government”.I believe this BS has allowed them all to do this and tell their share holders/voters how green they are. |
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so some people ignored stay put policy started heading out of the building only for firemen to implement another piece of generic safety advice and told residents to turn round and make their way to the top of the building,or as it turned out towards the fire
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forgetting the lies and cover up over hillsbrough, if duckenfield is charged with manslaughter, but this womans decisions was far worse, why shes not charged
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directed from the very top - both building and firemen - from people who have no experience and no idea of what it is like to live in a roman candle waiting with fire doors missing propped open or damaged
Common Purpose |
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here's another.........
From earlier posts of mine.....Guys this is not about politics or political agendas. It's about Local government (whoever runs it) budget allocation and superficial projects that look like they are modernising a building and bringing it into the 21st century. Architects, contractors, applicators, etc all had a part to play, not forgetting our fire regulations, best in world ffs. The fact that this product has caused the same problems around the world over for quite a few years now seems generally lost on our dreadful media............ Give me a few moments saddo, I type slowly, in my 50 working years this is one area I was involved with. We provided fire protection from 1/2 hour to 4 hrs depending on thickness of application, (cementitious/vermiculite spray) or particle board thickness. We stopped competing against cheaper ACM cassette systems, such as the thick polystyrene or mineral core metal encased (sometimes open ended) products because Architects, (their clients) local authorities, building contractors etc nearly always went for the cheapest solution. It's like the old 'fur coat no knickers' vanity expression, yes the outward appearance is great (or as good as more expensive systems), but something is compromised to achieve the effect. On the face of it this was at best a vanity project, at worst a vanity/backhander decision. The building industry is the most incestuous/corrupt industry I have ever witnessed, simply because even the smallest project is worth millions, and people are greedy!. Our fire regulations, ARE NOT THE BEST IN THE WORLD, in some cases they are woeful. I wont bother citing BS 476 parts 5 now obsolete) 6 and 7, class O (Spread of flame) and 1. deflection , K values etc, because this project was not a building envelope with fire resistant thermal, and acoustic properties, more like sticking plasters in a nice colour. There are many other ways that this building could have been made safer, but it would not have looked as good or even have had any outside visibility. |
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TGV. I dealt with fire chiefs on this very system, they were particularly arrogant and thought they knew best,
I also dealt with the then West german government, (the wall had just come down) the Israeli government, dozens of boroughs inc Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, (absolute numties) Architects, Contractors, applicators etc, et feckn cetra. The Landmark hotel in London was re-furbrd entirely in our bulding products. Probably the safest building in London, relating to fire protection. I need no lessons from you on this matter. |
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The inquiry, which examined what happened on the night of 14 June 2017, concluded that "many more lives" could have been saved if the advice to residents to "stay put" had been abandoned earlier than 02:35 BST.
It said London Fire Brigade's preparations for such a fire were "gravely inadequate". Survivors called for senior fire brigade staff to be sacked and prosecuted, saying that the brigade is "in the hands of people that are incapable of their jobs". BBC News. |
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Dany Cotton, had far more important things to do......In October 2017 she highlighted Fireman Sam in a campaign fighting sexism and promoting the gender-neutral term firefighter. She proposed that the children's character should be renamed Firefighter Sam, FFS. Londons 'fire' chief my @r$e.
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In October 2019 the retired high court judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, who led the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, was critical of Cotton's "remarkable insensitivity" for stating in her evidence that she wouldn't change anything the London Fire Brigade did on the night of the Grenfell fire. His report demonstrated “the LFB is an institution at risk of not learning the lessons of the Grenfell Tower fire”. Survivors and bereaved welcomed Moore-Bick’s comments in the first of his two reports.[
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Dr C,
 now for the others,starting with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. |
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boxingthefox... I'm not giving, nor can you point to, any attempted lessons in my posts. "Mine is bigger than yours" arguments are tiresome. You may be an expert but don't forget the Fire Service definition of "expert"... an "ex" is a has been and a spurt is a dribble at the end of a hose.
Your knowledge doesn't nullify other peoples experience. |
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"Your knowledge doesn't nullify other peoples experience" of course not I'm not saying it does, your opening comment "boxingthefox... blaming FS chiefs is ridiculous" prompted that response. I'm sure if I called your opinion ridiculous you would be somewhat irked.
I have alreay said there are som great posts on here, and very knowledgeable guys with greatexperience.  |
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OK, truce
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Anyway this subject matter is sure to raise temperatures, I'm annoyed because the fire chiefs we dealt with. wouldn't even consider we had a point that deserved scrutiny . RIBA were just as useless.
Fwiw, I consider your posts knowledgeable, erudite and a great contribution to the forum. |