Summary_reader response Draft #1

Summary:

In the article ‘Eight failures that left people of Grenfell Tower at mercy of the inferno’, Knapton & Dixon (2017) claimed that the Grenfell Tower had numerous lapses in both ‘building regulation and safety rules’ which further augmented during the incident. 

Buildings in London followed the Building Acts until 1986 where external walls had at least one hour of fire resistance. ‘Class O’ regulation was introduced which removed the initial requirements regardless of being combustible. A specialist in fire protection remarked the gap between the claddings exacerbated the fire to upper levels. Although the materials used for the cladding met the UK standards, it contributed the fire to spread and made fire-fighting impractical. There was no explicit instruction on the fire risk assessment. There were no updated building regulations and also not enforce more than one escape route. According to sources, not all doors were fire-rated. Sprinklers are required to install up to 30 metres and made the taller buildings to omit on the upper levels. A specialist claimed that the firebreaks which were a requirement under Building Regulations 1991 were not doing its purpose during the fire.

Thesis:

According to the article, there were warnings made from the fire safety experts on the outdated building regulations. However, the source fails to receive more information from the Grenfell management and the government.

Reader’s response:

The article addresses that Grenfell Tower was built in accordance with the requirements met in the past. But as new regulations set in, Grenfell Tower was not catered for new features such as the types of materials used for the buildings, staircase landings, sprinklers, fire rated doors, and escape route. These results to having Grenfell tower to be certified safe when there are fire outbreaks.

It was true that before the incident, renovations made to the building was completed in 2016. Other source articles shared about their investigation towards the types of materials used during the renovation. BBC (2018) claim that the renovations were certified as medium fire risk rating by both London Fire Brigade and Kensington and Chelsea Council which are the management of Grenfell Tower. And according to Mairs (2017), a specialist claim that the recent renovation works completed in 2016 was not in accordance with the regulations. This showed that the fire risk assessment was not assessed properly, and it led to further non-compliance towards the ‘building regulation and safety rules’.

According to BBC (2018), the investigation found fire safety signages erected on the building to alert the residents to stay in their unaffected apartment when there was fire outbreak. The doors were not fire rated and the signage erected was redundant from the start.

Another factor that contributes to the fire outbreak was the first team of firemen arrived on site unprepared for the incident. The aerial device attached to the fire trucks arrived later on site after evaluating that the fire was spreading out on the external part of Grenfell. The firemen claim that they have met their protocol by arriving at the site to tackle the fire on the internal part of the building despite any type of incident. Their protocols succumb to the fire outbreak and fire-fighting to be impractical. If the requirements are revised, the condition of the blaze could have been put off earlier and saved more lives.

By reading several articles, we can conclude that both the building regulations and fire safety are not reviewed according to the case to case basis and there were many safety breaches.  The Grenfell tower outbreak could have saved more lives if the regulations are reviewed religiously. In addition, the UK government keen on stepping in to ensure further improvements and revisions made towards the building regulations and fire safety.  

References: 

Mairs, J. (2019). Review of building and fire safety regulations launched after Grenfell fire. Retrieved from https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/01/uk-review-building-fire-safety-regulations-grenfell-tower-fire/

How the tragedy unfolded at Grenfell Tower. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40272168

Grenfell crews 'hampered by equipment'. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40535417

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