Towering Inferno!

[jimboky]

I don't think fire departments should send their people into major fire on a highrise building without a sprinkler

[perrykneeham]

Bare in mind?

[nobody]

Jun 15, 2017 16:35:47 GMT jimboky said:

I don't think fire departments should send their people into major fire on a highrise building without a sprinkler

There was/is something radically wrong with this Tower Block Jim, the speed it went up, left very little time for Fire crew to do a great deal about it.

[voice]

No high rise built in Vancouver after I think the 6's does not have multiple escape routs and sprinkler systems, someone said earlier sprinklers were not good in residential buildings, but thats clearly bollox, sure the outside went up like a candle, but the fire started in a kitchen reports are saying, had that kitchen had a sprinkler system it could have been stopped there with only a bit of water damage, as it was it spread.

Makes you wonder why the regs don't include retro fitting of sprinkler systems for majour refurbs of these places.

My thinking is not a lot of these high rises will have fire suppressing systems such as sprinklers and while it may never happen like again, there is always that chance.

[auldhippy]

Jun 15, 2017 16:35:47 GMT jimboky said:

I don't think fire departments should send their people into major fire on a highrise building without a sprinkler

This renders possible a standard operating procedure that no fire fighting occurs in high rise buildings, from without the buildings' structure there are physical restraints on fire fighting above a specific height.

From the time of the film of the title used for this thread until this day, even after 11/09, SOP & all training for fire fighting of high rise fires involve the firemen fighting the fire from within the buildings' structure.

If Hi rise buildings can't have an SOP for fighting fires that begs the question can we have hi rise buildings.

[jimboky]

if fire departments took the policy of refusing to go above 10 floors of a building without sprinklers then insurance companies would refuse to cover such buildings,

[jimboky]

If Hi rise buildings can't have an SOP for fighting fires that begs the question can we have hi rise buildings.


or the owners would choose to install sprinklers

[auldhippy]

Jun 15, 2017 17:46:44 GMT voice said:

No high rise built in Vancouver after I think the 6's does not have multiple escape routs and sprinkler systems, someone said earlier sprinklers were not good in residential buildings, but thats clearly bollox, sure the outside went up like a candle, but the fire started in a kitchen reports are saying, had that kitchen had a sprinkler system it could have been stopped there with only a bit of water damage, as it was it spread.

Makes you wonder why the regs don't include retro fitting of sprinkler systems for majour refurbs of these places.

My thinking is not a lot of these high rises will have fire suppressing systems such as sprinklers and while it may never happen like again, there is always that chance.

I was referring to the past, sprinklers were not of the technology we know today & insurers were far more inundated with claims for damage by the systems themselves during erroneous use because whole floors were triggered & not only the initially affected room if at all. These claims became much more frequent than the fire claims they were meant to minimise.

Domestic dwellings, particularly in the 60's 70 & 80s, were not considered as great a risk as industrial ones where more adventurous use of the applications of heat were involved. They were no longer heated by open fires with chimneys, the largest risk was from deep fat friers and the course followed was to not use combustible materials and to coat necessary combustible materials with retardants. Sufficient to contain the fire until professional help arrived.

In this way the "stay put" advice became the norm. It's entirely possible the SOPs in Canada evolved better & certainly differently but that was how it evolved in the UK between insurers and architects via the Royal Institute of British Architects protocols.

Incidentally a water based system may not have dealt with the initial kitchen fire and indeed may even worsen it. Try throwing water at a chip pan fire or more properly, don't. Electrical fires too require dry extinguishers.

[auldhippy]

Jun 15, 2017 18:00:45 GMT jimboky said:

if fire departments took the policy of refusing to go above 10 floors of a building without sprinklers then insurance companies would refuse to cover such buildings,

Sprinklers may not be the best response to some fires.

www.brkelectronics.com/faqs/oem/what-do-the-abc-ratings-mean-on-fire-extinguishers

[voice]

sprinkler systems don't fire as they do in the films you know, they go one at a time in response to heat basically melting/softening the stop, if one goes of in your kitchen it doesn't trigger all of em to go off you know, no sprinkler system was ever designed like that.
As I said its standard to all buildings in Vancouver, has been since the 60's, so a building built here n the 1970's as this one was would have been fitted with one then, also no building relies on one staircase for the same reasons. The problem here is poor building regs in the 70's that appear to continue to today.

[Minge är en jävla besserwisser]

Jun 15, 2017 16:35:47 GMT jimboky said:

I don't think fire departments should send their people into major fire on a highrise building without a sprinkler

Why would they take sprinklers? They've got big f*cjing hoses.

[auldhippy]

Jun 15, 2017 18:44:20 GMT voice said:

sprinkler systems don't fire as they do in the films you know, they go one at a time in response to heat basically melting/softening the stop, if one goes of in your kitchen it doesn't trigger all of em to go off you know, no sprinkler system was ever designed like that.
As I said its standard to all buildings in Vancouver, has been since the 60's, so a building built here n the 1970's as this one was would have been fitted with one then, also no building relies on one staircase for the same reasons. The problem here is poor building regs in the 70's that appear to continue to today.

Actually that is how sprinkler systems DID work, they were always the last option because the fire had to be of an intensity as to preclude better fire prevention.

If a sprinkler was used on a chip fan fire that had the effect of worsening the fire to levels where sprinklers or firemen were the only answer. Electrical fires require to be extinguished by a less conductive material than water. For these reasons sprinklers were not adopted for domestic use as quickly as they were for industrial risks.

[jimboky]

Voice is mostly right, there are total burst systems, though these are rare,

and OH is also right, water is not always the best for stopping fires, though it is for over 90% of them, commercial kitchens have long used a gas system,

[voice]

yeah, granted, but deluge types are only used in a small number of specialized situations, the vast majority operate individually, always have going back to when they were first invented and the insurance companies being against them argument is also bunkum, the spread of sprinkler systems, especially in industry was driven by the insurance companies as an incentive to lower insurance premiums and pay outs.
As you probably know Jim no building in North America above a certain size gets built without a sprinkler system, and haven't for decades. The UK is just not up to the same standards sadly.

[voice]

also the sprinklers are to keep things under control until the fire services get there, and even an electrical fire would be suppressed to some extent. Sure, no system is foolproof, there was a fire in a care home in Quebec a few years back that had a sprinkler system, but the fire was in the ceiling space above the sprinklers and spread very quickly.

[jimboky]

Must have been an older care home, at least in the US ceiling spaces are also covered now. starting to see some homes installing sprinklers

[voice]

nah, its was quite new, the built the walls to fire speck, but the contractor skimped and it was open above and no one picked up on it. Lots of corruption in Quebec construction industry in the past. In fact it was this fire that started a drive to clean up organised crime and the construction industry

[clarity]

Jun 15, 2017 18:44:20 GMT voice said:

sprinkler systems don't fire as they do in the films you know, they go one at a time in response to heat basically melting/softening the stop, if one goes of in your kitchen it doesn't trigger all of em to go off you know, no sprinkler system was ever designed like that.
As I said its standard to all buildings in Vancouver, has been since the 60's, so a building built here n the 1970's as this one was would have been fitted with one then, also no building relies on one staircase for the same reasons. The problem here is poor building regs in the 70's that appear to continue to today.

I agree with you voice. I think it's absolutely disgusting that a world class city in a western country had such poor building standards for the poorest members of society.

I can't help but compare it with the building that my elderly friend lives in here, which was built in the late 60's. The municipality built the building to the highest standards with sprinklers and multiple staircases and offers subsidized apartments to vulnerable seniors. Nobody in their right mind here would put vulnerable people in such a poorly designed apartment building as the one in London.

[auldhippy]

Jun 15, 2017 20:17:28 GMT voice said:

yeah, granted, but deluge types are only used in a small number of specialized situations, the vast majority operate individually, always have going back to when they were first invented and the insurance companies being against them argument is also bunkum, the spread of sprinkler systems, especially in industry was driven by the insurance companies as an incentive to lower insurance premiums and pay outs.
As you probably know Jim no building in North America above a certain size gets built without a sprinkler system, and haven't for decades. The UK is just not up to the same standards sadly.

I didn't say insurers were against them. I said they were slower to approve them for domestic risks than for industrial. Sprinklers are crap at chip pan frier fires.

[Whiterum]

How just £5,000 could have saved them all: Fireproof cladding that would have prevented Grenfell Tower inferno 'costs just £2 a unit more' and the cheap version that was used is BANNED in America



Revealed: 30,000 buildings around the UK are wrapped in 'killer cladding' including 87 more tower blocks