Summary Draft 1

Gren-Fell into a burning chain

In the article ‘Eight failures that left people of Grenfell Tower at mercy of the inferno’ Knapton & Dixon (2017) claims 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. Burning material that fell down the gaps sped up the fire which “it acts as its own chimney.” Although materials used met the UK standards, it contributed the fire to spread and made fire-fighting impractical. There were no updated building regulations and the existing one does not enforce more than one escape route. The UK law made it compulsory for sprinklers up to 30 metres which leave taller buildings to omit on the upper levels. The Housing Minister stated that sprinklers were not compulsory for the house buildings due to high costs for the developers.  Not all doors were fire rated as the “building regulations are not retrospective”. No explicit instruction on the frequency of reviewing the risk assessment and how soon after any renovations. A specialist claimed that the firebreaks which were a requirement under Building Regulations 1991 were not doing its purpose during the fire.

While both the authors continue blaming the government and its regulations, it was unclear, did the residents continue to stay in the building with the knowledge of the imminent risk or was it the building management the real culprit on keeping the building not par with the regulation.