Mr Sharabi

Comment on: Six die in fire at council tower block

Mr Sharabi's comment | 06/07/2009 7:02 pm

A good point Mr. Healy.

Modern Building Regs state:

Buildings above 18 metres will have dry or wet risers.

Buildings above 60 metres will have wet risers.

Unfortunately Building Regs are not retrospective, and sprinkler systems, especially for the taller flats where a wet riser would be needed and of a 60s construction, are more expensive to install given the physical restraints to provide a smoke sealed installation without damaging the structural integrity of the building.

The ideal solution would be an effective 'stay put' policy which would mean all doors leading to lobbies and mans of escapes being fireproofed, all enclosures being smoke sealed (compartmentalised) so there is no chance of smoke crossing over to other parts of the building, adequate signage and illumination of escape routes, auto release mechanisms for fire doors which have been propped open, to then shut when the alarm goes off, individual sounders to every floor of the building accompanied with visual alarms for the hard of hearing, all linked into an interconnected alarm master system.

This should then be coupled with an effective housing management system, where on site staff will be logging who is inside their flat and who isn't via the reporting mechanism of the master system. This will normally be practised routinely via drills. The in-house staff should then have a log to identify people who would be most at risk in the case of a fire, ie the elderly or infirm, so procedures should be in place where such people can be attended to within the 'stay put' period. Most buildings that have adopted a 'stay put' policy have incurred a lot of expenditure too, but such policies are normally based on a half hour or one hour cycle depending upon the amount of fire protection that has been employed within the building.

The ideal solution would be an effective 'stay put' policy which would mean all doors leading to lobbies and mans of escapes being fireproofed, all enclosures being smoke sealed (compartmentalised) so there is no chance of smoke crossing over to other parts of the building, adequate signage and illumination of escape routes, auto release mechanisms for fire doors which have been propped open, to then shut when the alarm goes off, individual sounders to every floor of the building accompanied with visual alarms for the hard of hearing, all linked into an interconnected alarm master system. This should then be coupled with an effective housing management system, where on site staff will be logging who is inside their flat and who isn't via the reporting mechanism of the master system. This will normally be practised routinely via drills. The in-house staff should then have a log to identify people who would be most at risk in the case of a fire, ie the elderly or infirm, so procedures should be in place where such people can be attended to within the 'stay put' period. Most buildings that have adopted a 'stay put' policy have incurred a lot of expenditure too, but such policies are normally based on a half hour or one hour cycle depending upon the amount of fire protection that has been employed within the building. This is calculated on how far the nearest fire service is, how soon it can reach the building to tackle the fire, how far the nearest hospital is etc. The main precaution is for the landlord to have a fire risk assessment in place along with a fire plan illustrating the means of escape or any stay put polices and procedures. This should be communicated to all residents visually upon entrance, and if you have a warden, she should be able to discuss the practicalities of it too. The sad situation of today is that many Social Housing Providers do not have enough money to plough such resources into the buildings, instead they meet the minimum requirement of carrying out a Fire Risk Assessment, but they do not normally have the financial resources to deliver the recommendations of the Assessment soon enough. They normally programme such works into a long term planned maintenance programme, and as long as a SHP can show that they have incorporated the improvements into their business plan, then normally that is enough. I can't see this situation changing anytime soon unless central government ploughs extra resources into this area on a national scale.