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Former housing association chief executive Duncan Forbes uses video evidence to make the case for retrofitting tower blocks with sprinklers
As the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire begins, the BBC revealed that just 2% of local authority tower blocks have had sprinklers fitted.
Dany Cotton, commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, described this as a “shockingly low number” because we know that sprinklers save lives and make a real difference.
Even before the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, the Lakanal House fire in Southwark in July 2009 in which six people died should have been a wake-up call for all landlords.
It certainly was for me. After I became chief executive of the newly established Bron Afon Community Housing in 2007, we became the landlord of 8,000 social rented homes and 1,000 leasehold flats on 1 April 2008.
We had three high-rise blocks and around 2,000 flats in total. As well as the other pressures of setting up a new organisation, from the date of the Lakanal fire the need for added safety measures to protect tenants and leaseholders from the risk of fire became a top priority.
We spent a lot of time exploring all the options for fire safety but it all came back to the fact that there was only one safety measure which would guarantee that people would be safe in high-rise blocks: to retrofit sprinklers.
So we were the first social landlord to retrofit sprinklers in a high-rise block of flats in the UK and we installed them in all three of our tower blocks.
“There was only one safety measure which would guarantee that people would be safe in high-rise blocks: to retrofit sprinklers.”
The key thing about sprinklers is that they extinguish the fire automatically. So they put out a fire even if the flat is unoccupied (as might happen with a fire caused by an electrical appliance). Because they put the fire out, there is no possibility of the fire spreading to other flats or causing the cladding to catch fire.
They are, quite simply, the only option to keep people safe. Even if the cladding is flammable or fire doors to the landings and stairs are propped open, people are safe.
If you need convincing. watch the two videos on the links below. They were made by a fire service and show a fire started in a wastepaper basket in a student room with the door to the corridor open.
Cameras are placed in the room, in the corridor and outside and there is also a heat sensor camera outside.
In this first video there are no sprinklers fitted.
After three and a half minutes the window shatters and the fire starts licking the outside of the building.
After four minutes the corridor has thick pungent smoke down to about two feet off the ground and after five minutes there is zero visibility in the corridor.
In just six and half minutes, the flames are spreading up to the storey above. If it wasn’t for a roof projecting from the building above the window, the flames would have reached this floor.
Although the video is 13 minutes long, the fire service felt the need to put the fire out after eight minutes because it was getting out of control.
In the second video sprinklers have been fitted.
In just under two minutes they are automatically activated and extinguish the fire within seconds.
The corridor is still clear of smoke, the windows are still in place and the fire doesn’t affect anywhere other than the room in which it started.
No one in any other part of the building would even know there had been a fire unless an alarm was activated. The fire is put out without anyone having to call the fire brigade.
The safety of those living in homes we provide should be our first and paramount consideration and a first call on our resources.
As housing professionals and organisations we should not hesitate to back Ms Cotton’s call for the retrofitting of sprinklers to be made mandatory.
As housing organisations, we don’t need to await new fire safety regulations.
We should lead by example and retrofit sprinklers in all high-risk blocks that we own now.
Duncan Forbes, housing consultant; and former chief executive, Bron Afon Community Housing
Inside Housing is calling for immediate action to implement the learning from the Lakanal House fire, and a commitment to act – without delay – on learning from the Grenfell Tower tragedy as it becomes available.
We will submit evidence from our research to the Grenfell public inquiry.
The inquiry should look at why opportunities to implement learning that could have prevented the fire were missed, in order to ensure similar opportunities are acted on in the future.