Grenfell Blaze
 

So, apparently a 24 story apartment building in the UK has been burning like a motherfucking inferno for a while now, entirely engulfed in flame, and yet, and yet, it hasn't completely collapsed onto its own footprint in the manner of a controlled demolition.

How truly bizarre that the laws of physics only apply in the UK.

Grim.

After reading Clodfobble's MGM Grand story over on Damn Interesting, I am very curious to find out WTF happened in this UK apartment fire. No sprinklers? Something else? How can this happen?

Helluva scene greeted me this morning:

Attachment 60906

Rly?:eyebrow:

It's shocking because of how rare it is.

Agreed all around

Musta been built by immigrants.

Shocking are known facts. That building was not required to have sprinklers. Compare the building to firemen's water streams.

Philadelphia has a similar problem in a 30 some story building adjacent to City Hall. Due to no sprinklers, that fire simply marched up the floors. Three firemen died in that one. One watchman almost died when he took the elevator up to discover why a fire alarm (that he kept resetting) was repeatedly going off.

To fight that fire, firemen actually put hoses into windows of adjacent buildings to get water onto fire.

One difference. The Philadelphia building was built by domestics for domestics. That London building was built by domestics knowing it would also house immigrants. A comment only necessary due to blunt contempt one has for immigrants.

So, TW, what you are telling us is that London has different/separate building codes for buildings which are intended for immigrants?

Where can the rest of us find this damning information?

Now, go ahead, repeat your post 22 times.

This, btw, was a pathetic attempt at sarcastic humor.

That shit TW posted was just pathetic.

I sincerely apologize, to The Cellar, and to the world, if my post brought out The TW.

On NPR, an (ex fireman) MP mentioned that there have been a few worldwide (ie, still rare, but potentially a pattern), where one factor was counterfeit materials claiming to be fire resistant, so even if a builder thought they were following code, they weren't. He was particularly concerned with the 'cladding', ie the outward-facing layer of the building, which burned much faster than it ought to.

Being sarcastic about the fantasy that a small, smoky fire that went out fairly quickly somehow managed to cause the buildings at WTC to completely pancake in about six seconds or close to 32f/s^2.

A one in several hijillion squintillion to one chance of it happening twice in the same universe.

9-11 Never forget.

Yeah.... no.

Right? That threw me a little too.

It was exhausting work...

No. I say you again promote hate.

I spend a long time at the Philadelphia high rise fire. The entire Philadelphia Fire Department was deployed. Heat was so massive that firemen could spend no more than 15 minutes fighting the fire. Some were done after 5 minutes.

In the basement of the Municipal Services Building, firemen looked just like in that picture. A scene right out of "Towering Inferno".

Any high rise building without sprinklers on every floor is a death trap - to both occupants and firemen. That problem existed even in the MGM Grand (Las Vegas), Cocoanut Grove (Boston), Triangle Shirtwaist factory (New York), Ghost Ship Warehouse (Oakland), and in a Beverly Hills Supper Club (Cincinnati) fire.

If even low rise buildings need sprinklers, then why would any high rise not have them on every floor?

You are a goddamned idiot.

I'm done interacting with you. You're a prick. And worse, you're a stupid prick.

You get the Iggy.

Bye.

all joking and infighting aside it looks like there could be over a 100 people un accounted for, there's calls for corporate manslaughter charges to be brought.
Good luck with that, any public enquiry will be a farce and the company that fitted the alleged dodgy clading has apparantly gone into liquidation.
There will be the usual wringing of hands and everything conformed to current legislation and lessons will be learned bullshit but hey when the prime minister won't meet any of the families or victims or promise any real help, but will only talk to the emergency services well away from the scene, just shows you how much contempt this current government has for the ordinary people.:mad2:

It's not that they are immigrants it is that they are poor. Their concerns have been ignored. The decisions about how to renovate the buildings were not taken by wicked evil people - they were taken by unaccountable quangos who complied with the minimum required to pass regulation. So - they used the cheaper of the two available cladding materials - because the regulations have not been updated in the light of other similar tragedies in other countries and one in London.

This is social housing - owned and managed by a complicated network of interlocking organisations. This was part of the whole shift from councils owning their own social housing to councils having some over-arching responsibility for the housing waiting lists and housing strategy, but without owning the housing stock and only having a small voice on the boards of the not for profit management companies set up to deal with social housing.

The sprinklers are only required for new buildings - there is no legal requirement to install them in the older blocks that never had them.

But I think it's pretty likely, that in the mansion blocks, and in the council housing blocks that got sold off to private ownership and rocketed up in value so that they now house the Kensington elite - they'll have had sprinklers fitted. And new cladding was probably the much more fire resistant type.

Never heard the word quangos, but sounds like our authorities, port authority, turnpike authority, water authority, etc, bastards all.

Exactly. But extremist among use will take any opportunity to promote hate - especially of immigrants. It is a mantra for of right wing wacko extremists.

Had extremist been logical (like an adult), then missing sprinklers were the first thing mentioned. Why did the moderate later discuss what they should have discussed in their very first post? Another serious problem that was less obvious - a highly flammable insulation material behind an aluminum based facade. This problem apparently exists in hundreds of high rise blocks even in London - for decades. But extremists need to blame immigrants - not the most evil domestic.

No requirement exists to make 1970 buildings safe. But that same biulding later installed gas mains ... in the one and only fire escape stairway. Please explain why that installation is acceptable ... but sprinklers are not? One delay that firemen had sometime between !am and 2am - a broken gas main in that only fire escape stairway.

This is an accident for the same reason that seven Challenger Astronauts were murdered.

This building was suppose to be tenant owned management. Apparently business school concepts took hold. Accurate complaints - well based in facts - 18 month earlier - were ignored. Management finally removed mattresses and other debris from the stairway - the only stairway to escape from a fire - after long and contentious arguments from the tenant association.

Is that a management that works for tenants? Or one only interested in profits? Another stab directly into the eyes of the extremists among us. Meanwhile President of the tenant association move out less than a year ago - due to obvious safety concerns ignored by property management.

Surprise here is how flammable that cladding was. This problem has been seen observed in London in many fires including one major one 2009. UK's fire protection board kept saying how dangerous this cladding is. But business school graduates responded by saying it would make many people homeless (see articles in the Guardian).

What made this fire so deadly? No sprinklers. No central alarm system. And 999 operators who could not believe defects in that building were that massive - therefore told so many to remain in their flats. Those 999 operators were recommending correctly - because every building should never have been that defective. A tribute to so many who foolishly believe profits - not the building - are relevant.

Immigrants are only relevant to many who will take any opportunity to promote Donald Trump hate.

Did anyone see the obvious? 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. How many will be convicted of murder in the third degree?

Yeah, re-watch the videos. After the initial fireball of fuel burning there was a lot of black smoke (incomplete combustion, basic science) and the fire was limited to a couple of floors. You never saw the kind of flames like those of other building fires.

Yes, there was a fire but in relative terms it was small, and smoky. In no way did it resemble the fucking inferno that was at Grenfell or dozens of other buildings all of which remained standing.

Did no one take physics classes in high school or college?

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth

--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architects_%26_Engineers_for_9/11_Truth

My brother's a hardcore 9/11 truther. Here's my thing:

What, then? I'm willing to concede the possibility that there was more going on that day than we know, simply because there's always more going on than we know. So let's assume there's a shadow organization that can take down two buildings--install professional demo charges with no one seeing (a process that takes months of planning even when done out in the open,) coordinate with the presumably separate plans of a bunch of Saudis, be close enough to the scene to detonate them but far enough away not to die doing so, cover the whole thing up--if this is the case, is there anything they can't do? If they're that powerful, we're already fucked, and knowing about it won't change a thing.

So maybe it's true. Maybe, in fact, we're about to find out the whole thing was the Russians, and the American government covered it up because it was better than getting ourselves into WW III. Maybe now WW III is okay because it's the only thing that keeps us out of a second Civil War. But it also kind of doesn't matter, because the kids still gotta eat dinner tonight. If I'm powerless to do anything about a fact one way or another, then does it really matter if I believe it or not?

it might turn out exterior cladding burns at a lower temperature than jet fuel

It's about insisting on truth and calling out liars. We cannot change what happened, but insisting on the truth keeps us mentally healthy. It's about resisting being gaslighted. Had we clamored for truth more and looked more critically at the misinformation disseminated
after 911, and fucking paid attention is science class, we wouldn't be having douchey mcdoughenozzle as president, who seems to be able to say and do anything regardless of its veracity, and have people respond to him as though what he was saying and doing was credible.

Setting the precedent of accepting lies as truth, or receiving information and accepting it with out critical thinking is a step that can't easily be undone.

I'm outraged at the complacency of people to see a building like Grenfell stand after a fire like that (just like every other steel framed building that has been consumed by fire apart from WTC) and not recall the specious claim that WTC collapsed at free-fall speeds because of a small, brief, contained fire.

That shrugging of shoulders, or accepting the easy soundbite explanation without saying bullshit is a lazy habit that breeds Trumps and Trump voters.


It wasn't just the cladding that burned.
Jet fuel burns at 1,890 °F

Historical Survey of Building Collapses with extensive data including construction material, height, duration of fire, and degree of damage. Also lists buildings comsumed by fire that did not collapse.

Spoiler Alert:
Apart from WTC, the only other steel framed buildings involved in fires had only partial structural damage to one or two floors.

This isn't about conspiracy theories, it's about poor explanations and selective thinking.

We'll never, ever know the truth.

Jet fuel did not create temperatures to cause a collapse. Jet fuel was completely burned in minutes. But it ignited many flammable materials inside - especially tons of paper. It also blew fire protective materials off steel beams.

Anybody can see how long and hot that fire was. Eventually, exposed beams melted. In the WTC 7 collapse, the first collapsing beam was even identified after many super computer simulations.

NYC fire cheifs knew those towers may collapse - in a meeting held on the NW corner of that property. Orders went out long in advance to evacuate the buildings because heated steel beams would collapse. Unfortunately, retransmitters necessary to hear those orders could not contact many first responders.

Same concern existed with a Philadelphia skyscraper fire. A long discussion asked two questions. Was steel approaching melting points? And did heat compromise steel water pipes? In that case, heat damage to steel was significant; that the building had to be disassembled.

That conspiracy theory has been widely debunked by so many industry professionals. But it lives on among extremists who know but forget to first learn.

In this London fire, compromised structural beams were reinforced before body searches could commence in some locations.

I mischaracterised the grenfell housing management arrangement - in this case the property is still kind of owned by the council, not the management company.

In my own borough, the social housing is not owned by the council any more. It's owned by the housing association (large organisation that owns and manages social housing across several regions)

Well, no one is going to tell you what everyone is thinking about that. We know what a sensitive gal you are and that you would find it to be too soon, in poor taste/distasteful, and finger waving. I'm going to post it now for everyone else; but, you are not to read it for at least another week. The text will be very small, subdued, upside down and backwards. At this time, you are not to highlight this post, turn your screen upside down or read it in a mirror. There will be no by accident! Everyone else can read it anytime they want.



¡ǝɹᴉɟ uo sʇuɐd 'ɹɐᴉl 'ɹɐᴉ˥

snicker

...

Nor should she gaze upon this:

Pie nails it

SO there was only a fire at WTC and not planes crashing into those towers, which could have a negative impact on the stability of those buildings?
WTF!!!

And I hope Pie was live when going mental! I like that guy!

The building was designed to withstand an airplane crashing into it, there is an interview with one of the architects who designed it and he explains in detail how the structure works.

Had you paid attention in science class, i.e. physics, you'd understand that a free-falling body with only air resistance is going to fall faster than one that has to smash into the floor below which would absorb energy slowing its descent.

Really basic physics. Known weights, know structural strengths, known constant of gravity. The time it took the buildings to collapse was the same time it takes a free-falling object to make the same trip.

Every time a floor hit another floor energy and speed were robbed. There's no way those buildings could collapse that fast with out help.

He's character from the Fake News we had running on Channel 4 a little while ago (in honour of Trump :P) I love his skits.

Speed was minimally robbed, due to the huge differential between the falling mass and the strength of one floor. Energy was added as well as robbed, as the mass from each newly collapsed floor was added to the falling mass.

With that much falling mass, no hollow structure will stand up to it. Once it starts to fall, it will fall at barely less than terminal velocity.

I honestly think we ascribe way too much competence and organisational ability to the powers that be if we think they'd have been able to keep a secret that big.


Back to Grenfell - this lawyer chap speaks truth.

Ahh, of course. This explains why the Manhattan Project was such an abject failure; too many chatty Cathys just spilled the beans and let the whole world know what we are up to. That's why we are all speaking German and Japanese.


Compartmentalizing of knowledge. I'm sure you haven't a clue what goes on in your company in the upper echelons.

Well known that Challenger o'rings. Also well known was that no engineer said it was safe to launch that space shuttle. Murder? No. So many naive and extremists were told it was an accident. Of course it was not. But you cannot convince the naive and extremists of truth once they were told what to believe.

Extremist logic even invents WTC disaster. What were extremists told to believe about Grenfell? We will live with those lies for another 20 years.

Actually quite a few knew or had strong suspicions we were building a secret super weapon. They didn't know exactly what it was or how devastating it would be, but even if they did what were they going to do about it?

The Germans and Russians even knew it was called the Manhattan Project. I know it is true. It was stated on "Hogan's Heroes".

Setting aside the physics and engineering and demolition details for a minute, can you summarize the explanation for the planes that crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania?

Any high rise building without sprinklers on every floor is a death trap - to both occupants and firemen. That problem existed even in the MGM Grand (Las Vegas), Coconut Grove (Boston), Triangle Shirtwaist factory (New York), Ghost Ship Warehouse (Oakland), and in a Beverly Hills Supper Club (Cincinnati) fire. Add Marco Polo condominiums (Honolulu). Fire in one room took out three floors before firemen finally stopped it.

Well, at least they did not route natural gas lines in the fire escape stairways.