The Grenfell Tower Disaster 2017 | Plainly Difficult Documentary
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- Опубликовано: 3 июн 2024
- On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, London, UK.....
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
01:40 Background
06:28 Grenfells Refurbishments
12:55 Fire
18:10 Investigation
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Sources:
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►www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk
#disaster #Documentary #History #TrueStories
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This was a difficult story to cover thank you for watching.
Have any future subject suggestions let me know in the comments?
This weeks outro song: ruclips.net/video/tR0CEeXoco0/видео.html
my suggestion is the raft of the french frigate "Méduse" in 1816...a tragedy involving people thrown into the sea, rebellion and cannibalism...147 people took refuge on that raft >> after 13 days at sea, only 15 people were still alive.
I live in a 18-storey high rise in Sutton, Surrey. We are STILL waiting for them to finalise the plan to remove the cladding. Instead they have spent millions more with noisy, dusty, poor quality and disruptive internal works for the last 5 years 😥
I am honestly shocked (like truly shocked) you didn't mention the word sprinklers more. did you even say it once?? here in Canada (at least Toronto, which is an hour or two from me) it's utterly absurd that you'd build a high rise without sprinklers. Like to even think it is a borderline thought crime given how instilled fire safety is over here. Yet in the UK this just seems to be, okay?? to build these without sprinklers? I have a hard time even trying to understand that.
Can you please educate us on The Avalon at Edgewater fire that happened in NJ? I’d be a friend forever 😅
@@waitingforanalibi2224 It's shameful that isn't being remedied in a timely manner. I wish you the best. 😔
For those who don't know, Kensington & Chelsea is the posh, rich borough. Saving £300,000 might not seem like a big deal, but if you consider the lives of poor people to be completely worthless, then it's a no brainer.
And if anything, it's got worse since Grenfell. It really feels as if the lives of the ordinary, humdrum, normal people who keep this country running -- the workers -- are valued less and less each year. What with zero hours contracts, the suppression of the Unions, austerity measures that have not been eased or removed, child poverty, chronic stress affecting almost everyone, ineffectual mental health services, chronic under-funding of our police service and the NHS, to name but a few issues, the Britain I live in today seems to be on its knees. I'm glad people are organising themselves to speak up via strikes again, as it really feels as if Britain is being strangled. The gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' seems to widen every year. Despite David Cameron's government trying to legislate Community into existence, which can't be done, the decision-makers in Britain continually chose money over people's well-being. Our country is made up of people, and we matter! The prioritising of profits over people has to stop!!
Just as expected from pure Capitalism
@@saltissalty3498 except that Great Britain does not have a capitalist system. In fact, it would not understate the situation in all of Western Europe and GB as fascism. With the exception of the banking industry, GB is a fascist economy. Just like the USA. Congrats voters. Your knee jerk reactions are always wrong.
On the flip side, if you VE a lot of packages then you make a lot of savings. I’ve worked in construction before and value engineering isn’t just about putting a cheaper, worse product in: usually it’s either making a saving on an equivalent product or even putting a better product in at a cheaper price. How so, I hear you ask? Market leaders often get specified by default and with market leader positions often comes an unquestioned price - people often mistakenly assume that if somebody sells a lot of a thing then it must be a good price. The thing that very few people seem to understand, in these comments, is that they are putting their left wing pre-determined views that it’s rich people fucking over poorer people,and they’re ignoring that the product didn’t achieve the specified performance in reality - only on paper - because the fire test results had been frigged and the manufacturers lied about them.
Good point made, Fatfreddy, thing is, counsels don't have the in-house competance to question design decisions. They rely soley on contractors in a purely legalistic way. If something happens, it's never the counsel's fault, always the contractors and the sub-sub-sub-contractors who are to blame. Governments let industry write the rules through their lobbyists and then wonder why flammable cladding is allowed on buildings. If they were servants of the people, we wouldn't have this mess, but they line their pockets and continue to connive with their billionaire buddies.
It’s utterly insane that something as standard as a central fire alarm or sprinkler system was omitted.
When the World Trade Center Towers were first built, they didn't even have a sprinkler system at first. In 1981, they were installed. Unfortunately, many buildings around that time of construction did not have sprinklers.
Welcome to England
The sad irony is that if the tower had just been left as an "ugly concrete tower block" the fire would probably have been contained in that one flat. The only good thing to come out of it is that the whole external cladding scandal has come to light.
Exactly. The interior was absolutely sound due to natural features of the building, the fire spread _up the outside_ in a chimney/candle effect due to the cladding.
The fire would probably have gutted the flat but done little else.
The scandal came to light but too little was done to actually deal with it. I live in Greater Manchester and two years after this happened, a student accommodation block in Bolton clad with another form of cladding caught fire, leading to the entire top floor being gutted and other floors seriously damaged. Thankfully, whilst there were injuries, no one died.
The government has dragged its feet and offered too little funding to deal with this problem. Also, it was aimed too narrowly until the Bolton Fire established that it wasn't just one kind of cladding that was a problem. There should have been a much wider strategy to test all forms of cladding and get all kinds of flammable clading off all buildings - quickly - regardless of the height of the buildings but especially in buildings that share features in common with Grenfell. This should include privately owned residences - it's not the fault of homebuyers that their homes turned out to have this kind of cladding on them and they do not deserve the devaluation of their homes to nothing and the passing off of costs onto them into tens of thousands some of them just don't have. They also should be moving faster to retrofit buildings with sprinklers and proper connected fire alarm systems.
The government also had the opportunity to protect disabled people living in multi-occupancy buildings but failed to pass the law put before them that would have made it obligatory to ensure every disabled person living in such accommodation had a PEEP - Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan. Many of the disabled people living in Grenfell died that night because they couldn't escape and LFRS didn't reach them to help them evacuate the building. IMO, disabled people shouldn't be placed in high-rise social housing if there's no law to protect them from being abandoned to their deaths in the event of emergency. Disabled people in the UK found out just how little our lives are valued by the government post-Grenfell.
I think the biggest takeaway was actually that "shelter in place" is a massive lie given how poorly maintained many of these high-rise social housing blocks are. These are buildings built 50-60 years ago and many have undergone significant retrofitting at this point, which may have undermined the original safety features of the building. It wasn't mentioned in this video but the cladding wasn't the only problem with Grenfell; the firebreaks between the flats within had been damaged by the renovation work, and there were issues with fire doors in the communal areas not closing. Meaning even if the cladding hadn't caught fire, there was serious risk of fire moving between units internally too. Whilst it probably wouldn't have gutted the entire building, it is unlikely the fire would have been restricted to Flat 16 alone even if the cladding hadn't been flammable.
Part of my job was to inspect intumescent materials that protected the compartmentalisation of older concrete structures so when I heard about Grenfell I knew instantly what they had done to compromise that building. It's the new Hillsborough.
Buildings all over Europe were condemned after this, over 1700 were found to be at risk and some 400 were immediately evacuated and the cladding changed within months of the disaster. This was and still is one of the biggest wakeup calls in building fire safety in recent history only second to the King's cross fire.
all over Australia too... and govts still slow to act because they might have to pay for their incredible failure to regulate building standards properly and pushing the cost on to apartment owners.... abysmal
Yeah - what about R600a refrigerator substance - its doing well thanks to that sleight of hand :(
They say safety laws are all published in blood. RIP to the Grenfell victims
@@TymexComputing I suspect that R600a was indeed really adopted because it's cheaper than R134a (with “global warming potential” providing a convenient excuse, notwithstanding the unimpressive figures if you actually *calculate* it given the quantity in a normal fridge). PTFE costs more than PE, so I imagine R134a (1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane) versus R600a (isobutane) is much the same deal.
I'm sure that's also much of the reason fridge insulation was changed from fiberglass to polyurethane foam, but it'd be easy enough to fireproof the internal electrical connections by wrapping a smaller quantity of fiberglass (with probably still a lower overall cost than for fiberglass insulation itself).
And all for a completely useless exercise of "refurbishment". Like polishing a turd.
The way MPs acted after this was appalling, there was Jacob Rees Mogg who blamed the deaths on the victims and Eric Pickles who was upset that he didn't have enough free time anymore because of investigation.
it was horrible, my local MP at the time (Gavin Barwell) Didn't fare much better!
Classic Tories don't give a toss about the working class
Well, yes, that is literally how _all conservative MPs work._ Blame everyone but yourselves when things go, wrong, and hog all the credit when things go OK
@@graemenicol6377 Neither does Labour.
Most politicians only care about getting elected and many people shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Well Jacob Rees Mogg - need you say any more? He wouldn't know common decency if it gave way to him on the street - He'd just start hitting it with his walking stick.
I'm just an HVAC/R guy with some building science training, no expertise in building cladding systems or materials at all, but when you were describing the materials and method of installation of the cladding system they used, I was like "No, oh no, that's a chimney lined with extremely flammable materials!"
I’m a fire sprinkler fitter. Things like this are really scary to me. Spaces like that are effectively impossible to cover and protect.
I moved to Australia 20 odd years ago and worked in commercial construction.
I remember composite panels were being installed everywhere and thinking "surely these things are fire resistant" because my own work is vetted for fire prevention.
Same here, and I have no engineering experience, just a healthcare worker who’s had a few burn patients in my charge over the years. “Stay put” my ass. This whole event was just a mass murder in my opinion.
The council didn't give a d*mn about the people in it. The cladding was put on because the people in richer houses could see it and didn't like it. The tower's built in safety features were bypassed.
@@frankryan2505 It was known at the time the panels were not really fire resistant, however the tests were cheated in order to tick boxes. Fire resistant cladding that was known to be really fire resistant would have cost a fraction more than the type used. The cladding for tower blocks used in Scotland was the fire resistant type.
I saw another video about this (Well There's Your Problem Podcast) that contained a cell phone video shot by a fire fighter on an engine en-route. They were in absolute disbelief looking at the roaring inferno. The phrase "buildings aren't supposed to burn like that" is still stuck in my head whenever I think of Grenfell.
The Firefighter was correct. London Fire Brigade probably attend 4 to 6 flat fires like that each week. They deal with them all the same way, from the inside of the building. The building construction of flats is supposed to contain the fire to within the flat of origin, and more often than not contains it to the room of origin. So the sight of the entire block on fire was disbelieving.
I remember that video - guy said something like “what exactly do they expect us to do with that?”
@@UnleashthePhury As I recall, firefighters in New York City on 9/11 made similar comments when they saw the scale of the disaster, "What do we do for this?"
I witnessed this disaster firsthand from the air. My flight took off from Boston the evening just before, and as we were coming in to land at London Heathrow we looked out the window and saw a tower of flames. There really aren't words to describe seeing something like this with your own eyes. Thank you for covering it.
did you toss a butt through your window to get it started
Did you bring marshmallows lol
Not funny dude
@@ethanjack4298 Source?
@@SajuekSo edgy
I can only imagine the panic, fear, and horror of awakening to the bright light of your home beginning to burn at the windows; only to find that your exit - the one staircase - is filled with smoke so thick and choking that you can't see well enough to run down it. Later, if you survive, finding out that your misery was all just to save a few quid must have caused such anger and grief. These poor survivors! That report must be a truly awful read.
It was equally upsetting as it was infuriating such a tragedy
The audio accounts of the last survivors out will amaze... very thin line of survival. Politicians should be made to listen to those accounts ( the audio is on RUclips in a documentary interview) to get a felt sense of the situation. We are obligated to pick safer environments when possible. Residents realized as you mentioned, two whistleblowers died in the fire the dangers, ack! Just horrific. So sad to learn one critically injured victim passed six months after the fire. I also appreciate the gathering of clad building related news and thought I heard at least one of 3 suppliers declared bankruptcy.
greed, power, privilege, hmmm.
Hoping for 🕊️ for those touched by Grenfel
This was awful to read, I was there and it's just horrific the sheer panic that night the sirens the smell and the screams will never leave me. The 72 was the official death toll, but there's many which died internally that night and life with the trauma from it
@@rickycunningham6368 I am so sorry that you had to live through this. I hope that you will find peace someday. This makes me enraged and heartbroken on your behalf that this tragedy ever happened to you, or anyone else.
Nothings changed I watched a 27 floor I think it is luxury apartment get built near me (completed within the last 2 years) and it has a central core lift and staircase with the flats bolted on to the sides, I certainly wouldn't pay to live in it I don't understand why we don't have external fire escapes on buildings.
I'm the Secretary of a housing cooperative and it absolutely blows my mind how cruelly indifferent every level of regulator was to the residents of Grenfell. Things are improving in terms of the expectations of housing providers now, but only in retrospect - there is still a lack of trying to prevent the next big disaster. Thank you for what I'm sure was a difficult video to make.
Had the resident been prepared to take on a small fire this could have been a nothing, or at least minimized. You're essentially government trying to convince the people at risk that you can solve all of their problems for them through regulation, and while there is a place for that what you're really doing is convincing people that government can cure all ills instead of convincing people that they need to be at least somewhat prepared to save their own lives and those of their fellow citizens. I own three fire extinguishers located throughout my house because I consider a fire to primarily be MY responsibility to the extent I can deal with and only secondarily the responsibility of the fire department many minutes away.
It's almost like we, as a society, stopped physically punishing people when they do atrocious things, especially if they get away with it because of their power, connections, or money. We used to go after people on our own as a small group, when they got away with things that they should not have gotten away with. That would change the behavior of the people at the top.
@@HadToChangeMyName_RUclipsSucks the problem was that there was extremely flammable cladding on the outside of the building. That was the council's fault, not residents.
Never understood why you left your housing to the government. They're indifferent at best. This doesn't mean anything individual or company can't be as bad but you've got the indifference baked in and little recourse when our lords and masters fail or just don't care.
To be clear - as a Housing Cooperative, we do all as tenants and landlords take individual responsibility for our housing, including preventative safety measures. Precisely because government, private and social landlords, regulators, etc. are less useful than we would like them to be. On the other hand, I am only too aware that for many socially and economically disadvantaged people they are utterly dependent on these organisations looking out for them and are not in the fortunate position I find myself in.
I pass by Grenfell Tower every single day, pretty much. I attended the school it was next to and we had to move to temporary buildings as a result for a while since I was in my first year. This year is my last at this school, but I'll never forget about the days following the disaster when everyone was in disarray, listening to memorials and kinda. everyone crying about who they knew had died (One person in my year group died - she was in all of my classes and I really looked up to her because she was crazy smart even at our age at the time) and the support that came from all of it. Counselling was ramped up, we had a memorial garden built a few years after
It was definitely something. Even today, people are still displaced, and to this day, we have coverings on the windows obscuring the towers from classrooms in some places which is just even more of a reminder at this stage sometimes. I didn't think, at my age, the government would be so abhorrently behaved because I was young and all. But it's been 6 years with barely any legal action. People have gotten away scot-free and forgotten about it, but I see the ramifications, the green hearts and memorial spaces every day. And so do thousands of people, all connected to that fire in one way or another.
Thanks for reading, if you do.
The shenanigans the cladding company got up to so their product would be considered able to be used on high rise buildings is also criminal. It's been a while since I read the details but stuff like it failing the tests multiple times, the test arrangement that finally passed not being the one they told people they had to use when applying the cladding, etc. It's shocking.
In Canada, we would have used high-density fibre glass (we call it rock wool) it's very fire resistant and a very good insulation.
There was simply no excuse to allow anything but high density fibre glass on the outside.
@@PaulRudd1941 If I remember right there's a similar product from the same people that has *much* better fire properties due to fire retardants being used in the material or something, and that would not have spread the fire the same way. But of course it's more expensive and rather than lose the sale they made it so this cheaper stuff would pass the testing (but only installed in a very very specific way which is not standard installation procedure) so they could sell it to people who didn't want to spring for the more expensive stuff.
@@PaulRudd1941 Rockwool is widely used in the UK, but it doesn't have the thermal properties of 'expanded foam'/other products, which everyone is chasing to reduce energy bills, & is slower to install. They could have possibly used an intumescent fire barrier as well (not just a Rockwool/mineral fibre type of fire barrier, which doesn't expand), but these are expensive, & may still not have worked in this case.
The UK Building Industry system for most projects is designed to fail from the start these days. Instead of working as a team, everyone is looking to finish ASAP & avoid damages/costs being put of them & push liability onto some other party, with a lot of the older safeguards now removed in the name of 'cost cutting'.
Tragedies like Grenfell are the result.
There's a video of someone building wall panels with different insulation and burning them. After watching that I'd never use any kind of foam.
@@j.f.fisher5318 Like everything else. there are different grades. Even at Grenfell, they had around 4 hours to get out, but other circumstances stopped it. Another incidence of any one element being taken out of the equation, & it wouldn't have been as bad.
The 'stay put' strategy for fires is completely different than standard policy here on the West Coast of Canada. Here everyone is expected to evacuate the building for any fire alarm, no matter how minor the fire. It also helps that the standard here for a long time has been at least 2 stairwells in each apartment tower so there isn't much concern about a stairwell crush incident. The lack of a central fire alarm is surprising too. The residents deserved so much better.
Tbf as is said in the video "stay put" works extremely well if the building is up to standard. Had it not been for the cladding the fire in flay 16 would never have been able to spread anywhere other than that flat before the fire brigade arrived to put it out. It's a really effective strategy fit safety neutralising a tower block fire when the building is properly constructed and maintained... That said you are right that everyone in that building was let down badly. The amount of safety features that could have been added if it wasn't for penny pinching are extensive and the cost cut on the external cladding is one of the crimes of the century!
Being from the US and having some knowledge on fire protection I get the idea of stay put but it still blows my mind. It seems like the occupants survival is dependent on everything being perfect from the engineering to the construction and also the fire progressing according to plan. How staying where you are and going against millennia of human conditioning is preferred to just removing the people from danger then worrying about the fire completely blows my mind.
@@adivoll thf the idea of it is that not everything has to be perfect, as essentially every room/compartment in the tower is acting as redundancy in case the fire prevention measures fail in the room adjacent. Plus it gives the fire service total control of an evacuation if one is needed, making it much easier to make sure residents aren't missed or dont unintentionally put themselves in more danger. Plus designing a building this way makes it much safer for the disabled/those with limited mobility in the event of a fire as you aren't expected to somehow get down the stairs in order to not burn.
Grenfell is a special case in the sense that the external cladding could not have been better designed to make stay put ineffective if you were doing it on purpose. And only happened because almost everyone involved in its construction abdicated all responsibility hiding behind other people's authority and bits of fire safety regulation that weren't actually relavent to what they were doing. It would be like taking a core support column out and then acting surprised when the building collapses, it's that fundamentally negligent.
In my building in London we have central fire alarms now and they go off all the time, every time was a false alarm seems there is some issue with it, it has gone off so many times that people ignore it and don't evacuate anymore.
@@adivoll Yes, it is dependent on the building, which will have numerous inspections while being built and need final sign off by building control. Yes, they will expect perfect.
I remember when this was on the news. I was on night shift in a factory, we were all in the break room watching the scenes of the fire spreading and I distinctly remember a conversation we had when the footage of the fire racing up the side of the building was first shown. "That looks like the cladding is burning."
Never been so sad to be right in my life
I glanced at a tv in the canteen and the first words out of my mouth were "the cladding has caught they're f*".
I had a quiet moment just then for the poor sods.
I was getting ready for a high school trip and I remember looking through the door into the living room from my kitchen the morning after it happened and seeing this smoking wreck of a tower block on the news. My nan was talking about the poor babbies in the tower blocks trapped inside.
I catched it live streaming..
Traumatizing. The Helplessness of Rescuers, the Doomed above, bagging for Help. Just Haunting.
The whole Thing is pure Shame of Companys Greed and politics Failing.
I hope that at least some Justice is served and Faults undone..
I'm in America, and that night I just so happened to be flipping through foreign RUclips channels when I saw this live on sky news. The fire had just started and they were saying "no deaths reported - should be out soon", but every time I flipped back the fire only got worse, yet the commentary barely changed.
I was friends with Fatima choucair, a resident of Grenfell. She was the kindest girl ever, and her, Nadia, Jessica, her grandma and her baby sibling all died in the fire. This world was too bad for someone as kind as her to exist in it, and I can only hope she is in a better place now.
went to london in early July in 2017
Dad wanted to check out the famous blue door and the flat from the Notting hill movie. We saw the charred tower and decided to walk to it, on the way there we encountered hundreds of "missing person" posters along the road. it was a terrifying sight to see so many people with photos in all ages included. horrible tragedy
I know you mentioned that you didn’t feel qualified to talk about the sociopolitical implications of it, but I think an important note is that a lot of the children affected were forced to move schools (and lost friends) due to the distance of their displacement. So even while recovering and working through their grief, a lot of survivors lost their social support system and had to adapt to a new environment (which is arguably a trauma on its own).
It seems pretty clear to me that there was a big element of economic & racial inequality in effect here in general too, in terms of the residents' concerns being ignored because they were not wealthy (hence couldn't bring much political pressure to bear) and many were also non-European? (So like most brown, Black & Indigenous people struggled to have their voices heard by their government.)
Just speaking from local experiences following the 2010-11 Christchurch earthquakes here, a community disaster like this can have a very surprisingly long tail of impacts on locals. Disruption to jobs, schooling, finances, mental health etc etc can continue for years afterwards. The knock-on accommodation problems also persist well after the initial incident falls off the news cycle and passes into history.
I'd be interested to know what sort of practical support the local council offered to the tower's former residents in relocation and recovery...? Just based on John's brief mention of evictions etc here, I fear the suffering and neglect the TMO inflicted on their tenants sadly may not have simply ended with the fire itself? 😕
Capitalism amiright
"Oh no my free house isn't close enough to my previous free house :("
@@Sajuek I love when people out themselves as utter ass wipes.
@@tlpineapple1 Sorry this is just the view of the vast, overwhelming majority of white British people.
Grenfell and the 2022 Bronx Fire show how “stay put” can quickly become deadly if there are combustible materials used and/or defective/non existent fire doors, smoke detectors, sprinklers, and other fire protection systems.
“Grandfathering” buildings in when it comes to fire safety improvements should also never be a thing.
It doesn’t matter how much if costs. Knocking a building down and rebuilding it to be up to safety standards will be cheaper than the cost of human life if you don’t
My mother, sister, and stepfather live (and still live) under Grenfell by the leisure center, not a day go past when I remember the fire and all the people screaming. Lost of friends both my little sister and I knew in school passed away that night. Never forget Grenfell 💚
There are some who suggest that the fire was deliberately started at the behest of the more affluent gentrification residents with a desire to increase their property value.
Achieved by removing Grenfell tower as the building itself spoiled their view and the residents therein lowered the ambiance/tone of the area.
My condolences, nobody should go through a pain like that bro
@@CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRail ??????
@@CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRail jesus christ, thank you for your opinion
@@CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRail no but i have a heart condition which i have surgery booked because of the smoke inhalation
The inquiry has led all the way to Australia where it has been found that many public buildings, including hospitals, were clad in this non fireproof cladding, even though contractors said it was. It was only brought to light when the manufacturer stated that no fireproof cladding was ordered because it was AU$1 per square metre more expensive
I lived in a 14 story tower block in glasgow and we had 2 fires on our floor during that time. When the fire brigade arrived and had us all stay in our flat I didn't think anything of it, I trusted we were safe as they dealt with it even though it was so scary. Grenfell happened a couple months after I moved back into a house, it was terrifying knowing how it felt to be in a building on fire, hundreds of feet from the ground and with only one way out
There have been many fires in similar buildings that ended up with one or two victims at most, because they were not enveloped in flammable material.
There's always more than one way out, but if you're going for the window escape, get a lot of rope and do it before the flames get bad.
In a properly maintained and constructed building, staying put often *is* quite safe. The problem is that Grenfell was anything but properly maintained and constructed. Like buildings like tower blocks should be built with systems such that smoke CANNOT fill up the stairways due to air pressure in the stairs. This requires fire doors to the stairs that automatically close and a properly functioning system of ventilation/blowers to keep the air moving properly through the stairway area. And there should be fire walls that will help contain the fire to a limited area of the building - but they don't work when you wrap the whole dang building in what is basically petrol in foam form.
@@Motoko_Urashima the rope will not be able to stand the weight as ppl on other floors trying to climb on the same rope at the same time
I grew up in a small 4 story council block built in the 70s, it was full of asbestos, upstairs had a couple of fires that didn't affect us and my mother put it down to the asbestos panels in the ceilings and floors, the council started to remove the asbestos from the estate at some point I think in the late 90s, but only if the residents were willing, my parents refused. there was more spreading of fires in the other buildings after that because they did not replace the asbestos with anything, these things have been standing 50 years without major incident, I wonder if grenfell had asbestos removed and not replaced by anything too not that it matters as the poor residents were surrounded, the builders who made it would never have imagined that someone would put a flamable covering all around the building.
It seems like "stay put" is the modern equivalent of the "unsinkable" ship.
No it's really not.
Stay works when all those responsible are held to the building regulations.
Do not leave your flat until the firefighters tell you. They have oversight of the fire and smoke that you in your flat do not. Those who were lead by firefighters down the stairs by using their masks tell of stepping on dead people in the stairs.
The problem arises when you have so many people involved in the planning and execution of large refurbishment programs. During the inquiry, one site manger did raise the issue of there being no fire breaks between floors, but it was assumed that the sub contractors had asked the question, but it turns out that the sub contractors were subbing other sub contractors, and no one had actually raised the issue of fire breaks with either the architect, the main contractor or the manufacturer of the cladding. It was all just assumed that since there were no fire breaks, that must have been the way it was designed, and that the design had been signed off. If you've ever worked a day in your life on a large building project, then you know what an unimaginable cluster f**k it is. I've been on projects where we've had to go in a sort 600+ fire doors, because not one of the meets the requirements. I've been on projects where you go under the stairs in one house and you can see inside the neighboring house. I've even been on projects where you switch on the lights in flat number 1 and the lights don't come on, because they actually switch the lights on and off in flat number 2. I've seen uPVC doors swung upside down and back to front. The government and the Tories have received a lot of flak for Grenfell, but the absolute mess that is the construction industry in the UK, is the real culprit.
No it isn't. The problem was the refurb and the cladding, the old "ugly concrete building" would probably have been fine.
A highrise building without a central fire alarm in 2017 is unbelievable
Look at Ronan point
Very informative video, thank you. I lived for 11 years in a building that was extremely poorly maintained. Five years ago I began applications to live in subsidized housing for elderly, and was finallyoffered a tiny flat in the place where I currently live. I was approved to move in during the pandemic, and at that time received pressure from relatives to remain in the older building, but I had the strong feeling that it wouldn’t last more than a year or two as there were so many serious structural and safety problems. So I moved out. So very glad I did- the old building soon afterward burned to the ground in a fast-moving fire which killed one firefighter. Glad to say none of the residents died, but had I remained there maybe I would not be here to tell of it. Landlords must be held accountable, and unsafe dwellings must be closed.
Honestly I'm so scared this will happen again. Next to nothing has changed, and so many homes are still covered in this cladding.
Its horrible so lucky there hasn't been any other disasters
And builders still don't give a ****. I've seen buildings clad in (flammable) styrofoam plates that had a lightning rod's grounding ran through them. Yes, a metal wire that'll become extremely heated, ran through a bunch of combustibles.
Builders probably cried "The plan says nothing about re-doing the lightning protection, so just glue it on there without telling anyone"
@@nvelsen1975 It ain't the builders, it's the penny pinchers calling the shots higher up that don't listen to a damned thing outside of cost numbers. Most builders know damned well it's not right, but under threat of being unemployed have to do what the higher ups order. Follow the money, you'll find the reason for most everything.
@@FranNyan
No, it's the builders who deviate from the plans often and rigidly carry through with the plans if they encounter a dangerous mistake.
@@nvelsen1975 what are you talking about? Builders both deviate often yet don't deviate when theres something dangerous? Are you implying they are all acting maliciously, trying to get people killed?
furthermore, what are you basing this conclusion on? I hope its more than just you thought it up after looking over one piece of evidence.
Didn't think you'd do this disaster that quick. Such a loss of life so soon. Thanks for covering it. RIP to the victims and the familes
Thank you!
Did you say quick because it’s a fairly recent event (5 years ago) compared to most of his other content?
@@DereliqueMahBAWLS I assume so. Technically there are still some pending investigations into it as well, even though the main and obvious ones have been long done and we know what started it, where it started and why it ended up as bad as it did etc
@@OfficialSamuelCthere's a criminal investigation going alongside the inquiry and other litigation bits going on, I was there that nightm and this was covered incredibly well in this video
I thought it was much more recent than 5 years ago. Damn, time flies. I'm from the US and I remember this vividly. Horrendous
I live in a flat in London that has the same cladding and the local authorities are doing everything in their power to not replace it. They’ve installed smoke and heat detectors in all rooms inside flats, a fancy fire alarm system (which currently has a fault so isn’t operational) and replaced all the doors to be made with more fire resistant material. However everytime they’ve been questioned about the cladding they just brush it. I just hope there will never be a fire here.
There was a block near me (not London) where they didn't bother with any of that. Just had a "waking watch" that residents had forced on them and had to pay for out of pocket at a cost of gazillions.
This unlocked a repressed memory for me. In 8th grade, I was only a few blocks away in one of those houses turned flats. Our sleep schedules were screwed due to the time difference between the US and UK. We heard the sirens and the people, and then looked out the window to the right. It towered over us and was just covered in flames. Never felt so small and afraid. Can't imagine what it was like to be trapped in there. Nobody deserved that.
When this happened, my family endured the most excruciating 5.5 hours after we heard about it. A close relative who was living in North Kensington at the time, we were aware she had a very close friend who lived in the tower. After the news started hitting the US, mild concern turned to panic when all of our SMS went without reply and then phone calls were answered by those tones and an automated reply by the carrier.
Finally, she called my grandmother (the only phone # she could remember off the top of her head) to let her know she was fine, her friend was fine, but her phone and a lot of people were not fine. They'd been on assignment somewhere in Kensal (sp?) and at hotel, but she'd left her phone at the friend's flat and taken her work mobile.
There was relief to hear from her, but it was dampened by the comprehension how many families' unanswered calls likely were followed by a very tragic one.
reading this story reminds me of that swedish venue with all the youth that died in the fire, and how the rescue service could hear all the kids' phones going off from worried parents.. 😥
I know what you mean. My Aunt worked 3 buildings away from the WTC on Sept 11, and my Uncle (in the suburbs) could not get ANY information on/about/from her ALL DAY, though he constantly tried, he was beside himself. FINALLY about 7pm she was able to call, she’d had to walk barefoot out of Manhattan over the bridge, dunno if she lost her shoes completely or if it was too painful for her to walk all that way in her stilettos, as she was a banker… He was crying when he could call us back to tell us she was ok. She did have a cell phone, but it was just overwhelmed, so no help there.
@@Konani_the_unicorn_queen I thought that was the Paris nightclub massacre. The same thing happened there…
@@5roundsrapid263 similar incidents then, this was in sweden and i think gothenburg or somesuch, i don't know if plainly difficult has covered it, but Fascinating Horror covered it.
after katrina trying to reach my friends in slidell.
I remember being 17 and not being able to sleep while on RUclips around 1 am and on my suggested was an apocalyptic looking building fire livestream. Turns out it was a news live stream from this disaster. Watching the fire in real time across the world felt insane. Rest in peace to all lives lost that day.
Same!!
Ditto, that poor woman's screams for rescue to silence and her neighbor already outside crying "help her," heart wrenching 😭
I was 21 at the time. I remember that day since its the day i got interviewed and hired a job
@Florida GuyGood question but just in case it is i was 42... 😛
@@craigsibley8161 and i was laughing
I remember when I first heard about Grenfeld Tower. I was doing working out of town in my role as a Fire Alarm Inspector along with a Sprinkler Fitter. Even as it was burning I was horrified at the preliminary reports about the lack of protection and sloppy codes that even in my Province of Alberta, famous for it's lack of safety regulations wouldn't tolerate.
One thing I remember was watching the fire on the TV and the sprinkler fitter I was with insisting that there can't have been sprinkler suppression based in the pattern.
@@klingoncowboy4I don't know why, but I always assumed the UK's building codes would be stricter than the average western country. US construction isn't even usually this bad...
@@crispybatman480 for your own sanity don't look up the electrical regs for the UK in the immediate post WW2 period... scary stuff
@@klingoncowboy4 Welp, I ignored your advice, and the title alone doesn't bode well...: IET Electrical;
Recommended war emergency relaxations of the IEE Wiring Regulations 1942.
Seeing something so close to home on this channel is scary. The school I went to is incredibly close to grenfell. I remember while heading to school on the bus, seeing a huge plume of smoke in the sky. I had no clue. It was visible the whole day from our schools yard. Only when I arrived did I realize what happened. I knew people who lived there. My friend lived on the first floor, so he was able to escape unharmed, but not everyone was that lucky. When we would go to our local swimming center we would walk past the Grenfell building. Seeing it was horrifying, it was scorched black. Students were always laughing and joking but when we walked past it would go silent. Horrible.
This must have been a tougher video than many, John. I live in Kilburn, and could see the smoke from my window in the clear summer sky. I didn’t think I could be so angry and so devastated after five years, but I still want to smash things, and the more that’s come out about this crime the angrier I get. I see the corpse of Grenfell every time I drive to Westfield, and despite not having been a Catholic for ages, I still can’t help but cross myself.
I am actually quite fond of London’s post war brutalist architecture, which was vastly more graceful than the Cheese Grater or the Gerkin. But Grenfell and all the housing associated were not one of those monstrous self contained hellscapes of crime and destitution that so many of these well meant housing estates became: it was a community.
Cross yourself eh? Your god let this happen.
@@alanclark639 Hardly - I have been an atheist since I was about sixteen.
I remember living in a flat like this in Hackney, and when my mum got into facade engineering she realised that we were basically living on a bonfire waiting to go up. This video hits really hard, like God I remember this so clearly, seeing it on TV and seeing fumes over London. All my mans hate Kensington.
I'm American. I watched this from several thousand miles away, and today it still makes me cry. When it happened I was dumbfounded. When I saw the video from the scene, hearing the people screaming, I hurt. When I saw the entire tower engulfed in such a short time, I was shocked. When I heard about the jumpers, I was back to 9/11. When I learned what had actually happened, I was crushed. Then I was infuriated. This was an extremely emotional event that highlights just about every social problem that's tearing at the soul of Western civilization - xenophobia, classism, greed, political polarization, racism, poverty, dishonesty, and finding every excuse possible to devalue our fellows if they seem different. The people responsible don't even seem to care that they did this, and to such a vibrant community! It's gut-wrenching to watch from a distance, maybe because I know we suffer the same social ills this side of the pond, or maybe because it's just so painful as a human to see such a horrifying event and to imagine the suffering. I can't help but feel the residents who survived and the community who have found ways to cope are stronger than I am.
As a former firefighter and someone that has been going to fire scenes and studying fire science for 30 years as soon as you mentioned the foam and clading with a single stairway i knew that this was going to end up as a real life towering inferno (look it up its a good movie from the 70s made by Irwin Allen) and sadly the gears of justice grind slowly when politics are involved
I remember seeing some video footage of one of the firefighters on their way *to* the tower commenting on how absurd it was that the fire lit up the building so quickly, wondering how on earth they were getting in there. Firefighters are the top of the list of public workers I respect because of what they do and why they do it.
But, the disaster is invariably political, it is necessarily and inevitably political because its the result of a history of austerity and privatization which was explicitly a political set of actions. A painfully apparent issue is that the victims are poor and often recently immigrated tenants and the perpetrators are a wealthy land management group on top of an awful decades long legacy of privatization.
I don't expect adequate justice to come out of this years long process.
@@Fenriswaffle sadly i have a feeling it will end up like the radium girls where the guilty will walk with a small fine also i was volunteer with the fire department so i did it for free because I love helping others sadly my health wont let me do it anymore
@@wolvesone I'd be amazed if anyone even got a small fine. No one will ever be held accountable, sadly. This is the UK where corners at cut at every opportunity
@@Jabarri74 its not any better here in the US i was just hoping the people across the pond as they say would be slightly better
Justice in the uk is bought by wallets not truth same as US
This is the best explanation of the Grenfell disaster that I have seen - John explains how the "shelter in place" approach came about and clearly illustrates how it assumes that a fire won't spread widely/quickly. Top work John!
I recently saw a video about how fire safety is handled in modern high-rise apartments. "Shelter in place" is used, but with less assuming, and a lot more work put in to preventing spread and in making sure evacuation is still possible. One modern system that would have helped in this building is a ventilation system for the stairs and hallways that can respond to a fire, and selectively draw air out through the floor where a fire is, so smoke is pulled away from the stairs, instead of going up the stairwells.
When “shelter in place” was originally adopted, most buildings were full of asbestos.
I'll always remember this tragic event. My mum turned on the news & half of the block was on fire. You could hear the desperate, terrified screams coming from the children on the higher floors. It became obvious, pretty quickly, that the people on the higher floors were not going to survive. Its heartbreaking.
To those of you saying the residents should have put out the fire. I have a question for you:
Have you woken up to a house fire?
Because I have. The wall behind my woodstove caught on fire and my wife at the time woke me up. I got them out and pulled the wall away and used an extinguisher on it. It was still going. I went and grabbed a pot of water out of the sink and then used that. Then the lights went out because the wire for the lighting circuit was back there and I'd tripped the breaker. The place was filled with smoke the entire time. I left the house and closed the door. Wife and kids were outside in the car waiting and emergency services had been called by my wife. They arrived some minutes later and investigated. I had successfully extinguished the fire. The chief came over and read me the riot act after finding out what I'd done. Mind you this all took place in an area which, not to call out politics, was one where self-sufficiency is praised and reliance on government services is condemned.
He told me "you use the extinguisher and you get out. You're one person without any protective equipment. Smoke will overcome you quicker than you realize due to the toxins in it. Yes you probably saved the place from being a total loss but there's a good chance you would have died, and your chance of getting the fire out after the first extinguisher, without proper equipment, are much lower than the chances of you dying in the effort."
I haven't been in a house fire, but I still know that trying to put out a fire is a stupid fucking idea, and that even trying the extinguisher is dumb unless the fire just started.
I have woken up to a house fire. A faulty gas appliance in the living room downstairs from where I was sleeping failed and set the smoke alarm off. My initial thought, given that I'd gotten up earlier and gone back to bed, was that I'd left some toast on. I stumbled downstairs to find flames licking out from under the gas fire, molten plastic dripping on to the carpet, and the carpet smouldering in a disturbing fashion. Smoke everywhere of course. I did manage to extinguish the fire but called the fire brigade anyway using my home phone. By this time I had opened the front door and was standing as close to it as possible. When the fire brigade arrived I must have been rather pale because the firemen kept asking me if I was alright. I was a bit shaken up but no worse.
I want to highlight an issue that gets overlooked when it comes to safety. Parking. The house I was living in at the time sat at the bottom of a cul-de-sac. I watched the fire engine pull into the top of the road, reverse, try again, reverse, and try again as it struggled to negotiate the vehicles parked on both sides of the road there. None were parked illegally but if my house had been on fire it could have caused serious problems. These days I live elsewhere. My end of the road sits on a small green and thus access for a fire engine is not a problem. The other end of the road has vehicles parked on both sides for a distance of at least 100 metres and it is often awkward to drive an ordinary car through there. If a house fire was to occur in one of the houses along that stretch of road there is not a hope in Hell of a fire engine being able to access the place. If it was serious there would be every chance that several houses would be destroyed and the potential for loss of life obvious. I'm not sure what the answer is, short of banning residents from parking outside their homes, but it's clearly a disaster waiting to happen.
It's just insane the lengths people in authority will go to avoid personal responsibility. Literally mental illness.
@@wta1518 Firefighters will tell you to get out first and then call them.
Not to mention that your oxygen supply is running out as well as the rate of pollutants go up pretty quickly.
If my fridge is ablaze when I come out of my bedroom, burning its refrigerant which is usually propane based, I am legging it as well, a handheld fireextinguisher may not be enough, and you have to hit it right as well.
I remember I was at work when this happened. We were all following the story and found out 7 people had died. We were horrified and desperately hoped there would be no more. I went on my lunch and came back into everyone really upset. I asked what was wrong and they told me the death toll had been upped to 70. I just sat and cried. This shouldn't have happened and hopefully will never happen again. RIP.
I can't believe that it's been this long since this disaster. In Australia we were all shocked when seeing this report on the evening news. I hope that a resolution comes quickly for the former tenants so that they may have some closure. God bless. DM.
I could hear some of the (justified) anger in your voice at times John. Thank you for another well researched and presented video, you've done a brilliant job of trying to cover such a horrible recent event!
I work for the borough. On the morning of the fire, to cut a long story short. it would seem that the call out system had not been implemented. I was made aware by an elbow in my ribs and my wife who had been watching the early morning news, saying " is that were you work"? It was, I asked for a cup of coffee while getting dressed. I arrived at my office at 05:45 though many police officers who were intent on preventing my progressing though the shabby exclusion zone despite me having a valid warrant card. I expected the office to be a hive of activity, lights on and management to be there ahead of my arrival. No, the office was in darkness. I emailed my manager, Kenneth Thompson, as to were I should be deployed. And then the answer cam back at around 06:30. "stay away and let the emergency services get on with the job".
As a retired Paramedic, this went against the grain and tried to assist, however the jobsworth police officers denied any access to the area.
I knew a few people who lived in the block.
Thank you for this perspective, and for trying your best to help. It really highlights how half-assed this was handled by those who should have been able to manage (or prevent) the whole thing altogether.
I wanna give props to Kebede. He stayed in dangers way to help alert and evacuate other residents and no doubt saved several lives.
Since you're now including high-rise disaster stories, take a look at the One Meridian Plaza fire in Philadelphia in 1991.
It was a massive fire that raged for nearly 20 hours and spread through 10 stories, started by a freak accident and allowed to spread by a combination of bad building codes during construction, poor enforcement of new codes later, and complete mishandling of emergency procedures by building staff. Amazingly, though still tragically, only 3 people lost their lives -- all firefighters trying to quell the blaze.
I live about 5 minutes from the tower, and watched the night it burned. I've never felt so helpless in my life. To think this could've been avoided is just devastating and people act like it never happened.
Grenfell was sadly inevitable. The cladding scandal has gone well beyond just the UK, it's a global issue now. Even in Australia, there are government task forces set up to help address the scale of the issue, with thousands of buildings in a similar predicament to varying degrees.
I'd love to see a video talking more about how such flammable cladding was ever permitted as a building material, when far safer options exist. I've heard through various people in construction of false flammability tests being produced, mislabelling and all sorts of things have surrounded such cladding. A very expensive and time consuming process to identify the bad cladding and replace it too, years in most cases!
There was a building in Docklands VIC, "Lacross tower" if I recall, that went up in flames in the same manner as Grenfell only a short time apary, which really brought the cladding issue into the spotlight. Not nearly as deadly, but it was astonishing how quick it went up.
The cladding company put a lot of effort into testing and retesting their cladding in various ways in order to find some way to allow someone to call it "fire-resistant". Disgusting.
Yet it was well known how dangerously flammable it was by the manufacturer. It’s a disgrace.
i remember when that happened. it was horrific
The cladding manufacturers rigged the tests using non combustible panels to stop the fire spreading in timespan of test or a different product in Kingspan's case. Philip Heath, technical manager at kingspan, wrote that a firm Wintech which queried the suitability of the product K15 for high rises were “getting me confused with someone who gives a damn… imagine a fire running up this tower! Oct 2008
Was that the one caused by some bloke having a cigarette on his balcony?
I really hope covering all these horrible and tragic disasters hasn't affected you and your mental health John. I love your content but sometimes worry about its potential effect on you
Thank you don't worry about me!
@@PlainlyDifficult
How can we not be concerned for our disaster master? I'm glad you've got your music to throw yourself into. Which is something I have been meaning to comment on for a while now. The intro music is probably one of the best intros on youtube for numerous reasons. 1. It's short. 2. It's intense. 3. It absolutely invokes, in me at least, a feeling of impending doom. So, just perfect. Have a great weekend. It's a balmy 24°C here in my family 3 bedroom bungalow in Central, North-east Christchurch, Aotearoa-New Zealand. And I'm loving it.
Can't speak on his behalf, but you'd be surprised about how quickly people become desensitised to awful things. Doesn't take long until it stops affecting you
We have our coping mechanisms.
It takes special people to still have empathy and compassion when dealing with death and destruction.
It’s when we stop caring, it’s about the $, or have incorrect priorities that these disasters happen: Usually, Cost and Schedule overruling Safety.
The politics are that Grenfell is what we would consider low-income housing in the USA. The cash wasn’t spent on the safety or upgrades to the internals to bring it up to code but the facade instead to make it look nice from the outside because it was adjacent to a wealthy area. Pretty packaging for the wealthy was prioritized over the financially challenged residents’ safety bsed upon the assumption that the building was fire proof. My guess, “There’s never been a fire before.” was said at least once to rationalize the decision to use the inferior cladding system. What was the likelihood of a catastrophic loss due to fire? Assumed to be zero due to hard design controls that were in place and subsequently invalidated by the changes that were made over time. That is what is deemed a Management of Change failure to a catastrophic hazard. Controls should be in place to prevent exactly this or companies and individuals will lose their licenses to practice when their clients kill the product’s end users (the 72 residents in this particular case).
I’m curious to know if a safety analysis was performed for each cladding option and by what level of engineer (decision analysis in a trade study), then also who signed off on it/stamped it as the engineer of record. Clients vs residents/users: were any residents included/represented in the cladding decision making?
All parts are critical; some are more critical than others.
@@wallythewondercorncake8657
The problem with the desensitation is that it bleeds over into other aspects of one's life. It makes sense that if you're living in a war zone, or in my case an earthquake zone, that you kind-of check out but the ongoing impact on one's mental and physical health is something only too real. I'm not suggesting that my situation is worse than say, kids in Palestine or elderly people in Ukraine but it has been shown that desensitisation is a normal, though not healthy long term, response to an abnormal situation. John should be okay, just so long as he doesn't have to deal with something that touches him a little too close to home. My point being, after this long paragraph is it always effects you, no matter how desensitised one imagines themselves to be.
It's a major miracle that more lives weren't lost. Thanks for your report. Definitely subscribing.
I worked on the scaffolding for this job (Access Solutions was the firm) , the supporting scaffolding under the mast climbers and also the access for demolishing an old fire escape stairwell on the corner for more commercial space. I noticed they weren't adding any kind of insulation foam or firestops, as every other cladding new build I've worked on has. The agent at the time said the panels were 'self insulating' and I thought nothing more of it, being not of that trade. I wish I'd pushed that thought further, because the moment I saw it up in smoke on the news, I knew exactly what had happened w/r/t the panels acting like a big chimney. It still kinda haunts me to this day.
The access to the towers was absolutely, definitely god awful. The corner turn to where the garages are was far too tight for our class 2 vehicles to drop off material, so we ended up having to bring everything in via a small pickup, and even then it was difficult. No wonder the fire brigade had issues getting close with their engines. The entire layout of the site was garbage for access and egress of anything bigger than a car.
I remember some RUclipsrs living there and covering their experience of this traumatic event and aftermath… thank you for covering it! I just re-discovered your channel and been watching on and off for about 4-5 years… you’re always a reliable source of good research and information
Thank you!
When I hear a building has a "stay put" plan for a fire, I am like "nope!". Really common with retirement developments. Frightening proposition if a builder cut corners somewhere.
With the way some stuff is built I can imagine the square is now a circle the corners were rounded so much!
Same, even rationally knowing it can be an appropriate plan, I would just want to try to get out of there ASAP personally.
NYC world trade center on 912 had stay put order for plane hit building next door. Nope nope nope.
@@PlainlyDifficult Realise that those at Glenfell who were lead down the stairs by the firefighters by sharing their masks tell of stepping on dead people on the stairs. Do not leave your flat until the firefighters tell you to. They have oversight of the fire, and particularly smoke you will not. Don't be this stupid.
If the cladding had not been installed and if the stairwells had been clear then stay put would have been fine. These buildings are made of lots of concrete and designed in a way that fires do not spread upwards. Fire is not going to spread through six inches of concrete.
John, I really enjoy your content. I have tried to find a way of emailing you but failed.
There are a number of factual errors in your description of the refurbishment. I am an engineer and former paramedic firefighter, I watched the entire public inquiry. The lifts were refurbished before the main project that cladded the tower. The doors were replaced twice as you say but the intention of fitting modern superior doors in the second project doesn't look like it was achieved. The inquiry may probably rule that the latest doors didn't comply with the fire requirements, plus the flats which had been bought were not changed. The cladding was as you say pir, gap and acm sunscreen. The windows were not glued to the cladding. They were fitted into a custom designed frame which moved the window nearly six inches out of the previous ones. The wooden frame of the original were left in place. The gap was covered by UPVC board internally and in an attempt to seal the window a damp roof membrane was glued in place. The membrane was not produced for this purpose. Before refurbishment, a fire would have no way of exiting the flat other than the main front door or through the window. The fire in the kitchen reached temperatures that removed the low melting point materials from around the window before the glass broke. The use of a highly combustible product for insulation and the fact that there was no compartmentilisation for any flats inside of the rain screen and windows, allowed the fire to rapidly enter every flat above flat 16.
The lifts were useless for fire. Fighting a fire in this tower was an absolute nightmare for crews. The fire jumped all the way to the roof level within 35 minutes. These structures are designed to fight fire in one or two flats at the same time. If this fire had started on the top floor, LFB would have arrived and deployed. The pump would have charged the Dry Riser and the crew plug in one floor below. The backup crew plugged into the top floor were ready for anything. The crew would approach the fire and find upon opening the branch, at best, a trickle of water. The backup crew protecting us, would be in the same position. No water, at over 67m, it should not have had a dry riser. It should have been designed as a wet riser. This would have removed the need for a fire appliance to keep pumping the water. When the inquiry reports, there must be consequences for all responsible their actions.
Asa 20 year veteran firefighter I've read every page the enquiry has so far published and the overwhelming emotions are despair and anger. This should NEVER have happened.
The effects have been felt worldwide, we have several buildings down here in Australia that have had cladding of this type removed, some due to their nature were as potentially deadly as Grenfell. None however had been clad in the utterly insane way that Grenfell was with only a piece of plastic between the interior and the external foam cladding. The method used at Grenfell was utter, sheer, madness. Of all the highrise fires ever this is the one that stands out as a fire that should never have occurred and it has some pretty damning competition.
There was a similar fire to a high rise in South Korea. On 1 October 2010, a fire broke out in the Wooshin Golden Suits, at Busan, South Korea, which was caused by a faulty receptacle, like Grenfell, the fire spread through the building via cladding. Fortunately, the Busan fire department successfully evacuated the building, and extinguished the fire, 5 were injured, but no one was killed.
Edit: I found the news article and footage of the Wooshin fire, it was actually in Busan, not Daegu, I apologise for my mistake, and made corrections.
That's amazing that no one died. This is so horrible.
this has happened in London before in the 2010s in Camberwell.
Yup, it's what makes the whole thing that much worse. The disaster was entirely predictable, and the elements that caused it had happened elsewhere before the refurbishment was even planned.
1st October 2010 was my fortieth birthday it was a Friday. Will look up this fire. Thanks
The London Fire and Rescue Service have repeatedly claimed this fire was unprecedented, but that is simply untrue. There are numerous other examples of high rise and cladding fires both in residential and office spaces. Off the top of my head I can name Joelma in Brazil and Summerland on the Isle of Man in the 70s, both of which caused massive death tolls and were related to flammable products used in the construction of modern buildings.
Basically for years the system has been to hope it won't happen here...
Roubaix in France had a cladding fire like Grenfell in 2012, luckily only one person died. There is video on here of it. The Torch in Dubai has gone up twice. There was an office fire in Basingstoke too. There are many many others.
This is gonna be a difficult watch. Rip to all those that unnecessarily lost thier lives that day.
It was difficult to make
@@PlainlyDifficult but as always you managed to deliver an in depth covering of it tactfully and gracefully.
Truly appreciate your efforts and content, keep up the good work mate!
I lived two streets across. Woke up to the smell of smoke and people shouting. The sight of the fire and the toxic atmosphere is something that will always haunt me. Everyone in the area knew this was gonna happen eventually. Place was a death trap.
We learned about this in my Fire Protection Engineering masters course. It was a case study about occupant egress. One stair is never allowed due to the loss of an exit if it becomes blocked. Also a great example of why corridors should be kept clear, and why occupant evacuation is always required.
Yes, having studied some fire science in college and having several firefighters in the family, I will never support single stair buildings. They're fine under design conditions, but design conditions are not real life conditions.
That's the part that absolutely fries my brain as an American, the code against evacuations and the single stair going out- we had figured out fire exits, escape plans, and codes to prevent this OVER A CENTURY ago! we had already had well documented disasters like this, and yet even so recently, this was still a common train of logic? This was one of the most heartbreaking things to watch, knowing so well that the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and all those other disasters that brought the end to these sorts of dangerous practices had already been learned from, but still weren't important enough to deem more oversight!
@@galactic-hamster7043 As designed, the occupants would all have escaped fine. The problem was the renovations- done on the cheap by a very wealthy local authority, and the materials- lied about by the manufacturers, and the government- refusing to regulate (despite being repeatedly advised to by fire experts for many years) because of their right-wing attitude to deregulation.
John, thank you. I knew you would do this subject justice. If there's ever an actual legal resolution to this disaster, an adendum or small video explaining who was legally responsible would be amazing. At the same time, keep up to good work.
Thank you will do!!
The responsible parties are already known, the long-stretched investigation is at best how much they can whittle down what they'll be held responsible for.
I can tell you what the legal resolution will be: at most, a couple of CEO will be barred from holding corporate positions for six months or so. The firms that replaced the fire rated cladding with the cheaper kind that should never be installed above the first floor will get a small fine. The TMO will be dissolved but none of those that took the decision to clad the building on the cheap will be held responsible. It is possible that a couple of the workers who installed the cladding panels upside down because nobody bothered to train them will get jail time. A few of the firefighters and 999 operators who told the people to stay put will commit suicide. That’s how it always goes.
This disaster will always be burnt into my mind. I was on a residential trip halfway across the country, none of us had phones outside of the teachers. The day it happened I remember seeing all the teachers standing together and many of them were crying. None of us knew what had happened, it's only after people started overhearing that we found out. It hit so hard, because I don't think any normal person expected such a horrific disaster to happen, even if there were warnings the general public had no idea. The drive back home was so jarring, we all just sat there in silence because many of us didn't properly get told until a few days after it happened. I can't even imagine how distressing it would've been for everyone who died and suffered because of this completely preventable disaster.
*burned* into your mind. I see what you did there.
Living in an apartment building sucks.
At my friend's apartment, someone went to the 12th floor (out of 15) and pulled the fire hoses out and turned them on full blast, by the time they got shut off, every floor from the 11th down had water pouring down the walls and dripping from the ceiling. Practically everything in every apartment for 11 floors was destroyed by water.
This was recently after the attack on London Bridge. I was visiting London for those weeks and was on the bridge the day after. Was so quiet and erie. Then not long after, the Grenfell residential building burning down. Crazy times and my first time in the UK. Cheers from 🇨🇦. Respects to all those who lost their lives in both incidents.
And just days later there was that van attack outside the Finsbury Park Mosque.
I had a feeling this was coming up soon - this is definitely the closest one to home for me you've covered so far. I remember seeing it happen live, one of the most terrifying things I've seen as I had friends who lived in similar tower blocks at the time.
N nnnnnnnnnn
Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
The worst thing is that thousands of buildings around the world are clad with the same hazardous material. It's bound to happen again 😔
Going through a house fire of my own, waking up to a burning room. This had my hands sweating the entire video! 10/10 great work buddy
Thank you!
But did you die, bro?
The detain you added about the "sit and wait it out" code or high rises is the part that absolutely fries my brain as an American, the adoption of regulations *against* evacuations and the single stairway going out- we had figured out external fire exits and escapes, evacuation plans, and codes to prevent this OVER A CENTURY ago! we had already had well documented disasters like this, and yet even so recently, this was still a common train of logic? This was one of the most heartbreaking things to watch, knowing so well that the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and all those other disasters that brought the end to these sorts of dangerous practices had already been learned from, but still weren't important enough to deem more oversight!
This is the most comprehensive breakdown I've seen of this disaster. You did a fantastic job on this.
The UK's Towering Inferno. And they had so many warnings that this could happen, using that particular material because there were several fires prior to this disaster.
Don't seem to learn from history unless directly affected, do we?
It's what happens when law makers and senior people in enforcement of regulations are school chums, mates or neighbors of the owners and investors in building firms.
@@williebeamish5879 its not a case of learning. its a case of not giving a flying ****.
This reminds me of an old Monty Python sketch from the Flying Circus days where they had people designing an apartment tower that was really an abattoir, and the balsa wood model on the desk burst into flames spontaneously. This was probably one of the projects that inspired that particular segment, and shows that the problems were well known duing the building process and simply ignored. Very funny show, but real life is not supposed to be the joke.
I remember that sketch! Yeah, hits different now. The inhumane, callous attitude of Reese-Mogg et al make the bit about the abattoir less funny and more horribly prophetic.
This was something that one of my college classes covered when we touched on fire safety in buildings and why it's important as interior designers to make sure that everything is as safe as it can be, but it's still so sad to have examples of something like that failing. My heart goes out to all those lost and everyone who was involved.
Good point! My friend recently moved into an apartment with a capped gas fireplace. His roommate wanted to place different size pilar candles inside the fireplace and burn them. I told him absolutely not and why. Even placing real candles inside it as a decoration would have been too tempting for them at some point in the future - someone would have eventually lit them and burned the place down or blown it up!
Still amazes me that many cities in the USA and all around the world still do not require fire sprinklers in residential towers. They are not a cure all to fire but they sure do help
In the UK sprinklers have been a legal requirement for new buildings since 2007, but obviously that leaves almost every building currently standing.
Ah.
I was hoping you'd choose this event. Truly horrifying, and utterly preventable.
It really was
Double deck highways really are problematic. Especially in places subject to major forces of nature. The Cypress Freeway Collapse, as part of the whole Loma Prieta Quake disaster would attest.
Speaking of which, the Loma Prieta Event likely has a plentitude of material for you to cover, all inked to one central event.
Only halfway through and want to say thank you for covering the building's history and upgrades so thoroughly yet concisely. I've seen other videos on this event and, whether through their lack of attention or my failure to grasp the explanations, never quite understood the factors leading up to the fire. ✌️🍍
i remember when this happened, very tragic and hits very close to home. my mothers close friend lost their niece during this fire. going past that tower always gives me chills, it’s so tragic.
Those two people who helped write that blog that tragically died in the fire must’ve been so pissed during their last moments, knowing that they tried to help but got denied which led to their untimely deaths.
The Hammersmith Flyover was built with electric heating to prevent ice formation. However, aftervthe first winter the local council turn it off after getting the bill for the electricity.
Not suprising
That's hilarious if it's true!
@@cidercik it is true. Hammersmith Borough Council refused to pay the £4800 electricity bill for the winter of 1962-63 and in protest they cut off the electricity. In the end London CountybCouncil took over paying the electricity bill. The heating system failed sometime in the 20th Century and so salt was used instead to prevent icing causing structural damage costing millions to repair.
I'm very grateful that you cover these disasters. I'm an architecture student, and safety is very important to me; we don't discuss these types of things in any classes, but they are excellent learning opportunities and are worth examining and spreading so that we, as the next generation of architects, can avoid making the mistakes that cause these disasters to occur in the first place. It's unfortunate that I have to go out of my way to learn about these things, but you have made it much easier for that to happen. Once again, thank you for the work that you do!
You don't learn about fire safety and other safety issues as you train to become an architect?!?! Who wrote your syllabus?!
Well done you for having the common sense to consider and teach yourself about safety. Spread the word!
@@Cellottia We went over code requirements for fire safety in one class that either third or fourth year students take. The entire class wasn't dedicated to them but a substantial portion was.
@@Cellottia I am also an architecture student. I attend an accredited architectural college, and we do learn rigorously about building codes and safety within the first or second year of school- more advanced studies followed in the remaining years. I do worry if other schools do not do the same though…😕
Y'all should definitely be doing case studies of notable fires. You have to account for the human factor in fires.
This have more meat on the bones than any of the previous Grenfell fire videos which I've watched.
Excellent work, keep it up!
Thank you!!
Here on the other side of the world I had heard enough on the news at the time to associate the name ‘Grenfell’ with ‘horrific fire, tragedy of negligence’… but I hadn’t paid enough attention to even slightly comprehend HOW bad this disaster was (and its legacy continues to be). Thank you for making this video.
I appreciate the fact that you're doing well enough to have an actual human pointing to map locations.
Well done for keeping this disaster at the front of mind. This is one of the few publicly known examples of wealthy people taking outrageous risks with poor people's lives. Some mind-bending anti-charity. Sad that there was no accountability for so many people being burned alive when multiple rules and laws were broken.
I still remember the day this happened. I was going to school in Notting Hill at the time, and all of my lessons were in the top floor of the building, so we had a clear view of the Grenfell tower. Every day we were just staring out of the window at the fire, and I remember distinctly that one of my teachers was crying at the sight of it. I don't remember why, if I even found out, but it's fairly obvious now that I think about it more. Noone I knew was in Grenfell, but I had plenty of people that I knew living around and close to it, and one of my friends did have a relative there. I'm glad I wasn't really directly affected by the fire, especially with how I still pass by the tower fairly regularly when going to school.
I had some friends at the Kensington Aldridge Academy school directly beside the building who had their school shut down for months by the fire, and they were talking about how it might be permanent due to the risk of the building collapsing. That didn't happen, obviously, but looking back it must've been horrible for their education. Only a year before, my school was undergoing construction work and we were using KAA as a temporary school building - kinda scary to think about how we all dodged a bullet there, especially with some important exams coming up.
At least we, as a country, sort of learned from this disaster. A little.
It's scary how quick the fire spread on the face of the Grenfell Tower.
Pretty terrifying
@@PlainlyDifficult Shows not only the dangers of flammable material but also cutting corners in safety to save money.
The fire broke out of the flat where it started after around 12 minutes. Reached roof level via the cladding in 25-26 minutes.
From a video of collected mobile phone videos.
The cladding used on the building was only designed to be used up to the 4th floor, due to concerns of fire. I believe the builders lied to the cladding manufacturer about how tall of a building they were going to clad. The cladding designed for taller buildings is way more expensive due to the need for greater fire protection. Just goes to show how much they were trying to save at the expense of safety.
And building control needed to do their job. Read the Hackitt report and see how much further the govt is running away from their responsibility.
I was absolutely horrified to think that materials used in the cladding would be used in a renovation in the 21st century. Surely this has got to be a turning point for building safety especially that of high rises where people are dwelling
Really enjoying the channel. Lately have been finding your videos to be more and more interesting. Professionalism I mean, the subject has always brought me back, but the quality of your videos and scripts I find myself enjoying much more for some reason.
I love the content, watch it all. But how on earth do you only have ~800K subs?!? I look at the views you get every single video, every single week and it's more than channels with millions of subs. Crazy good content, and crazy consistent. Thanks for the videos.
Thank you!! I really appreciate it!
By not calling his videos nonsense like "HALF OF LONDON DIED IN THIS AWESOME SUPER DUPER FIRE CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE RIGHT NOW!!!!" and other things that RUclips algorhythm really rewards doing even though the quality suffers.
I was in London on that day, and I remember the smell of the fire going into work, wondering what was going on.
The fact this was allowed to happen is… there’s no words. As always, Mr. Plainly, exquisitely done.
I used to work in Construction (doing a lot of cladding), & unfortunately, each project feels like it's designed to fail. Years ago, you had one designer, the Architect, who had to oversee/was liable for everything. The system wasn't perfect, but everyone knew where they stood. Now there are lots of mini designers, with limited liabilities, which are badly coordinated, & everyone is trying to cut costs to increase low tender margins. Add increasing regulations regarding thermal & ecological requirements, & a multitude of tests, by different organisations, which cause confusion.
Shortly after Grenfell, I heard on the radio, a story of an ex fireman in the north of England, living in a similar tower block. They had just had their heating upgraded.
HOWEVER, the heating company had just cut holes in the concrete floors for their pipework, & not fire protected them (as they would have said that's 'BY OTHERS'). The ex fireman asked for a copy of the Fire Officers Report from the Housing Association. This HAD 144 actions to be carried out - NONE of which had taken place in the year since the heating works! The Housing Association had 'ticked their QA box' by having a Fire Officers report - BUT DIDN'T READ/ACT ON IT. This is the issue when Administrators try to manage MULTI TRADE building works!
QUITE FRANKLY, I'M SURPRISED THERE AREN'T MORE GRENFELLS 😰😰
Very much agree with you about the original architecture. Grenfell, originally, had been a very safe building and well designed. Then came the renovations, when they so drastically altered it.
I remember this watching this incident before school and school was cancelled in honour as the head teacher had lost her place in that room and we wanted to let her rest and find a place to stay and not worry on the children, she is doing well and thankfully has a beautiful family and recently had her second child.
Just a little addition (as someone who was living in London for that summer), I remember coughing up and sneezing up stuff that was black from the ash from the fire for at least a week after. I was in City of London at that time so not in the immediate vicinity.
“The assumption should no longer be made that buildings have to be evacuated if a fire occurs “ WHAT IN THE ACTUAL F-CK
Thank you for the base information on the naming and building of the building. Frances Grenfell, from what I could find in a bit of googling, seemed like a basically decent guy and a distinguished soldier. What a terrible way for his legacy to be memorialized.
living in the uk, i remember this event very vividly. It caused a lot of renovation for lots of apartment buildings afterwards. It's strange to see something so close to me have a plainly difficult video, but it's appreciated.
I had to catch a flight early that morning from Heathrow, and remember seeing it in the distance. Awful day. Although there isn’t enough attention given to the lives of the affected, it’s going to have an enormous impact on building safety for decades. Great video as ever.
Damn.. five and half years ago. Time goes fast!
Its crazy!
One thing that wasn't mentioned in the video or in mews reports of the time was that the residents had been complaining for YEARS it seems about sketchy electrics in the block with frequent power surges and damaging of equipment as a result and kctmo not only totally ignored them but again tried to silence them about this so it could even have happened as a result of that .. as for the cladding, well the structure of the building was largely intact i believe so it should never have been put on at all and maybe nobody would have died
Only one stairwell is absolute madness, I lived in a ten story residential building from the 70s with similar construction but even at that we had three stairwells in case of emergency
I think I requested this topic a little while back, thanks for covering it. It’s a heavy one but it means a lot to a lot of people. Would love to see an update video when the second half of the inquiry is public.
Yes, an update would be great
I kind of wish you went more into how the fire in the fridge started. It had flammable refrigerant in it that is becoming standard here in the states.
And the window was open, and the external materials were combustible, and and and. It was a perfect storm of everything that could go wrong, did.
The 'stay put' instruction was probably fine for an entirely concrete building where each flat is its own cell and fire cannot spread outside that cell.
The 'stay put' rule did not take into account a fire climbing the outside of the building, melting window frames and reaching the other cells higher up. This is hindsight, but it's very tragic.
The rule was wrong and a slow and orderly evacuation of Grenfell was needed. This is hindsight.
I just finished watching a different video from a year ago on this same event. What good timing for another to be uploaded, it's always good to have more information.