Grim Towering Inferno Overshadows Day

The undercurrent throughout the day was the tragedy of the terrifying fire at the Grenfell Tower.

It was pushed aside for a while during the afternoon as I gave my talk/workshop on realising your book at Histon Library. It was a well engaged audience of over 50's with some being part of a writing group and others having produced books on their own or by commission. The glorious sunshine outside after the event lead to a drop in at Histon Tesco to stock up on Magnum ice-creams.

Why is it, that a burning tower block generates a much more visceral response, compared to the terrorist atrocities? Perhaps it was the stories of people trapped on floors, of witnesses seeing parent throw babies and children to safety, of relatives recounting mobile conversations that then turned silent.

The unusual feature of this fire was its rapid spread, despite UK regulations tending towards passive fire protection - ie limiting fire to blocks of spaces to restrict its spread. Fire experts have already commented on how unusual it was that the fire moved up the floors so rapidly. The refurbished external cladding certainly looked like the fire route up the building.

According to the Sun this evening, the cladding was Aluminium Composite Material cassette rainwater cladding (https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3800401/grenfell-tower-fitted-with-cladding-linked-to-series-of-horror-blazes-at-high-rise-blocks-of-flats-around-the-world/). ACM cladding had apparently been linked to other high-rise fires. A google search found the Booth Muirie information of their architectural-cladding-systems (http://www.euroclad.com/media/3546/booth-muirie-architectural-cladding-systems_web.pdf). Their ACM comes with three different filler options:

1. Polyethylene, which is combustible.
2. Fire resisting - a mixture of polyethylene and minerals that retard burning and smoke generation.
3. A2 - Primarily minerals to retard burning and smoke generation.

I wonder which was used at the Grenfell Towers? If the grim blog by the Grenfell Action Group is anything to go by, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation seems to have ignored their prescient warnings about fire risks made as far back as 2013 and then again in 2016 (https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/). 

Good to see the charity not only of people in the area, bur also on facebook in donating food, clothes and other supplies, of people opening their doors to the recently homeless families.

But the sentence that sticks in my mind was a comment in the Evening Standard by Danny Vance, an Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church, that the deadly blaze at Grenfell Tower would not have happened in nearby “£5million flats”.