Grenfell Tower Fire

What can we learn and improve from the above tragedy?

We have to ask, what have we learnt from other historical tragedies, and why they repeat themselves. There is plenty of literature on how we progress to failure, how we rush to judgement, and even some on the failure to learn.


For the Grenfell tower question, Has anyone notice that all the windows also appear to be away?


What was the window construction type? (e.g. PVC vs Aluminium frame), and how did the windows and their ventilation affect the progression of the fire?


I have a suspicion that the frames were almost all PVC, and that the intense heat from the external burning cladding then melted/burnt the frames, allowing the windows to fall out/in, exposing the occupents/contents to the fire, and further fueling it.


If the windows were aluminium framed, I would have expected more of them to have survived (relative to the images on the news media, which may have been selective), and that the internals of the flats where the windows survived to be less damaged.


In many of these big disasters there is often a super-exponential set of effects that pile one on top of another making the result worse that simple summation of efects, or even summations of percentages (basic compounding). Providing an easy fire path from the external insulation/cladding to the combustable internal of the flats trough the window opening would be a further exacerbation of the loss of fire safety.


For the super compounding effects thers are still issues of the internal stair well, gas supplies, water risers, and fire stopping that have also been mentioned elsewhere that may have added to the horrendous conflagration.


The effectiveness of the window systems during the fire should also be at least looked at.


 

What can we learn and improve from the above tragedy?

We have to ask, what have we learnt from other historical tragedies, and why they repeat themselves. There is plenty of literature on how we progress to failure, how we rush to judgement, and even some on the failure to learn.


For the Grenfell tower question, Has anyone notice that all the windows also appear to be away?


What was the window construction type? (e.g. PVC vs Aluminium frame), and how did the windows and their ventilation affect the progression of the fire?


I have a suspicion that the frames were almost all PVC, and that the intense heat from the external burning cladding then melted/burnt the frames, allowing the windows to fall out/in, exposing the occupents/contents to the fire, and further fueling it.


If the windows were aluminium framed, I would have expected more of them to have survived (relative to the images on the news media, which may have been selective), and that the internals of the flats where the windows survived to be less damaged.


In many of these big disasters there is often a super-exponential set of effects that pile one on top of another making the result worse that simple summation of efects, or even summations of percentages (basic compounding). Providing an easy fire path from the external insulation/cladding to the combustable internal of the flats trough the window opening would be a further exacerbation of the loss of fire safety.


For the super compounding effects thers are still issues of the internal stair well, gas supplies, water risers, and fire stopping that have also been mentioned elsewhere that may have added to the horrendous conflagration.


The effectiveness of the window systems during the fire should also be at least looked at.