Did Refurbishment Act As Fuel To Grenfell Tower Fire?

The worst fears of the residents living in London's Grenfell Tower were confirmed when a catastrophe struck the building in the dead on the night on June 14. The midnight fire at Grenfell Towers has reportedly killed 58 people — this number is likely to rise further — while several others are missing. While investigators have yet to find out what led to the accident, an established fact is that the building was ill prepared to battle a fire tragedy of this scale. According to a local residents' action group, their warnings about a lack of fire safety measures "fell on deaf ears".

Initial reports reveal that it was not the age of the structure that led to the disaster; a refurbishment exercise carried out last year might be the key reason behind the tragedy.

The building

The 24-storey tower is situated in Kensington, West London. The residential building was built in 1974 and has 120 homes. According to the building laws of that time, developers had to follow strict rules to ensure that buildings remain resistant to blasts, fires and other such casualties.  Keeping that in mind, concrete was used as the key structural components in building the Grenfell Tower.

"While other materials can buckle in high temperatures, concrete structures can help to prevent the collapse of a building in case of fire, as well as making it safer to use helicopters – which can dump up to 9,842 litres of water at a time – to extinguish the blaze," wrote Feng Fu, lecturer in Structural Engineering, City, University of London, in his article for The Conversation.

Also read: What National Building Code Says About Fire Safety

The re-building

But, only last year, the building was refurbished. "The exterior of the tower was modernised with replacement windows, while additional homes were added using vacant space in the building," said a BBC report. As part of a £8.7-million redevelopment plan in 2016, the tower was cladded, primarily with plastic and aluminum, materials that go weak against fire.

Claddings come in two variations, one with a plastic core and another with a mineral core. The former type, under the brand Reynobond, was used in the Grenfell Tower. According to experts at the University of Edinburgh, the cladding work might have exacerbated the fire. The BBC report added that the cladding installed on Grenfell Tower was also used on other buildings that have been hit by fires around the world.

The disaster

• Experts are of the opinion that the fire –which refused to fully die down till Wednesday evening — spread at an “unusual speed”.

• Following the 2009 Lakanal House fire in Camberwell, London, that killed six people, a Parliamentary report had recommended that sprinkler systems be installed in tower blocks across the UK. It's not clear whether these measured were implemented in Grenfell Tower.

• As there was only one evacuation route, people had to jump from the building to escape the fire.