Did anyone see this terrible fire in London?

I agree.

So many still missing; their poor families.

Amish Americans are neglectful of their animals so I would rather not speak to any of them.

Higher in altitude I would imagine. I think Ben Nevis is in Scotland & is the highest point in the U.K. Will Wiki that later so I'm not speaking out of my bum. EDIT. It is.

What the Daily Mail wrote was that the cladding was put on solely to improve the appearance of the building for the benefit of affluent people in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. If you look at an aerial of the building (which I assume was a project-type apartment building) it was the only high-rise building in the neighborhood, which struck me as odd.

People are very very angry today.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...fell-fire.html

I think that theory is utter nonsense. Why would a council spend millions of pounds just prettyfying a building because some residents objected to it's ugliness? Makes no sense. Here is a much more believable explanation given by a poster in The Independent. Oh and I've read the exact same explanation aboutnrhe cladding in other papers, they say many, many councils in the UK did the same thing. Ditto for buildings in Germany and Scandinavia.

The cladding we are told was - Rainscreen Cladding :-

Rainscreen cladding provides an exterior surface – a cladding layer – that stops the force of wind-driven water movement, preventing it getting through small breaches in the surface of a building. By the time the water reaches the ‘true’ exterior wall, it has lost its drive and therefore its ability to permeate the wall, hence the origins of its name: rainscreen cladding.
The modern concept of rainscreen cladding was developed in Scandinavia during the 1940′s and came into widespread use in Europe and Canada in the 1970′s. Lightweight rainscreen cladding was developed in the UK in the 1980′s, with the majority of the earlier projects being located in the harsh climatic conditions of Scotland.
The growth of the modern rainscreen cladding system came about as a result of buildings erected in the 1960′s, reliant upon the primary seals (either gaskets or wet seals), failing because of breakdown caused by weathering. This resulted in sprawling concrete and mosaic. The easiest solution was to contain the problem by overcladding in a lightweight metal rainscreen cladding.

Further growth was accelerated by ever increasing demand for higher thermal efficiency.

This latter point is the obvious likely cause of the fire.


I also read this was put on buildings as a means to make them. Ore energ

It's a NIMBY thing. I presume you've never been to the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea? Oops, I should say the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Whether it's nonsense or not, there is immense wealth in that borough & if they complain to their MPs about an eyesore on the horizon - well, who's to know what could happen.

I think that theory is utter nonsense. Why would a council spend millions of pounds just prettyfying a building because some residents objected to it's ugliness? Makes no sense. Here is a much more believable explanation given by a poster in The Independent. Oh and I've read the exact same explanation about the cladding in other papers. They say many, many councils in the UK did the same thing. Ditto for buildings in Germany and Scandinavia.

The cladding we are told was - Rainscreen Cladding :-

Rainscreen cladding provides an exterior surface – a cladding layer – that stops the force of wind-driven water movement, preventing it getting through small breaches in the surface of a building. By the time the water reaches the ‘true’ exterior wall, it has lost its drive and therefore its ability to permeate the wall, hence the origins of its name: rainscreen cladding.
The modern concept of rainscreen cladding was developed in Scandinavia during the 1940′s and came into widespread use in Europe and Canada in the 1970′s. Lightweight rainscreen cladding was developed in the UK in the 1980′s, with the majority of the earlier projects being located in the harsh climatic conditions of Scotland.
The growth of the modern rainscreen cladding system came about as a result of buildings erected in the 1960′s, reliant upon the primary seals (either gaskets or wet seals), failing because of breakdown caused by weathering. This resulted in sprawling concrete and mosaic. The easiest solution was to contain the problem by overcladding in a lightweight metal rainscreen cladding.

Further growth was accelerated by ever increasing demand for higher thermal efficiency.

This latter point is the obvious likely cause of the fire.


The cladding was apparently aluminium based and aluminium is flammable. Who knew?
I also read this was put on buildings as a means to make them more energy efficient -- probably to comply with EU regulations. Apparently, the regulations came into force during the Blair government.

About the "only high rise building". I just arrived in London today. As you come into Central London from Heathrow airport, you see six hideously tall towers to your right which look exactly like the tower that burned. They stick out like sore thumbs above a landscape of much lower buildings, so the Grenfell tower does not seem to be unique.

Sorry that post was truncated because it froze for some reason, so I reposted. And not only have I often seen the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, I actually lived there for a couple of years.

The government’s building safety experts warned last year that the drive for greater energy efficiency meant more and more buildings are being wrapped in materials that could go up in flames.

Construction and fire experts increasingly fear that the cladding system applied to Grenfell Tower may have been instrumental in spreading the fire. The system was installed to improve the thermal efficiency of the building and improve its appearance.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ed-on-grenfell


Tens of thousands of buildings around the UK are wrapped in the same type cladding, it has emerged, including 87 tower blocks.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4kDTirfs0
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Nobody said it was.

Oh I presumed that was what you meant when you said this:

If you look at an aerial of the building (which I assume was a project-type apartment building) it was the only high-rise building in the neighborhood, which struck me as odd.

I'm sick of everybody in the world except me suddenly being fire experts; telling me what would and wouldn't have happened. The day it happened within a couple of hours i had heard at least four different stories from people absurdly confident in what they were saying even though they had obviously lifted it from whatever site. Speculation is fine but please don't pretend you actually know the working behind what you are spewing: is what i felt like saying to everyone but instead i absorbed whatever article they had memorized before i read it myself when i got home.

Loose Change vs Popular Mechanics.

In the neighborhood - not in the entire city of London. Actually, when I saw more photos today there is a high-rise close by. But that neighborhood appears to be essentially low-rise.

I've been reading about the guy in whose flat the fire started. Neighbours say he appeared outside with a packed suitcase then raised the alarm, seemingly without attempting to do anything about the fire. Of course these are rumours at this stage, but they suggest he acted stupidly.

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Yes most of K + C are pretty low rise. Those towers are an absolute eye sore. Typical horrible 60‘s architecture and a blot on the landscape. They should all be torn down, IMO.

Brutalism architecture. People rave about it, but I hate it.

Several reports say that a refrigerator caught fire in the apartment that started all the trouble. I had no idea a fridge could start a fire.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Anything electric can start a fire if there's poor wiring, frayed insulation, short circuiting, etc., but fires are more often caused by electric appliances that have heating elements in them: toasters, toaster ovens, hot plates, space heaters, etc.

You have to leave your refrigerator / freezer plugged in to run its cycles (generally, if a refrigerator's electric components and wires are intact, and the household source it's plugged into is safe & up to code, then there is no danger of a refrigerator ever starting a fire), but never leave electric heat-producing appliances plugged in.

I hate it when husband leaves toaster plugged in. He swears it is safe, but I disagree.

It's horrible. Lots of these in the old Soviet Block countries. I was recently in East Berlin and it's as ugly as sin full of these awful buildings.

I heard the fridge exploded. Didn't know it could do that but I guess anything electrical can cause a fire.

This goes back to days when I worked in a picture frame shop - a lawyer came in and wanted a display mounted for a court case he was working on. (I'm assuming he was representing a client whose house caught fire from a malfunctioning toaster.)

His presentation was a set of illustrations on how the heating elements in a toaster can get hot under certain conditions just from being plugged in even when the plunger isn't down. And the guy said as he left, never leave toasters or anything with heating coils plugged in. Now that was back in the late 80's, so maybe consumer safety has made progress since then - but I always remembered that.