FIREX International 2018


Emergency planning should train staff on location, and on relaying correct information without saying ‘don’t panic’, which can create an expectation of panic. Evacuation practice makes perfect – after the 1993 World Trade Centre attack it took two hours, so procedures were tightened up, and 99% of people below the planes’ impact on 9/11 survived. Information is crucial, as there is ‘little evidence’ people panic when told what is going on, and successful evacuations occur when people are clearly told what is happening and where to go. Crowds listen if they identify with information sources, so awareness of local context and behavioural norms is recommended, as is greater recognition of and planning for zero responders – members of the public who help in emergencies.


Post Grenfell update


Dr Jim Glockling, FPA technical director and RISCAuthority director, tracked back over serious fires, showing how emerging issues of high density city living led eventually to prescription of high performing materials, which was improved and reinforced over time. Since around 2000 however, the main focus, then sole consideration became life safety. Now with very little material prescription, ‘we seem be coming full circle’, he lamented. Fire engineering was also introduced, effectively saying: ‘Do it this way (prescription), or any other way that can be demonstrated to be equivalent in terms of life safety’. Then in 2013, the Local Acts, ‘the last means of mandating property protection’, were repealed. Despite the impacts of large commercial fires, ‘protection of property from fire in law is gone – the Victorians were the last to take it seriously’, he said. ‘That is, until Grenfell’, he said, since when the


catastrophic loss of life has caused confusion about the legitimacy of design, materials selection, advice, interpretation of regulations, test/approval methods and stay put policy. ‘The [Hackitt] review repeatedly heard that common practices, such as design and build contracts and value engineering, can often result in uncontrolled, undocumented and poorly designed changes being made to the original design intent.’ He described value engineering as ‘paying


people to design down to the lowest requirement that will keep you out of jail’, showing examples of some ‘pretty disgraceful’ service offerings online. On the Metropolitan Police’s investigation,


Dr Glockling said BRE is undertaking a flat by flat assessment of every safety feature. Interviews with contractors exposed widespread value engineering practices and tests showed that flat front doors required to be rated to the 30 minute standard provided only 15 minutes’ fire resistance.


Hackitt recommended a new regulatory


framework, focused in the first instance on multi occupancy higher risk residential buildings (HRRBs) of ten or more storeys, and a new Joint Competent Authority (JCA) to better assess and manage safety risks across the HRRB lifecycle. The government has committed to a


consultation on banning combustible materials in HRRB cladding systems (and possibly those of other high risk buildings) and also desktop studies if consultation does not demonstrate that they can be safely used; reviewing the building regulatory system and inviting views on implementation; and restructuring building regulations fire safety guidance for greater clarity. ‘From our perspective, this is long overdue and


we will support it’, Dr Glockling affirmed, but added that while the recommendations in each chapter are crucial, in isolation they will fail to achieve the systemic change sought, as that requires the implementation of interdependent components. (His final topics, testing and the ABI research


project, are reported in ‘Change afoot?’, pp47-48. The same article reviews [p51] FPA managing director Jonathan O’Neill‘s update on Grenfell and Hackitt. )


Competency thrust


Fire Sector Federation (FSF) competency lead Dennis Davis reported that fire sector competency ‘has been a worry for a long time’. Initial fire competency research was based a building’s lifecycle, similar to RIBA’s Plan of Works, and fire sector mapping didn’t focus on construction sector requirements for specific roles and tasks. In July 2017 after Grenfell, a new competency framework was put together rapidly


www.frmjournal.com JULY/AUGUST 2018 35


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