been used were not used; warnings that should have been acted upon were ignored; money that should have been spent was saved; and checks to identify all of these shortcomings were not done or were ineffective. The greatest fault perhaps is that we know the


world is imperfect – so why are so many plans made on the assumption that perfection prevails? When it comes to fire, our building regulations are weak. They seek only to ensure ‘evacuation before collapse’, and with this comes the opportunity to remove cost to the point where the speed of occupant egress gets measured against the burning speed of the building, to ensure the occupant wins this race. Now consider the myriad systems that must


work together perfectly to ensure a good outcome to this race – the detection and alarm systems, passive performance of materials and their installation, the evacuation procedures, signage and escape routes – not to mention the quality of the engineer developing the overarching design on whom people’s lives may depend. A study of most of the recent care home, hotel


and apartment fires is testament to the mistrust we should have in our ability to achieve computer aided design level detailing on building sites where combustible materials are used. If our starting point becomes one of mistrust, would this improve decision making in terms of the viability of stay put evacuation policies and the contribution possible from the fire and rescue service response? The assumption of perfection may well serve to mitigate individual’s liabilities, but does little or nothing for the occupant who may naively, like many, believe our regulations ensure not only their safety, but extinguishment of the fire and the legacy of a building that is at least repairable. In most areas of building design and construction, the concept of safety factors is used to assure safety – overdesign of a magnitude that ensures even significant imperfections and abuse in installation, product quality, occupation and alteration remain irrelevant to the structural stability of the building. Odd then that no such


RISCAuthority insight T


Dr Jim Glockling looks into what needs to change now to prevent another Grenfell Tower fire, and the circumstances that led to it


HE BACKGROUND to Grenfell is a story of an imperfect world: what should have been done was not done; materials that should have


concept is used for fire, allowing skinny designs where for example minor imperfections in the provision of firestopping can leave a large apartment building in ashes on the ground. So what needs to change going forward? In the


first instance, there needs to be a recognition of the vulnerabilities of modern buildings to fire by merit of lax regulation, little inspection, and allowance of combustible materials in structures, cladding and insulation. Recent experience suggests that those who must operate or intervene in the event of fire should be mindful that some of the protection systems in place may fail to do their job. An assumption of perfection, when failures are known, is like building any defence on the grounds of naivety – it is indefensible. There are existing examples where, with knowledge of the challenges of light timber frame structures, stay put policies have been cancelled by the attending officer in charge, and been thought likely to have saved lives. The ultimate solution requires a refocusing of the


regulations to consider building resilience. Accept the possibility of imperfection and system failure, but build in safety factors and tolerances that will accommodate these, and reduce greatly the likelihood of a critical threshold being passed. There is then the need to accompany this with a way of describing the resilience of a building with a scoring scheme – we have it for cars in the form of EuroNCAP ratings. Only when there is visibility of a building’s


resilience can normal market forces start to determine what materials are used in the construction of our buildings. Only then will the fire and rescue service know whether the building is likely to remain structurally sound during firefighting activities, and only then might they know if the building has worthy enough credentials to support a stay put evacuation policy. Today the focus is on Grenfell; looking to the future, designs are afoot to build very large skyscrapers in London out of wood – do we really believe this is doable without regulations that look for more than evacuation before collapse?


Dr Jim Glockling is technical director of the FPA and director of RISCAuthority


20 DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020 www.frmjournal.com


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