A thought about fire safety

On the face of it, it would seem to be, but if you've ever tried to climb one - or worse, to descend one - you'll know they are not the easiest things to negotiate, and I would imagine almost impossible for the elderly or young children.

depends if the rope would be likely to catch fire too

We now live in a bungalow, but i all our previous houses we have had a fireproof rope escape ladder in the wardrobe. Working in hospitals made us more aware of the fact that bad things can happen to anyone.

Tower blocks with one central entrance/exit route seem on the surface to be accidents waiting to happen, although presumably there are deemed safe or they would not pass the buildings regs.

I lived on the 7th floor of a block when I was at uni and always felt vulnerable.

When we refurbished our newly bought house 30 yrs ago including replacement double glazing we made sure the bathroom window which opens onto a flat roof was top hung and fully opening. However, it is above the sink and I'm not sure it would be much of an advantage to me these days.
I agree a fire resistant ladder is good in theory but as Greyduster says seniors and children would have problems.

I am a member of a small group and we hire a room monthly for 2 hours at a well known place mainly for veterans without naming names.

Without our knowledge we were locked in for over 30 minutes while the person in charge of the building decided to go to Waitrose! She did not see the error of her ways when she returned but I explained them to her at the top of my voice in words of one syllable.

There were 12 people at the meeting + a speaker. Nearly all of the members are registered blind. She has done it before and silly me thought that she had learned from the last fiasco. She did not agree that it was against the law!

My daughter lives in a first floor flat where there is an outdoor metal fire escape. These would be a good thing to have as standard on the upper floors of new build housing too. Admittedly they might get too hot to use depending on where the fire was, but with heat proof gloves they might just be a way to safety. Too many die in fires where the escape facilities are either non-existent or inadequate. I do agree though that for the young and elderly they would be a problem. I am sure some enterprising company could come up with something practical. Perhaps if there were more people involved in this than in inventing even more violent video games, society might benefit.

The main thing would be to prevent fires and to make sure a small fire could not escape and rage up the outside of buildings . Who knew that fire resistant did NOT mean it would burn like blazes !! No gas in high rises , several stairways , sprinklers and LOUD smoke alarms would be the minimum requirements . But limit the height of buildings !!

Antonia that was my first thought too, but looking at the films of the fire, it looks as if it would have been impossible to escape down the outside once the fire had taken hold.

as this cladding has been shown to spread fire quickly in other countries WHY was it allowed to be fitted in this building in the past year ?

I thought I read there was only one staircase. surely a building with 600 people living in it should have more stairs.

Yes - several papers have sketches of the design and there is just one central shaft for the lift and stairs with one exit. It does not seem good really.

And what about the hotels we all stay in? How up to speed are they? Scary.

The apartment block we lived in had eighteen floors with four apartments on each floor. There was a stairway on either side of the central liftshaft. Even so I have had on my mind what it would be like if you weren't sure whether the fire was above you or below you, everyone is pouring onto the stairs in a panic and the emergency services are trying to get up while you were coming down. Orderly fire drills are one thing; the real thing must be quite another. It makes me shudder.

It doesn't bear thinking about. I first watched Towering Inferno while staying in a tower block in Thailand, which would have been really scary but luckily we were on the ground floor. Even as a child with an attic bedroom I remeber worrying about how I would get out in case of fire.

We used to use asbestos but it proved medically dangerous and caused lung disease. It seems that nothing has really taken its place.
It doesn't matter how good or safe the new blocks are the danger will always be there with the old blocks which once obsolete are not easy to remove, and they get used again and again.
Sprinklers are possible but once used everything is ruined
and not an option unless made obligatory.

Also when living in a multi family building - you have no idea what people are doing/using that could be a potential health/fire risk.

When staying in a hotel I ALWAYS read the fire safety instructions provided. There is an obligation on hotels to tell guests what the drill is in the event of a fire, and to have a safe escape route.

There is a blog with advice to help hotel owners comply with the regulations at blog.tis.co.uk/a-quick-hotel-fire-safety-checklist

I wondered about the man on one of the top floors with a heart problem (don't think he survived), how do you get down all those stairs with the smoke coming up with a heart condition? I feel he should have been given a flat nearer the ground floor, how did he manage day to day? I can only suppose he moved in when he was fit.

I remember reading that in the US after 9/11 someone invented a sort of parachute you could use to jump out of a high building and cushion your fall I don't know what happened to that. I did think of maybe one of those inflatable slides like on aircraft. But probable not much good in heat. Just watching London news and see the first victim to be named is a 23 year old who was a refugee from Syria. He phoned his family to say goodbye. Can anything be sadder ?

We learned from 9/11 that it takes much longer than you would think to walk down from more than a few floors up. imagine trying to get down stairs with a lot of panicking people in the dark! The really important thing is to prevent this happening, with fire proof materials, sprinklers and decent alarm systems.

And emergency lighting.
I used to have a guest house, and we always had to keep up to date with fire regs, having four-hour fire doors in some places, and one-hour in others. We had two stair cases, even though it was only a two storey house. There was only one place in the house where you could get wifi at the time, because it was like a Faraday cage, so much wire in the windows and doors.
We had external fire doors, too, and very loud alarms outside every bedroom.
We had a buzzer for anyone who was deaf to put under the pillow. We had four extinguishers which had to be checked every year, as had the whole alarm system.
We also checked it every week, to make sure it was still working.

I also remember when our next door neighbour had the roofspace in his house made into habitable rooms, he had to have the rooflights opening at the bottom, and a rope ladder to climb down to the ground, in case of fire.

Why are regulations for places like this so strict, but not for highrise flats? Why are their systems not checked every year?
They said the emergency lights did not come on. They should always come on if the main electricity goes off.

I have a book of household hints, published around 1900 that suggests sewing stout sacks to wooden hoops and attaching a rope so that small children can be safely lowered from nursery windows in the event of fire!

Perhaps not so ridiculous as it sounds.

We have a fire extinguisher in our bedroom and one in the kitchen-living room as well. A smoke alarm or three or four, depending on the size of your house is a cheap way of making sure that you waken in time, if fire breaks out at night, and notice during the day that something is wrong too. They usually work on batteries, so remember to change them regularly.

Fire resistant ladders or ropes in upper bedrooms are good ideas, but only as long as we are all agile and fit enough to get down them.

I believe this is nationwide - your local fire brigade will come to your home and install smoke detectors and it's free!!

I think many of you would be surprised how quick and agile you can be when fear kicks in.