On 30/10/2019 20:10, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2019 19:57:08 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Wed, 30 Oct 2019 17:16:52 -0000, NY wrote:

One hell of a cherry picker used in that chimney rescue attempt in
Cumbria.

Yes it was. 260 feet high (probably a bit more since they are always
operated with a least a *bit* of a bend at the elbow joint.

The Dixons chimney is 290 feet...

Would it have helped at Grenfell?

If there was space and suitable ground with access for a big rigid
truck close enough to the base maybe. Suitable ground is the biggest
problem, it's not unknown for them to fall over when the ground under
an outrigger stabiliser gives way... How do you know what load a
random bit of ground can take? With Grenfell you also have the issue
of all the falling and burning debris...

Good that the Grenfell enquiry may lead to a change in the "in case of
fire, stay put" advice to people in tower blocks.

For Grenfell, as designed and built, that was the correct advice.
Each flat had a 60 minute fire resistance. The orginal fire was
extinguished within the single flat well within 60 minutes.

The problem was that some **** had wrapped the building in highly
flamable plastic, aluminium and insulation that the small flat fire
ignigted.

I think the fire brigade is being made a scapegoat. OK, so perhaps
they should have kept their advice updated in line with the changing
structural additions to the building, but at the time there was
nothing to suggest that the place would go up like a torch. I'm sure
on the face of it the components of the cladding met all the right
fireproof specifications, so there would be no expectation of a need
to change the advice given about evacuation.

It will be interesting to see what the second report comes out with.


IIRC there were a couple of buildings abroad which suffered in a
simmilar way due to cladding. The fire brigade is being made a
scapegoat because of the way the enquiry has been split into two parts.

The real problem is the government not keeping the fire regulations up
to date but concentrating on Brexit instead. They have now downed tools
for an election.


--
Michael Chare

In message , at 19:55:45 on Thu, 31
Oct 2019, Chang remarked:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message l.net,
at 19:57:08 on Wed, 30 Oct 2019, Dave Liquorice
remarked:

Good that the Grenfell enquiry may lead to a change in the "in case of
fire, stay put" advice to people in tower blocks.

For Grenfell, as designed and built, that was the correct advice.
Each flat had a 60 minute fire resistance. The orginal fire was
extinguished within the single flat well within 60 minutes.

The problem was that some **** had wrapped the building in highly
flamable plastic, aluminium and insulation that the small flat fire
ignigted.

The problem (with the Fire brigade's command and control) was that
they didn't change the advice to the residents when it was clear that
the fire wasn't being contained in one flat.

But it's far tome clear that they had any way of communicating that changed
advice to those in the building once it made sense to change that.

By issuing an instruction to the 999 operators to change the script they
were reading out, would be a good start.

The getting them to phone back the previous callers.
--
Roland Perry

On 30/10/2019 17:07, John wrote:
One hell of a cherry picker used in that chimney rescue attempts in
Cumbria.

Would it have helped at Grenfell?

Early enough maybe, making the huge assumptions about getting it in
place on a large enough area for the outriggers. (IIRC access even for
ordinary fire engines had been stuffed by local developments). But would
it have stood the radiant heat once the side it was on started burning?

Very impressive bit of kit, though!

In message , at 10:15:22 on Thu, 31 Oct
2019, "Brian Gaff (Sofa)" remarked:
No cos the outside was alight.
To be honest I do feel the witch hunt for the Fire service here is a little
unfair. Why?
Well the advice to stay in your room is sound had it not been for
extensive work done on the building which compromised the sealed unit
approach. Remember no sprinklers and not many stairs, due to the age of the
building. If there had been a stampede out people would have been trampled.

Nevertheless two-thirds of the residents had made their way out by the
time the "Stay put" policy was revoked.

I am not aware that the fire service were aware of the dire state of the
modifications to the structure. If a criticism is needed its why the
residents warnings about the problems for some years had not been passed on
to the fire service who might have had more clout to get the issues fixed
before the inevitable happened.
It is as is so often the case easy with 2020 hindsight to be critical. Its
not going to bring people back. The whole modification and fire approval of
buildings scheme needs a rethink.
Brian


--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 10:57:36 +0000, Michael Chare wrote:

The real problem is the government not keeping the fire regulations up
to date but concentrating on Brexit instead.

Irrelevant.

The planning and design of the refurbishment of Grenfell started in
2012 with the work done 2015-16. I think the Law changed in 2005
regarding who is the "responsible person" or, if they don't have the
knowledge/skills required, "compentent person" required to draw up a
fire risk assesment. Suffice to say the Fire and Rescue services
don't do it but they do carry out
inspections.

https://www.gov.uk/workplace-fire-sa...lities/fire-ri
sk-assessments

Help with the assessment

You can do the fire risk assessment yourself with the help of standard
fire safety risk assessment guides.

If you don't have the expertise or time to do the fire risk assessment
yourself you need to appoint a æcompetent personÆ to help, for example a
professional risk assessor.

Your local fire and rescue authority might be able to give you advice if you're not sure your risk assessmentÆs been carried out properly.
However, they can't carry out risk assessments for you.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2019 17:16:52 -0000, NY wrote:

One hell of a cherry picker used in that chimney rescue attempt in
Cumbria.

Yes it was. 260 feet high (probably a bit more since they are always
operated with a least a *bit* of a bend at the elbow joint.

The Dixons chimney is 290 feet...

Would it have helped at Grenfell?

If there was space and suitable ground with access for a big rigid
truck close enough to the base maybe. Suitable ground is the biggest
problem, it's not unknown for them to fall over when the ground under
an outrigger stabiliser gives way... How do you know what load a
random bit of ground can take? With Grenfell you also have the issue
of all the falling and burning debris...

Good that the Grenfell enquiry may lead to a change in the "in case of
fire, stay put" advice to people in tower blocks.

For Grenfell, as designed and built, that was the correct advice.
Each flat had a 60 minute fire resistance. The orginal fire was
extinguished within the single flat well within 60 minutes.

The problem was that some **** had wrapped the building in highly
flamable plastic, aluminium and insulation that the small flat fire
ignigted.

Unfortunately you could also have the situation that people understandably
in the circumstances seeing a cherry picker platform as the last resort
would try to get to it in a non orderly manner and overwhelm any controlled
rescue plan for using it, when the Titanic went down the officers kept
order by having pistols available though as one noted in his book written
in a different era they werent used to influence Britishers,
so it must have been for the more excitable immigrants going to the US from
elsewhere.
Things would be very different now can you imagine the outcry if Police
today had to threaten use of a Tazer from the platform to keep potential
survivors in order so that at least some could be got off.

GH

"Marland" wrote in message
...

When the Titanic went down the officers kept order by having pistols available
though as one noted in his book written in a different era they weren't used to
influence Britishers,

Clearly having pistols also helped some of the officers to subsequently write books
about their experiences. Rather than do the decent thing and go down with their
ship.

michael adams

....

"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:41:57 -0000, "michael adams"
wrote:


Harry Bloomfield; "Esq." wrote in message
...
Jethro_uk has brought this to us :
Could they not have flown the helicopter higher, and trailed the rope to
be moved into position by people on the ground, and then the rescue
worker goes down that ?

Rescuers could not initially get to him from the ground up, because the top section
ladder was adrift from the chimney. It doesn't explain why rescuers could not have
been
lowered down to the chimney top, from the helicopter.

They reason they gave is the downdraft caused by the helicopter
blowing the chap off of the chimney. I looked this up on the net
with little success but climbing and other fall arrest ropes capable
of taking the weight of a man go to 100's of metres and I very much
doubt ( without any concrete evidence ) that a helicopter hovering
would cause appreciable down draft on the top of a chimney 100 or
more metres below. 10 metres or less, yes, obviously. The rescuer
could be winched down with an easily fitted rescue harness attached
to a separate rope.


Air-sea rescue helicopters operating out of Culdrose on the Lizard in
Cornwall or Chivenor in North Devon, regularly winch a man down onto
the heaving deck of vessels in distress or to recover a casualty,
under the most horrendous conditions - gale force winds, mountainous
seas and the boat plus rigging swaying around all over the place.
Getting that man off the chimney would have been a doddle for them.

The difference with ships is that they're often already pitching
about with people hanging on to things. Presumably in this case,
from the ground they couldn't tell how precariously this chap
was balanced, and the last thing thay wanted was for any down draft
to be seen to have knocked him off. Assuming there was no strong
wind I still think they would have got away with a longer rope just
provided they were prepared for the rescuer to dangle long enough
maybe up to 5 minutes for any pendulum effect to reduce - and
obviously they didn't want him bashing into the chimney or anything.
But I still think a bit of patience would have done the trick
in the absence of any strong wind at least.




I read on BBC red button that he was hanging upside-down for much of
the time. How'd he manage that, and what was he hanging by?


Evidently his leg was trapped against the chimney through a rung
of the ladder. Quite possibly the circulation to that leg would have
been serverly restricted but once the rescuer had got a roped
harness round the top half of his body somehow, he could worry
about that afterwards. Had this been visible from the ground
or the helicopter then the rescuer could possibly have gone
equipped with an angle grider or similar to subsequently cut
through the rungs.



michael adams

....

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...

Unless (as I mentioned upthread) you secure the bottom end of the line
somewhere near the base of the chimney, lift the helicopter and slowly
move so that the line comes close to the person in distress, and then
send someone down to rescue them ? Negating the pendulum effect ?

"The line comes close to the person in distress".

I somehow suspect that while rescuing the chap was the first priority,
a second proiority which ran it pretty close was not to attempt anything
if there was the slightest chance it was seen to knock him off the chimney.

If this was at the height of the Blitz nobody would bat an eyelid. But nowadays
with "loved ones"demanding resignations, tabloid monstering, and compo
chasing lawyers nobody would want to take the risk.


michael adams

....

Chris Hogg wrote:
On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:41:57 -0000, "michael adams"
wrote:


Harry Bloomfield; "Esq." wrote in message
...
Jethro_uk has brought this to us :
Could they not have flown the helicopter higher, and trailed the rope to
be moved into position by people on the ground, and then the rescue
worker goes down that ?

Rescuers could not initially get to him from the ground up, because the top section
ladder was adrift from the chimney. It doesn't explain why rescuers could not have been
lowered down to the chimney top, from the helicopter.

They reason they gave is the downdraft caused by the helicopter
blowing the chap off of the chimney. I looked this up on the net
with little success but climbing and other fall arrest ropes capable
of taking the weight of a man go to 100's of metres and I very much
doubt ( without any concrete evidence ) that a helicopter hovering
would cause appreciable down draft on the top of a chimney 100 or
more metres below. 10 metres or less, yes, obviously. The rescuer
could be winched down with an easily fitted rescue harness attached
to a separate rope.


Air-sea rescue helicopters operating out of Culdrose on the Lizard in
Cornwall or Chivenor in North Devon, regularly winch a man down onto
the heaving deck of vessels in distress or to recover a casualty,
under the most horrendous conditions - gale force winds, mountainous
seas and the boat plus rigging swaying around all over the place.
Getting that man off the chimney would have been a doddle for them.


As I would have thought someone living down in Cornwall would know all the
air sea rescue is now done by helicopters operated on behalf of the
Coastguard by whoever has the contract at the time currently Bristows now a
US company and another example of us giving up part of what we should
control to foreign interests.

Chivenor can hardly be regulary winching a man down as the rescue
helicopter left in 2015.
The Navy ceased responsibility for rescue work at Culdrose in 2016 though
Bristows do operate from there.

Bristows crews are recruited from the ranks of experienced former service
crews and are still first class.

The helicopter that attempted the rescue was one of the Coastguard SAR
machines manned by such people
and if they thought the rescue was going to be a doddle they would have
continued.

GH

michael adams wrote:

"Marland" wrote in message
...

When the Titanic went down the officers kept order by having pistols available
though as one noted in his book written in a different era they weren't used to
influence Britishers,

Clearly having pistols also helped some of the officers to subsequently write books
about their experiences. Rather than do the decent thing and go down with their
ship.

michael adams

The one who survived saw as many off as possible till there were no boats
left that could be launched,
he didnt leave on a boat and jumped into the sea as the ship went down.
and later in life proved no coward in acts in WW1 , in WW2 rather than hand
his own boat over to be used at Dunkirk he took it there himself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charle...s_at_inquiries

In his own voice recorded in the 1930s

https://youtu.be/uzG4cjm5mKo

GH

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:57:36 +0000, NY wrote:

"michael adams" wrote in message
...
[quoted text muted]

My first thought when I heard about the incident was "send a helicopter
winchman down", without thinking of the downdraught. I think the problem
with having the helicopter higher is that the winch cable is then much
longer so any movement in the helicopter or winchman being blown in the
breeze/downdraught like a pendulum is going to be much greater so it
will be much harder for the winchman to stay in exactly the right place
as he is trying to "hit" the chimney to secure his line so he can "land"
safely and jettison the line.

Unless (as I mentioned upthread) you secure the bottom end of the line
somewhere near the base of the chimney, lift the helicopter and slowly
move so that the line comes close to the person in distress, and then
send someone down to rescue them ? Negating the pendulum effect ?

That assumes the chopper can land next to the chimney which is
very unlikely. And they dont like the idea of effectively chaining
the chopper to the ground either, very dangerous to do that.

At the end of the day, any technique used would have been a one-off and
impossible to have exactly risk assessed beforehand.

Even typing this, I wonder if it might have been possible for a
helicopter to have dropped one end of a cable - suitably weighted - into
the chimney so rescuers could climb up the outside (taking note that the
condition of the brickwork at the lip may not have been 100% ...)

It can't be too bad given that there was temporary ladders there.

Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

No cos the outside was alight.

Correct.

To be honest I do feel the witch hunt for the Fire service here is a
little unfair. Why?

Not a witch hunt so much as making it clear that
the policy of telling the inhabitants to stay in their
flats wasn’t the correct approach once it was clear
that the whole thing was going up in flames very
spectacularly indeed.

But there is also the problem about how they are
told to evacuate once its obvious that they need
to and how well that would have worked with
just one set of stairs with so much smoke there.

Well the advice to stay in your room is sound had it not been for
extensive work done on the building which compromised the sealed unit
approach. Remember no sprinklers and not many stairs, due to the age of
the building. If there had been a stampede out people would have been
trampled. I am not aware that the fire service were aware of the dire
state of the modifications to the structure. If a criticism is needed its
why the residents warnings about the problems for some years had not been
passed on to the fire service who might have had more clout to get the
issues fixed before the inevitable happened.

It is as is so often the case easy with 2020 hindsight to be critical. Its
not going to bring people back.

But it should be possible to stop it happening again.

The whole modification and fire approval of buildings scheme needs a
rethink.

That has already happened with the stupid flammable cladding.
But not easy to replace all the existing flammable cladding now.
And not feasible to just condemn all those buildings with it now.

"John" wrote in message
2.222...
One hell of a cherry picker used in that chimney rescue attempts in
Cumbria.

Would it have helped at Grenfell?

"Brian Gaff \(Sofa\)" wrote in
:

No cos the outside was alight.
To be honest I do feel the witch hunt for the Fire service here is a
little
unfair. Why?
Well the advice to stay in your room is sound had it not been for
extensive work done on the building which compromised the sealed unit
approach. Remember no sprinklers and not many stairs, due to the age
of the building. If there had been a stampede out people would have
been trampled. I am not aware that the fire service were aware of the
dire state of the modifications to the structure. If a criticism is
needed its why the residents warnings about the problems for some
years had not been passed on to the fire service who might have had
more clout to get the issues fixed before the inevitable happened.
It is as is so often the case easy with 2020 hindsight to be
critical. Its
not going to bring people back. The whole modification and fire
approval of buildings scheme needs a rethink.
Brian


Totally agree Brian. Fires inside and up the stairwell were anticipated -
not fires up the exterior.

On 31/10/2019 07:18, Andy Burns wrote:
Jethro_uk wrote:

Did I learn that wheelchair users were also housed above ground level ?

I don't know, but ... I could see a possible thought process that if
everyone is meant to stay put, it doesn't matter if you don't use the
lift on foot, or don't use it in a wheelchair, then the emergency
services can evacuate you via the stairs if it comes to it ...

I've certainly worked in offices where the stairwells are designated
refuges. In the event of fire. People are supposed to get themselves
out, but to leave anyone with a disability on the (large) landings to
wait for either the fire marshals or the emergency services to bring
them down.

SteveW

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 12:47:43 +0000, michael adams wrote:

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...

Unless (as I mentioned upthread) you secure the bottom end of the line
somewhere near the base of the chimney, lift the helicopter and slowly
move so that the line comes close to the person in distress, and then
send someone down to rescue them ? Negating the pendulum effect ?

"The line comes close to the person in distress".

I somehow suspect that while rescuing the chap was the first priority,
a second proiority which ran it pretty close was not to attempt anything
if there was the slightest chance it was seen to knock him off the
chimney.

Well I was typing in a nice comfy chair ...

If this was at the height of the Blitz nobody would bat an eyelid. But
nowadays with "loved ones"demanding resignations, tabloid monstering,
and compo chasing lawyers nobody would want to take the risk.

I think that's a tad unfair. But ultimately if there are no guidelines to
adhere to, it follows that anything attempted could be characterised as
risky in hindsight. Arguably that is one purpose of guidelines ...

I pick up the occasional free newspaper when travelling on the tube.
Not necessarily for reading but to line plastic bags to be put in the
wheelie bin. The front page of Tuesday's "Evening Standard"
featured a large picture of Fire Brigade Commissioners Dany
Cotton, all in the public interest naturally so she could be identified
in the street, who was condemned for showing "remarkable insensitivity"
for merely pointing out that the FB were simply following established
procedures at the time.

Conversely, the chimney guy was characterised as possibly having
mental problems and possibly being drunk at the time - so that's all
right then..

A bit reminiscent of the "Lead Balloon" episode in which the Rick
Spleen (Jack Dee) character is lauded in the papers as a hero
after talking a suicide out of from jumping off a bridge. Only for it
all to turn sour when a few days later its revealed in the same
papers that the bloke was in fact a child molester,


michael adams

.....

On 31/10/2019 08:23, Roland Perry wrote:
In message l.net, at
19:57:08 on Wed, 30 Oct 2019, Dave Liquorice
remarked:

Good that the Grenfell enquiry may lead to a change in the "in case of
fire, stay put" advice to people in tower blocks.

For Grenfell, as designed and built, that was the correct advice.
Each flat had a 60 minute fire resistance. The orginal fire was
extinguished within the single flat well within 60 minutes.

The problem was that some **** had wrapped the building in highly
flamable plastic, aluminium and insulation that the small flat fire
ignigted.

The problem (with the Fire brigade's command and control) was that they
didn't change the advice to the residents when it was clear that the
fire wasn't being contained in one flat.

They had no way of quickly communicating the change to residents and for
the person in charge, it would have been a huge responsibility anyway.
It is bad enough when you stick to the rules and things go wrong, but
imagine that that person had quickly decided to reverse the rule in
place and even a single person died, they personally would be blamed.
That they eventually changed to evacuating people is majorly to their
credit and bravery in taking personal responsibility.

SteveW

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 05:31:59 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Not really

LOL Senile sociopathic cretin!

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing senile Rot:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID:

"NY" wrote in message
...
"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" wrote in message
...
No cos the outside was alight.
To be honest I do feel the witch hunt for the Fire service here is a
little unfair. Why?
Well the advice to stay in your room is sound had it not been for
extensive work done on the building which compromised the sealed unit
approach. Remember no sprinklers and not many stairs, due to the age of
the building. If there had been a stampede out people would have been
trampled. I am not aware that the fire service were aware of the dire
state of the modifications to the structure. If a criticism is needed its
why the residents warnings about the problems for some years had not been
passed on to the fire service who might have had more clout to get the
issues fixed before the inevitable happened.
It is as is so often the case easy with 2020 hindsight to be critical.
Its not going to bring people back. The whole modification and fire
approval of buildings scheme needs a rethink.

Yes, the main blame for the fire needs to be placed on the people that
specified a flammable cladding and/or those who installed it - and it's
quite possible that one thing was specified and a very different thing was
actually installed.

The fire brigade advice of "stay put" was bad *in the circumstances*. I
hadn't realised that there was no way to communicate with the residents
(building-wide PA, two different fire alarm signals) to tell them to
evacuate instead of staying put.

Hopefully lessons will be learned about:

- no flammable cladding

- better comms between fire-fighters on the ground and those making
decisions that more junior on-the-ground officers were not authorised to
take

- need for PA system or two-tone alarm to tell residents when to stay put
and when to evacuate

There isnt even a building wide single tone system, presumably
because its never going to viable to wake everyone up every time
someone in the building burns the toast etc.

- need for more than one staircase or else lifts that are immune to loss
of building power (*), so evacuation and fire brigade use don't come into
conflict

Hard to retrofit that to existing buildings tho.

- need for fire brigade to be informed of any changes to a building (eg
cladding) which may affect evacuation advice

Makes more sense to check that when they show up to a fire.

If residents had been told to stay put in the event of a fire, I wonder
whether there would have been any way to countermand that advice,

Nope. They were told to stay put when they rang 999 to report the fire.

Tho presumably the front door of the flat has instructions near the door
too.

even if the fire brigade had assessed the situation and officers had
appreciated it and made the decision *immediately*. Even "immediately"
might have been too late if there was no PA or coded alarm to tell people
to evacuate, despite safety briefings to the contrary.

It isnt even clear that a well communicated order to evacuate
given once it was clear that the fire had broken the window
and had got out of the flat would have worked given the
single stairs and broken smoke extraction system.

(*) As is common in very tall skyscrapers in the US: separate protected
power supply to the lift motors that bypasses all RCD protection which
could trip the normal building power in the event of water and electricity
mixing.

But its less clear that that would have allowed everyone to get out in time.

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 04:50:51 +1100, Chang, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


That assumes the chopper can land next to the chimney which is
very unlikely. And they don¢t like the idea of effectively chaining
the chopper to the ground either, very dangerous to do that.

What are you now smartassing about, you ridiculous sociopathic "expert" in
EVERYTHING?

--
addressing nym-shifting senile Rodent:
"You on the other hand are a heavyweight bull****ter who demonstrates
your particular prowess at it every day."
MID:

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 05:27:32 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


But its less clear that

It is more clear that you are a pathological senile bull**** artist, senile
Rodent!

--
addressing nym-shifting senile Rodent:
"You on the other hand are a heavyweight bull****ter who demonstrates
your particular prowess at it every day."
MID:

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 04:59:12 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

No cos the outside was alight.

Correct.

To be honest I do feel the witch hunt for the Fire service here is a
little unfair. Why?

Not a witch hunt so much as making it clear that

Now ALSO an expert in the Grenfell tower case, you pathological senile idiot
from Oz? LMAO

--
about senile Rot Speed:
"This is like having a conversation with someone with brain damage."
MID:

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 06:09:52 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


What percentage of the residents tho ?

NONE of yours AT ALL, actually, senile Ozzie pest!

--
Bod addressing abnormal senile quarreller Rot:
"Do you practice arguing with yourself in an empty room?"
MID:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 19:55:45 on Thu, 31 Oct
2019, Chang remarked:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message l.net, at
19:57:08 on Wed, 30 Oct 2019, Dave Liquorice
remarked:

Good that the Grenfell enquiry may lead to a change in the "in case of
fire, stay put" advice to people in tower blocks.

For Grenfell, as designed and built, that was the correct advice.
Each flat had a 60 minute fire resistance. The orginal fire was
extinguished within the single flat well within 60 minutes.

The problem was that some **** had wrapped the building in highly
flamable plastic, aluminium and insulation that the small flat fire
ignigted.

The problem (with the Fire brigade's command and control) was that they
didn't change the advice to the residents when it was clear that the
fire wasn't being contained in one flat.

But it's far tome clear that they had any way of communicating that
changed
advice to those in the building once it made sense to change that.

By issuing an instruction to the 999 operators to change the script they
were reading out, would be a good start.

Not really given that by that time its unlikely
that many would still have been calling 999.

The getting them to phone back the previous callers.

But that isnt likely to be too many of the flats.

And telling them to tell others likely wouldn't work either.

It really needs a building wide PA system so that
everyone can be told at once.

In message , at 04:59:12 on Fri, 1 Nov
2019, Rod Speed remarked:
Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

No cos the outside was alight.

Correct.

To be honest I do feel the witch hunt for the Fire service here is a
little unfair. Why?

Not a witch hunt so much as making it clear that
the policy of telling the inhabitants to stay in their
flats wasnt the correct approach once it was clear
that the whole thing was going up in flames very
spectacularly indeed.

But there is also the problem about how they are
told to evacuate once its obvious that they need
to

Many of the residents in question were hanging on the phone with the 099
service operators trying to keep them calm (and inside).

and how well that would have worked with just one set of stairs with so
much smoke there.

The Fire Brigade have breathing apparatus, and could, if they had been
trained to do so, set up some kind of 'human chain' to facilitate the
evacuation as much as possible.

Well the advice to stay in your room is sound had it not been for
extensive work done on the building which compromised the sealed unit
approach. Remember no sprinklers and not many stairs, due to the age
of the building. If there had been a stampede out people would have
been trampled. I am not aware that the fire service were aware of the
dire state of the modifications to the structure. If a criticism is
needed its why the residents warnings about the problems for some
years had not been passed on to the fire service who might have had
more clout to get the issues fixed before the inevitable happened.

It is as is so often the case easy with 2020 hindsight to be
critical. Its not going to bring people back.

But it should be possible to stop it happening again.

That's what people said after the Lakanal House fire. But nothing was
apparently learned.

--
Roland Perry

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
On 31/10/2019 07:18, Andy Burns wrote:
Jethro_uk wrote:

Did I learn that wheelchair users were also housed above ground level ?

I don't know, but ... I could see a possible thought process that if
everyone is meant to stay put, it doesn't matter if you don't use the
lift on foot, or don't use it in a wheelchair, then the emergency
services can evacuate you via the stairs if it comes to it ...

I've certainly worked in offices where the stairwells are designated
refuges. In the event of fire. People are supposed to get themselves out,
but to leave anyone with a disability on the (large) landings to wait for
either the fire marshals or the emergency services to bring them down.

I worked with a guy who had brittle bone disease and used a wheelchair. In
the event of a fire, we were supposed to make our way down the staircases
(one at each end of the building) but leave the wheelchair guy behind in the
lift lobby. Whenever we had a fire drill, he always used to say "don't
forget me - remember to tell someone that I'm here". It felt wrong to
"abandon" him. In the event of a real fire, I'd make damn sure that I sought
out the nearest fireman and told them, and I bet everyone else would have
done the same. Of course, the danger is if everyone thinks that someone else
will do it... and it ends up with no-one telling the fire fighters.

At another company, with just two floors, a guy in a wheelchair was supposed
to be carried down in a sling, with six people (the fire marshals) around
the edge each taking some of his weight. Thankfully we never had to put this
into practice, because he was a fairly big chap and he would have been a
fair weight to carry. I sometimes used to help him get out of his car -
fetch electric wheelchair from boot, then brace the car door while he pulled
on it to swing round, lever himself into a standing position, swing round a
bit more and then lower himself into the chair. He said the hinges on the
car door didn't last long and the door pillar had to be strengthened. And
all because of motorbike accident many years earlier...

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

It really needs a building wide PA system so that
everyone can be told at once.

I wondered about a tannoy on a fire engine "broadcasting" to everyone in the
building, but I bet even that wouldn't be heard.

The whole concept of "stay put in the event of a fire" seems to be in direct
contravention of the instructions that you hear (eg in public information
films, in the days when those were shown on TV) "Get out, and stay out".
Thankfully a lot of people disregarded the instructions - which was the
right thing to do *in that situation*.

A building with only one staircase seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Even our 10-storey office block had two - one at each end of the building.

Roland Perry wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

No cos the outside was alight.

Correct.

To be honest I do feel the witch hunt for the Fire service here is a
little unfair. Why?

Not a witch hunt so much as making it clear that
the policy of telling the inhabitants to stay in their
flats wasnt the correct approach once it was clear
that the whole thing was going up in flames very
spectacularly indeed.

But there is also the problem about how they are
told to evacuate once its obvious that they need to

Many of the residents in question were hanging on the phone with
? the 099 service operators trying to keep them calm (and inside).

What percentage of the residents tho ? It can't have been all that
many given that 2/3 of them did leave the building successfully.

and how well that would have worked with just one set of stairs with so
much smoke there.

The Fire Brigade have breathing apparatus, and could, if
they had been trained to do so, set up some kind of 'human
chain' to facilitate the evacuation as much as possible.

But its far from clear how successful that would have been
given just one set of stairs and all those people and clearly
only a limited amount of that breathing apparatus.

Well the advice to stay in your room is sound had it not been for
extensive work done on the building which compromised the sealed unit
approach. Remember no sprinklers and not many stairs, due to the age of
the building. If there had been a stampede out people would have been
trampled. I am not aware that the fire service were aware of the dire
state of the modifications to the structure. If a criticism is needed
its why the residents warnings about the problems for some years had
not been passed on to the fire service who might have had more clout to
get the issues fixed before the inevitable happened.

It is as is so often the case easy with 2020 hindsight to be critical.
Its not going to bring people back.

But it should be possible to stop it happening again.

That's what people said after the Lakanal House fire. But nothing was
apparently learned.

It has this time with that type of cladding.

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 07:13:33 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Problem with that line is

Problem is that you are a ****ing stupid stinking troll!

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 07:10:19 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


It would explain how he ended up like that.

What explains that YOU ended up as a miserable, despised and ridiculed troll
on Usenet who gets up EVERY NIGHT between 1 and 4 am in Australia, just so
you can pester people on Usenet with your obnoxious presence?

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 07:40:37 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Yeah, wondered about that myself.

Aren't you wondering, too, that this "NY" idiot keeps feeding EVERY troll?
Even a retarded senile trolling asshole like you? Aren't you wondering,
senile Rodent? BG

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 07:29:53 +1100, Chang, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


Problem is that

The only problem here is that you are a trolling piece of senile ****!

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 12:47:43 +0000, michael adams wrote:

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...

Unless (as I mentioned upthread) you secure the bottom end of the line
somewhere near the base of the chimney, lift the helicopter and slowly
move so that the line comes close to the person in distress, and then
send someone down to rescue them ? Negating the pendulum effect ?

"The line comes close to the person in distress".

I somehow suspect that while rescuing the chap was the first priority,
a second proiority which ran it pretty close was not to attempt anything
if there was the slightest chance it was seen to knock him off the
chimney.

Well I was typing in a nice comfy chair ...

If this was at the height of the Blitz nobody would bat an eyelid. But
nowadays with "loved ones"demanding resignations, tabloid monstering,
and compo chasing lawyers nobody would want to take the risk.

I think that's a tad unfair. But ultimately if there are no guidelines to
adhere to, it follows that anything attempted could be characterised as
risky in hindsight. Arguably that is one purpose of guidelines ...

I pick up the occasional free newspaper when travelling on the tube.Not
necessarily for reading but to line plastic bags to be put in the wheelie
bin.

We believe you, truly really we do.

The front page of Tuesday's "Evening Standard"
featured a large picture of Fire Brigade Commissioners Dany
Cotton, all in the public interest naturally so she could be identified
in the street, who was condemned for showing "remarkable insensitivity"
for merely pointing out that the FB were simply following established
procedures at the time.

Cotton also told the enquiry that nothing different would be done in
hindsight.

Conversely, the chimney guy was characterised as possibly having mental
problems

In fact he certainly had done previously.

and possibly being drunk at the time - so that's all right then..

It would explain how he ended up like that.

A bit reminiscent of the "Lead Balloon" episode in which the Rick
Spleen (Jack Dee) character is lauded in the papers as a hero
after talking a suicide out of from jumping off a bridge. Only for it
all to turn sour when a few days later its revealed in the same
papers that the bloke was in fact a child molester,

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
On 31/10/2019 08:23, Roland Perry wrote:
In message l.net, at
19:57:08 on Wed, 30 Oct 2019, Dave Liquorice
remarked:

Good that the Grenfell enquiry may lead to a change in the "in case of
fire, stay put" advice to people in tower blocks.

For Grenfell, as designed and built, that was the correct advice.
Each flat had a 60 minute fire resistance. The orginal fire was
extinguished within the single flat well within 60 minutes.

The problem was that some **** had wrapped the building in highly
flamable plastic, aluminium and insulation that the small flat fire
ignigted.

The problem (with the Fire brigade's command and control) was that they
didn't change the advice to the residents when it was clear that the fire
wasn't being contained in one flat.

They had no way of quickly communicating the change to residents and for
the person in charge, it would have been a huge responsibility anyway. It
is bad enough when you stick to the rules and things go wrong, but imagine
that that person had quickly decided to reverse the rule in place and even
a single person died, they personally would be blamed. That they
eventually changed to evacuating people is majorly to their credit and
bravery in taking personal responsibility.

Problem with that line is that at times sticking to the rules makes no
sense.

Those senior people are there to make important decisions when
those need to be done. If rules are followed regardless, you dont
need a highly paid experienced individual in charge at all.

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 19:01:29 -0000 (UTC), Jethro_uk wrote:

That assumes the chopper can land next to the chimney which is
very
unlikely.

They put a Sea King down into the primary school playing field with
not much more than 10' from rotor tips to trees. It then suffered a
"flat battery" and sat there for half a day whilst a genset was
driven up to start it. B-)

There is a wide main road just next to the chimney base.

And they don t like the idea of effectively chaining the chopper
to
the ground either, very dangerous to do that.

Agreed, not to mention you won't really have enough angle from bod
100' from the helo down 300' to gain much control.

I wonder what the practicalities of some sort of inflatable cuff that
could have been pushed up the chimney and angled to catch/support
someone are ?

Pushed up 300' with a flu 17'6" in dia? Dixons chimney is not a
little chimney. The walls at the base are 10' thick...

The problem is this situation is unlikely to recur in anyones lifetime..

Agreed which is why the rescue services don't need 90m + cherry
pickers as part of their kit. A database of commercial companies who
do on the other hand...

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 01 Nov 2019 04:50:51 +1100, Chang wrote:



"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
[quoted text muted]

That assumes the chopper can land next to the chimney which is very
unlikely. And they dont like the idea of effectively chaining the
chopper to the ground either, very dangerous to do that.

I'm sure a breakaway cable could be fashioned ...

Problem is that its very difficult to control the chopper when
doing that. Its bad enough when a decent load like say a
field gun comes out of its sling when being choppered.

But I take your point. I'm not a helicopter pilot. Nor indeed a pilot of
any description.

I wonder what the practicalities of some sort of inflatable cuff that
could have been pushed up the chimney and angled to catch/support someone
are ?

Very difficult to get it around the chimney before inflating it.

The problem is this situation is unlikely to recur in anyones lifetime.

And not really feasible to train for either.

NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

It really needs a building wide PA system so that everyone can be told at
once.

I wondered about a tannoy on a fire engine "broadcasting" to everyone in
the building, but I bet even that wouldn't be heard.

Yeah, wondered about that myself. I agree that its
unlikely to be heard by everyone, tho I spose its
better than nothing.

Still not convinced that a full scale evacuation would
have worked very well tho with a single staircase and
the smoke clearing system out of action. Might do I
spose given that the fire was outside.

The whole concept of "stay put in the event of a fire" seems to be in
direct contravention of the instructions that you hear (eg in public
information films, in the days when those were shown on TV) "Get out, and
stay out". Thankfully a lot of people disregarded the instructions - which
was the right thing to do *in that situation*.

The difference is that the flats were fire rated for 60? mins
normal houses arent. Certainly with all but the mega inferno
of the whole of the outside on fire, remaining would have
worked for all but those in the flat where the fire started.

A building with only one staircase seems like a disaster waiting to
happen. Even our 10-storey office block had two - one at each end of the
building.

Yeah, ours was the same, one at each end.

On 30/10/2019 17:16, NY wrote:
"John" wrote in message
2.222...
One hell of a cherry picker used in that chimney rescue attempt in
Cumbria.

Yes it was. 260 feet high (probably a bit more since they are always
operated with a least a *bit* of a bend at the elbow joint.

So sad that it didn't get there in time to save the man. I wonder why he
went up the tower - a prank, or an attempt to unfurl a protest banner?

Maybe he just wanted to hang around.



--
Adam

In article , Harry Bloomfield
scribeth thus
Jethro_uk has brought this to us :
Could they not have flown the helicopter higher, and trailed the rope to
be moved into position by people on the ground, and then the rescue
worker goes down that ?

Rescuers could not initially get to him from the ground up, because the
top section ladder was adrift from the chimney. It doesn't explain why
rescuers could not have been lowered down to the chimney top, from the
helicopter.


Well they do this sort of with broadcast aerials in remote locations inc
the UK a few years ago, but the down draft is quite a bit, been under a
helicopter around a 100 feet or so and its quite a wind. However if that
man was experienced in "aerial" rescue operations, had a safety harness
on then possible but this guy just climbed up there was mentally ill so
it would have been very risky indeed for him.

Heres a vid of what they do do with helicopters and the down draft is
there but these men are well experienced in this sort of operation but
for matey the other day different matter poor sod!..



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL1AmVxYh1s
--
Tony Sayer


Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a keyboard, and he will reveal himself.

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 09:20:19 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Fark.

The very thing you can't do, you trolling 85-year-old senile pest! ONLY
thing you still can do is troll on Usenet! BG

--
Sqwertz to Rot Speed:
"This is just a hunch, but I'm betting you're kinda an argumentative
asshole.
MID: