Ch4 Dispatches Grenfell

[scotta]

Anyone watched this?

Big hoo haa on social media about it. The following seems to have gone viral.

Dear Firefighters,

Please know that the general public will not be watching Dispatches tonight. We are not stupid. We can see what Channel 4 are trying to do.
We stand with you. We thank you for everything you do to keep us all safe. Heroes every single one of you.

Shame on you Channel 4!!! How very dare you!!! No!!! Our firefighters did not fail us!!!!! We can give you a list of who failed!!!

1. The people who made the decision to wrap Grenfell in flammable cladding.

2. The people who made the cladding.
(The ignition of the polyethylene within the cladding panel produced a flaming reaction more quickly than dropping a match into a barrel of petrol)

3. The contractors who left gaps around the windows and decided to plug those gaps with a material derived from crude oil which produced the perfect medium for flame spread around the windows.

4. Exova, the fire safety consultants used in the refurbishment who had advised there would be no adverse impact on the spread of fire by the refurbishment.

5. The insulation manufacturer Celotex.

6. CEP, the sub-contractor which bought and fabricated the cladding panels.

7. Rydon, the main design and build contractor, who are now claiming they were not responsible for decisions relating to the cladding.

8. The council and the tower’s landlords, the Tenant Management Organisation who instigated and oversaw the botched refurbishment.

These parties all had collective responsibility. They all failed.

Our brave firefighters are not to blame for this. We stand with you

Lots of folk sharing the above. Lots of folk moaning starting posts with “I didn’t watch it...” followed by nonsense

I did watch it. Wasn’t an easy watch. Lots of footage of how the fire took hold with timeframes on the footage. Fuck that went up fast. They did make mistakes though. Senior level folk who should have been on the ball weren’t. They should have seen how quickly it was spreading and ordered an evacuation. Emergency services were advising people to stay put but when that changed to evacuate nobody was called back.

The program imo was justified.

Thoughts?

[ZedLeg]

It’s easy to say what people should’ve done in hindsight.

It was an extraordinary circumstance and I’d guess that the firefighters did the best job they could considering the situation they were in.

I’ve not watched the show.

[Rich B]

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You can’t really plan procedures around unknown design flaws, and if you deviate from procedure then there’s a risk of making things worse.

It’s like a racing driver driving a car there’s an unknown issue which will mean two wheels will fall off without warning, then complaining that he should have been driving half speed after they fall off.

[Simon]

I watched it too, but haven't seen the above. The program said at the start that they didn't blame the individual firefighters who risked their lives to save people.

It did, however, show that despite people on the outside could see how fast the tower was going up, that the decision to evacuate was taken too late. Within the first 10 minutes of the program it had the 'ground commander' at the inquiry state that he didn't consider the need to evacuate (and go against the 'stay put' instructions).

It had people who'd video'd the fire from outside on their phones saying 'it doesn't take a genius to see that you had to get people out of there'.

Pretty horrific really, and I think on balance that it's fair to apportion some of the blame to the senior controllers who wanted to stick to the 'process' whilst ignoring the fact that the process didn't really apply based on what they could see with their own eyes.

This doesn't remove blame from any of the above in the list, however.

[NotoriousREV]

A major part of my job is dissecting what happened when things have gone wrong, in order to understand how to prevent things going wrong again. Admittedly, I’m not dealing with life and death but the principles remain the same.

As easy as it is to start talking about blame, no one, not one person or company named in that list set out to build a block of flats that would burn the way Grenfell did. No individual is fully responsible for what happened, and no individual decision is responsible for those deaths. Instead, every aspect of what happened needs to be examined and, where possible, processes, laws, regulations etc should be changed. No disaster ever happens due to a single cause. Singling out the fire brigade is absolutely not helpful, even if mistakes were made by those humans that make up that service.

This doesn’t let people off the hook; if culpability exists then people and companies need to face the consequences of their actions.

[GG.]

Rev is correct - the culpability for that disaster spreads far and wide. The same cladding was used on private blocks so it wasn't as if the council wrapped the building in cheap flammable materials to save costs. The whole testing regime for the cladding was inadequate, government policy about the installation of sprinklers inadequate, etc. and equally the strategic response of the fire brigade failed as their guidance proved to be too inflexible.

Having an entire program dedicated to the fire brigade's response, however, is not proportionate in my opinion. Equally on the other hand, it is important not to fall into the "our NHS" syndrome where a public service is held up above criticism on account of the fact that the service it provides for the public good (I'm somewhat incredulous re the immediate contradiction in the originally quoted post "These parties all had collective responsibility. They all failed. Our brave firefighters are not to blame for this."). The Lakanal House fire which posed tough questions about the stategy of compartmentalisation of fires in high rise blocks happened in 2009, after all.

[Richard]

“We are not stupid. We can see what Channel 4 are trying to do.”

I do love a conspiracy theory

No doubt, poorly educated, thick as shits with a need to blame someone else, and that someone can’t be one of their own - Channel 4 are rich with lots of money, so were probably the companies that built the tower. I expect, just like myself and my meat-headed friends, they’re blindly sticking together to help each other out

(Here ends my unpopular opinion, for now)

[scotta]

Rev is correct - the culpability for that disaster spreads far and wide. The same cladding was used on private blocks so it wasn't as if the council wrapped the building in cheap flammable materials to save costs. The whole testing regime for the cladding was inadequate, government policy about the installation of sprinklers inadequate, etc. and equally the strategic response of the fire brigade failed as their guidance proved to be too inflexible.

Having an entire program dedicated to the fire brigade's response, however, is not proportionate in my opinion. Equally on the other hand, it is important not to fall into the "our NHS" syndrome where a public service is held up above criticism on account of the fact that the service it provides for the public good (I'm somewhat incredulous re the immediate contradiction in the originally quoted post "These parties all had collective responsibility. They all failed. Our brave firefighters are not to blame for this."). The Lakanal House fire which posed tough questions about the stategy of compartmentalisation of fires in high rise blocks happened in 2009, after all.

There have been other programs made on the disaster that focused on other areas such as the cladding which there is no doubt was the majority catalyst of it escalating to full on disaster.

This program was however to examine the fire brigades response - i dont think thats disproportionate. The fire fighters that run in to burning buildings have my upmost respect and those who worked shift on grenfell did an outstanding job. There were leadership mistakes made however and although in hindsight micro analysis of the details doesnt convey the intensity of the situation it was blatantly obvious they had no control over the blaze and werent going to regain control when it started raging up the first side of the building. There should have been an evacuation call made and people should have been called back to be informed of that. The program ended by saying that almost a year on there has been no change to policy and no further training given to firefighters on evacuation. These are the lesson's that need to be learned and acted on. Evidence shows that they have not been.

That and the hundreds of other buildings around the country that have petroleum based cladding acoss the country that are still covered in it.

[GG.]

Fair enough. From what you've summarised regarding no change to policy or training then it sounds like an expose on the fire brigade specifically, was warranted. As I mentioned, exempting any organisation from criticism because they're a public body or are for the public good is a dangerous path to tread so I think we agree!

[scotta]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/vid ... e-unfolded

shows how quick it went up the building.

[NotoriousREV]

We can see what Channel 4 are trying to do.

Court controversy to gain publicity for their commercial product?

[Marv]

We can see what Channel 4 are trying to do.

Court controversy to gain publicity for their commercial product?

Are Channel 4 selling emergency services now?

[NotoriousREV]

We can see what Channel 4 are trying to do.

Court controversy to gain publicity for their commercial product?

Are Channel 4 selling emergency services now?

Mito, give Marv his login back, you're making him look like an idiot.

[Marv]

Ha!

Can't comment on the programme itself, as I haven't seen it. If the programme was mainly to highlight the failures in the senior management to implement change from the mistakes made/lessons learned, then it's decent journalism. But like I said, I haven't seen the programme so can't comment beyond that.

[speedingfine]

Multiple previous inquiries have questioned fire service decision making in major incidents and recommended that they join the C21st. This is yet another example of their archaic methods unfortunately (Manchester arena is another).

Just in case the mouth breathers are reading, the bravery of firefighters is not in question!

[Gavin]

I am not sure about what procedures are in place when a fire starts in a large high rise building but anywhere I have been aware it has been "in the event of a fire proceed to the nearest fire exit in an orderly fashion and muster and wait for the all clear before going back in"

That would mostly be in office buildings but surely standard procedure should be to err on the side of caution?

[scotta]

I am not sure about what procedures are in place when a fire starts in a large high rise building but anywhere I have been aware it has been "in the event of a fire proceed to the nearest fire exit in an orderly fashion and muster and wait for the all clear before going back in"

That would mostly be in office buildings but surely standard procedure should be to err on the side of caution?

Hi rise flats are built in concrete compartment / box sections designed to keep fire contained within them. Therefore the safety advice is to stay put and let the fire be extinguished. Cladding the building in petroleum based plastic fucks this right up - as per what happened.

[NotoriousREV]

I am not sure about what procedures are in place when a fire starts in a large high rise building but anywhere I have been aware it has been "in the event of a fire proceed to the nearest fire exit in an orderly fashion and muster and wait for the all clear before going back in"

That would mostly be in office buildings but surely standard procedure should be to err on the side of caution?

Hi rise flats are built in concrete compartment / box sections designed to keep fire contained within them. Therefore the safety advice is to stay put and let the fire be extinguished. Cladding the building in petroleum based plastic fucks this right up - as per what happened.

Wasn’t there also some issues around the fire doors not actually being to spec, or have I misremembered that?

[scotta]

I am not sure about what procedures are in place when a fire starts in a large high rise building but anywhere I have been aware it has been "in the event of a fire proceed to the nearest fire exit in an orderly fashion and muster and wait for the all clear before going back in"

That would mostly be in office buildings but surely standard procedure should be to err on the side of caution?

Hi rise flats are built in concrete compartment / box sections designed to keep fire contained within them. Therefore the safety advice is to stay put and let the fire be extinguished. Cladding the building in petroleum based plastic fucks this right up - as per what happened.

Wasn’t there also some issues around the fire doors not actually being to spec, or have I misremembered that?

yep that was another issue.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 43e32010ae

[Mito Man]

I haven’t watched the documentary but did the fire service somehow actively prevent residents from exiting? I live in a high rise apartment, it also has stickers everywhere saying to stay put if there’s a fire. A few years ago the restaurant on the ground floor caught fire and I just picked up a dog under each arm and exited via the staircase along with most other residents. Fuck staying put if you have a way out.