Causes of Fire Outbreak in Large-Scale Buildings

Critically discuss the notion that large scale construction and the building management has outgrown current regulation.

For every construction of the building, there are rules and regulations which need to be followed to ensure that the structure constructed meet the international standards. Basically, these regulations are aimed to avoid accidents which may occur in a building like fire outbreak and also the collapse of the building during its construction or even after its completion. But in some cases, this is not the case as there is some negligence which the construction managers always do.  Since in most occasions these buildings are constructed by qualified construction managers (or qualified architect as well as qualified electrical engineers) it can be said that if such negligence is witnessed then the constructor or these engineers did that intentionally. There is also some regulation which should be used in the construction due to one or the other importance it has.  Some of the materials are used due to their thermal comfort while some are used due to their safety purposes for example ability to resist fire spread.

For the large scale buildings, not more focus is put in the inspection since most of these buildings are assigned to some of the best architecture, the best structural engineer, the best electrical engineers and the best construction managers (Chan, 2016). Hence the body responsible for inspection will not take much of their time to perfectly inspect the building as they would have done for a medium scale construction (Rozenfeld, 2010).  For this reason, the engineers responsible for the construction including the construction manager may easily compromise on quality to cut on the cost of the construction material.  For example, the structural engineer may opt to use a weak material which he is so much away is not standard to support the load on top.

 For the past building serious accident which occurred in the large scale construction globally known like Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne in 2014, Grenfell Tower in the United Kingdom which occurred in June 2017, Piper Alpha in Dubai which occurred in the year 1988 among other were caused due to some negligence of the construction managers.  According to the international building code (IBCI) the elements of the building need to be made of noncombustible materials, the exterior wall also need to be made of materials which are noncombustible also the structural materials used in the construction need to be fire resistant to reduces the chances of a fire in a building(Saifullah, 2012).  The construction of these building where the fire-related accident occurred did not fully adhere to the International Building Code (IBC).

Negligence of Construction Managers

Taking an example of Grenfell Tower accident which occurred in June 2017, the damage of fire would have not been that severe if the constructions would have been according to the International Building Code (IBC) (Pinto, 2011).  The fire started in the fourth floor at around 01:26 but in less than 30 minutes the firefighters were in the scene and it is believed that with the quick response of the firefighters the impact of the fire on the building would have been contained and the death of the victims would have not reached 72. Therefore the most important question to ask as well as to address is which building regulation did the construction managers in this building outgrew?

The construction management of this building hence did not adhere to the International Building Code (IBC) since the construction of this building was done with an aliminium composite material which is highly combustible. This material was used in the construction of the external cladding of the building (López-Alonso, 2013). The aluminium composite material used in the construction of the cladding was a highly combustible polyethene polymer filler that melts, drips and then flows at increased temperature. It is believed that polyethene polymer filler material releases a lot of energy during its combustion (Lingard, 2013). The cladding materials used in the construction of the Grenfell Tower is illustrated in the following diagram;

 

Figure 1: Showing Grenfell building cladding under fire

The building also had a number of other combustible materials like polyurethane polymer foam insulation board that re-dated the refurbishment was also a bigger mistake which the construction manager did not take into consideration according to the IBC.  Even though the firefighters arrived within 30 minutes into the scene it was still not possible to enter into the building due to a poor smoke extraction system which was not designed properly. For this reason, it was really hard for the firefighters to help the situation as fast as possible. According to the mentioned IBC, the construction managers would have not used materials which are highly combustible like polyethene polymer filler which made the fire to highly spread all of the building (Idoro, 2011).  This is hence so clear that the large scale construction managements like Grenfell Tower did not adhere to the current construction regulation but rather outgrew these rule governing construction of large scale buildings.

According to (Hackitt, 2018) the current regulations in the construction of the large scale buildings to help prevent the chances of fire risks.  In the process of accessing the risks and hazard of fire, there needs to be a very competence having appropriate skills to understand the complexity of the building. If the construction management performs a perfect fire risks assessment and also there need to a good smoke extraction system which could help in the incidence of fires (Wanberg, 2013). During the inspection, the authority needs to ensure that the materials used in the construction of large scale building are not combustible like those witnessed in the Grenfell Towers.  

Lessons to be Learned from High-Risk Sectors

 From her work, Hackitt put it that it is also very significant that during the occupation of the building, the regulatory oversight of the fire safety needs to go to the site where the construction is ongoing (Finneran, 2013). This help to reduces chances of accidents which may occur in the process of construction, some of the accident which normally occurs in a building while it is still under construction is the collapse of the building.  From the past occurrence of an accident occurring in these large scale building, it is hence very difficult to trust the construction managers alongside all the engineers working in the construction site and nothing should be taken for granted.  

Just like the Grenfell, the fire breakout in Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne was highly spread quickly by the building materials. The material used in the construction of the cladding was alucobest (aluminium composite material) (Sousa, 2015). These materials are highly combustible just as discussed above promoted the quick spread of fire in the building.   For the fire accident in Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne, the analysis was conducted and it was found that health and safety aspect was not fully dealt with during the design of this building.  The court thereafter had to impose a penalty on the contractors as well the engineers of this structure.  The architects who designed this structure by the name Elenberg Fraser was the forced pay the owner of the building 25% of the total cost of constructing the building, Fire engineer by the name Thomas Nicholas had to pay 39% of the total cost.  This hence served as a good example for the constructor of large scale buildings who compromise on quality as they ignore the current regulations in the construction sector.

On analyzing the cause of fire form Grenfell Tower, it was found that the fire started from a freezer.  This can as well indicate that there might be a problem with the electrical wire sizing which was used during the electrical installation in Grenfell Tower (Hughes, 2012).  In some cases, large scale construction managers may fail to take into action the accurate cable sizes which are required for a perfect installation of electrical power. For the two fire accidents which occurred in Torch Tower (21 February 2015 and 4 August 2017 ), it is believed that the fire was caused by the similar cause which was carelessly throwing the cigarette and electrical fault (Fung, 2010).  We cannot blame the construction management for the cigarette cause but for the electrical faults, the full blame must be laid on the construction managers who used either unqualified electrical engineers or did not properly conduct a thorough inspection on the installation of electrical power in the building.

Importance of Adherence to International Building Codes

From the above analysis, the risk of fire sometimes might not be the fault of the designer just like was in Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne where the fire is believed to have started from a cigarette  (Seo, 2015). So, the outbreak was not due to a fault of the designers and the constructors but the problem comes in the materials which the designers/constructors used for the cladding, highly combustible materials which really spread fire in all of the three case study fire accidents.  Because people had a belief that these large scales are constructed by highly qualified experts so there was no serious focus to help analyzed on the use of these aluminium materials which contributed to the spread of fire (Saunders, 2018).   Therefore from Hackitt, J. (2018), it is very significant to inspect every building under construction and there should be no assumption.  The inspection of a building help in analyzing the materials used during construction, the chances of putting out a fire in case of fire accidents (McKenna, 2019).  And due to the failure to do a thorough inspection on a building and using some combustible materials in making cladding of the building it is easier for a fire to quickly spread all over the building as illustrated in the diagram below;

 

Figure 2: Showing a burnt cladding as evidence that the material was responsible for fire spread (Ferdous, 2018)

From the above analysis, I fully support the notion that that large scale construction and the building management has outgrown current regulation. For the three fire accident in the Grenfell Tower fire 2017, Tower in Dubai 2017 and Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne in 2014 the poor structural design promoted the spread of the fire which hence resulted to more havoc (Ferdous, 2018). If the construction management of these large scale buildings would have not outgrown current regulation the death victims would have been very little or completely none. The buildings before and after fire accidents are illustrated using the following diagram;

 

Figure 3: Showing the diagram of Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne before the fire accident (Ferdous, 2018)

Figure 4: Showing the diagram of Lacrosse Apartments in Melbourne after the fire accident (Ferdous, 2018)

 

Figure 5: Showing the diagram of Grenfell Tower in Melbourne before the fire accident (Saunders, 2018).   

 

Figure 6: Showing the diagram of Grenfell Tower in Melbourne after the fire accident (Saunders, 2018).   

Conclusion

 

Figure 7: Showing the diagram of the Marina Torch Tower in Melbourne before the fire accident (Pe?ur, 2011).

 

Figure 8: Showing the diagram of the Marina Torch Tower in Melbourne after the fire accident (Pe?ur, 2011).

Assess the extent to which the construction industry can learn from and apply the lessons learned in other high-risk industry sectors.  

In most cases when an accident occurs due to some faults which are man-made then man learns from the mistakes and highly tries to improve on the mistake to avoid such similar accidents from happening again (Pe?ur, 2011). The same also should apply to the construction sector where if an accident occurs due to man-made faults like the materials used in construction as seen in illustrations in part A. But actually the rate at which these construction sectors maybe not as quick as people may think (Gardelle, 2011).  The reason why sometimes it may take longer for the lesson to be fully learnt is that in most cases constructors and designers do not agree on the blames which are laid to them.  This will actually give a piece of confusing information in helping to resolve the problem from reoccurring in either the same building on other building.  

Learning from risks sometimes takes a long time especially when people got the wrong information about the cause of the risk in the construction  (Hackitt, 2018). From the above discussion, the construction using the highly combustible material in the Grenfell was the main reason why the fire spread to other floors and resulted in the death of many individuals. Then on the same month, Torch Tower in Dubai didn´t take learn from the London´s serious fire accident and thorough check and evaluate on the materials used in the building of the cladding system (Watt, 2017).  It is even worse and the same building in Dubai did not even learn from its experience of fire and correct the chances of fire spread in case of another fire might occur.  The management of the Torch Tower didn´t think that the combustible material used in the construction of the cladding could be a serious issue in case of fire outbreak even after the material caused serious havoc in their first accident in February 2015.

The construction managers and the owners of the Torch Tower may be thought that the cause of the 21 February 2015 fire (cigarette) hence they did not give more attention to a serious renovation of this building.  Even though were some renovation done on this tower which was done by 2016, the renovation was on the exterior part of the building, they renovated the cladding materials (that is they just made the materials. What the renovators did was to replace the old cladding with a new cladding of the same material (Watt, 2017).  This did not indicate any lesson learnt from their first fire incident.  Therefore due to the slow learning of the management of the Torch Tower in Dubai there was again another fire in 2017. The cause and the quick spread of the fire was exactly the same from the first fire.

The negligence and the rate at which construction learn and apply the lesson is too slow and is really worrying, this can also be a worry for the future occurrence of fire in other large scale construction.  For the case of Torch Tower´s first fire accident, they would have put some harsh rules on the use of cigarette in the building (Hiam, 2017).  The first fire accident would have taught the management of the building enough lesson on the use of the combustible materials as a cladding material in construction.  What they would have done was to replace the cladding material with a high fire resistance material to ensure that in case there is another fire outbreak in the building then the rate at which the fire will spread is very slow (Estrada-Lugo, 2019).  And for the use of highly fire-resistant material as a cladding material would help avoid fire spread and maybe it is only one floor (where the fire starts) will burn hence reducing the higher casualties which had been seen in this building and others of the same cause and the same reason for the spreading of fire  (Zhao, 2017 ) .  

Of these accidents on large scale buildings, Lacrosse Apartments was the first incidence which took place on 25 November 2014. The cause of the fire is believed to have been caused by careless throwing of cigarette by Mr Gubitta in the balcony which then caught fire and spread into the cladding of the building since he failed to completely extinguish his cigarette. The cladding m was made by very combustible material (McKee, 2017).  The material used in making Lacrosse Apartments´ was aluminium composite which had 100% polyethylene core. This material is believed to be equivalent to diesel fuel which is sandwiched between two paper sheets of aluminium.  This shows how fast the material would is highly combustible when got ignited by fire.  

 If the construction industries could have been learning and applying the lessons learnt from other high-risk industry sectors then the accident at Lacrosse Apartments, Melbourne in 2014 would have been the last with serious effect from fire (Gardelle, 2011). It would have been prudent if other large scale construction managers would have put some strategies to ensure that the risks of fire in the building are highly reduced as well as reducing the chances of fire spread by using a fire-resistant material (Pe?ur, 2016). Sometimes it takes construction industries time to learn just because they want to compromise quality to help them cut on cost (Lau, 2015). Some most construction industries do on the structural materials where they might opt to purchase relatively low-quality materials just to save on cost. The same can also be seen in the materials used in making the cladding of a material (Hayes, 2018).  It is always true that higher cladding materials are relatively expensive as compared to the ordinary materials used in making cladding of a building Henderson, 2017).   In most constructions of large scale building like these three in this case study, the ordinary cladding materials are used regardless of the size of the building.  The comparison between the cladding materials is illustrated using the diagram below;

 

Figure 9: Showing the cladding materials used in the construction of buildings (Watt, 2017).

As seen in figure 9 above, the best/high-quality material used in the construction of cladding is more expensive, it is fire resistant and it is in a honeycomb structure. While the chosen cladding material is an insulating material which is made of polyisocryanurate / polyethylene core material (Watt, 2017). For these combustible materials used in making the cladding, once they are ignited, the burning foam will get air in the cladding, this will create a powerful air current which will spread fire upwards (Guillaume, 2018 ). This process always occurs at relatively higher speed and again it will depend on the intensity of the fire.  If it is not controlled a bit earlier then the fire can easily spread all over the building.

Immediately after the accident in Lacrosse Apartments, there were some lessons which were learnt by the public as well as the construction industries but very few construction industries apply the learnt lessons (Hackitt, 2018).  Some of these lessons include; there should be a regular and equivalent MOT test to all the high and large scale buildings which involves the technical feature testing like fire doors, windows, roofs, electrical wiring, lift maintenance, and fire incubators.  There need to be a “compartmentation” (that is containment of fire in every individual flat (Zhao, 2017 ).  The third lesson learnt was that there needs to be a thorough fire inspection which needs to be conducted every year in every block, this should be done by very qualified inspectors.

The inspections should include the cupboards, shelves and doors. Another lesson is that the maintenance of multi-storey building is an engineering limitation where quality and accuracy control is prudent.  From the interim work of Judith Hackitt she suggests that higher standards greater professionalism and stronger enforcement in designing, delivering as well as operating a complex multi-storey building is a significant thing  (Hall, 2016). Another lesson learnt is that the quality should not be compromised on the construction of the building like those seen where cheaper cladding materials were used.   No short cut should be allowed on cost and quality as a short term saving which can result in a long term cost as seen in the Lacrosse Apartments.  

The assessment of fire should be made well known to every individual to help reduce its impact, the below are some diagram which illustrates the fire risk assessment;

 

Figure 10: Showing the process of Fire Risk Assessment (Hall, 2016)   

 

Figure 11: Showing the principles of fire risk assessment (Hall, 2016)   

If only these lessons learnt from the Lacrosse Apartments fire accident could be applied by the construction industries then several fire incidences would have been avoided. Hence from the above discussion, it is true to say that the construction industries learn slowly from other high risks industry sectors. They also take longer to fully apply some of the lessons learnt from them risk occurred in other industries or even in their own building as for the case of two accidents which occurred in Torch Tower (21 February 2015 and 4 August 2017). And at this slow pace at which construction industries learn and apply the lessons from other high-risk industry sectors more similar accident may be still be witnessed in some years to come.

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