Luton airport parking fire

[addjunkie]

Alas Mr Tiff, many Strawberry have no real concept of fighting a big fire.
I have on the D23, The F58 as well.
plus a few courses.

No Brigade member retained or a volunteer will risks his or her life to save a dumb ass.

The big difference on your grey boats, is you have no where to run, so it pays to put it out. You have the tools and equipment and are fighting fire in a relatively small enclosed space, often with some kind of drenching system.

In a steel and concrete multi storey the best your likleyto have is some kind of riser, no sprinklers. No intumescent coatings ( mandelite / chartec type stuff) on the steels, so once the burn gets hold, the steels become semi plastic quite quickly.

No one in their right mind would put men in there, with it rapidly spreading. If your not there in a couple of minutes your boundary cooling to minimise spread, and lashing as much water in the middle to cool the rest down.

 

[daleyd]

No. Just wondering what is so different between the UK and USA brigades.
Corporate manslaughter laws are the root of the problem. The government was warned of the consequences before they came in.

US corporate laws I would imagine dwarf anything we see here, so I’d think it’s probably due to something else. Maybe the fact that there’s lots of wildfires in the countries you quote which tend to catch a lot of even experienced firefighters out, as opposed to our relative lack of those?? But whatever, it’s not some kind of competition to see who can have thigh highest number. Call me old fashioned but I think lower numbers are better.

 

[reb78]

The big difference on your grey boats, is you have no where to run, so it pays to put it out. You have the tools and equipment and are fighting fire in a relatively small enclosed space, often with some kind of drenching system.

In a steel and concrete multi storey the best your likleyto have is some kind of riser, no sprinklers. No intumescent coatings ( mandelite / chartec type stuff) on the steels, so once the burn gets hold, the steels become semi plastic quite quickly.

No one in their right mind would put men in there, with it rapidly spreading. If your not there in a couple of minutes your boundary cooling to minimise spread, and lashing as much water in the middle to cool the rest down.

Quite right. The fault here in this multistorey is probably with a lack of automatic fire fighting facilities. Weird that they were not installed in such a new build

 

[fizzy]

US corporate laws I would imagine dwarf anything we see here, so I’d think it’s probably due to something else. Maybe the fact that there’s lots of wildfires in the countries you quote which tend to catch a lot of even experienced firefighters out, as opposed to our relative lack of those?? But whatever, it’s not some kind of competition to see who can have thigh highest number. Call me old fashioned but I think lower numbers are better.

Not many of the USA deaths are wildfire related. They also try to save property.
Of course lower numbers are better but I think it very wrong that fire chiefs face prosecution if one of their staff dies but not a member of the public.

 

[addjunkie]

Quite right. The fault here in this multistorey is probably with a lack of automatic fire fighting facilities. Weird that they were not installed in such a new build

Cost…..same could be said of Grenfell, when there is a fixed system available for not a lot based on pressurised smart water and fusible bulb, about the size of a 2 ltr pop bottle. The fusible part can even be fitted to a wet central heating system to dampen a hot house fire. I know this because I sat on a process HAZOP with the engineer who invented it.

https://www.blueradllp.co.uk/ his name is Dave Atkinson.

Though sprinklers etc are relatively cheap to fit, and are fairly low cost materials, they also need tobe maintained, which has on going costs. Buildings are designed to a price.

 

[bricol]

Amazing what bare figures can be made to look like.
USA has over a million fire fighters. 96 died in 2022.
UK has just over 30,000. None died from a 33.5 times smaller number.
When you remove suicides, assaults, shootings, un-explained, deaths on duty but in the fire station (heart attacks, COVID in 2021, drug overdoses, deaths in crashes returning to the station, deaths during EMS (ie ambulance), deaths in training, falling through ice the number dying in US fires drops to 35% of 96 . . . 33.6

 

[bricol]

I remember Sainsbury's underground car park in Halifax in the 80's had a sprinkler system. Seems a bit of step back to not fit one.

 

[daleyd]

Not many of the USA deaths are wildfire related. They also try to save property.
Of course lower numbers are better but I think it very wrong that fire chiefs face prosecution if one of their staff dies but not a member of the public.

Well a 2 second google suggests that of the 100 deaths you talk about in the us - some 30 odd were due to cardiac arrest. A few were due to shootings.

2 incidents were due to building collapse, one of which claimed 3 lives and the other 2.

So, I guess the headline figures might be a bit misleading, and without fully understanding what’s going on you might leap to the wrong conclusion.

 

[fizzy]

Amazing what bare figures can be made to look like.
USA has over a million fire fighters. 96 died in 2022.
UK has just over 30,000. None died from a 33.5 times smaller number.
When you remove suicides, assaults, shootings, un-explained, deaths on duty but in the fire station (heart attacks, COVID in 2021, drug overdoses, deaths in crashes returning to the station, deaths during EMS (ie ambulance), deaths in training, falling through ice the number dying in US fires drops to 35% of 96 . . . 33.6

Fair enough!

 

[ukracer]

No. Just wondering what is so different between the UK and USA brigades.
Corporate manslaughter laws are the root of the problem. The government was warned of the consequences before they came in.

Nope it's been like that in the UK for years.
In the states the nutters stand on the roofs of burning House with large great axes and try to vent them.
They often end up inside ......before the fire has been gotten under control.

 

[ukracer]

Well a 2 second google suggests that of the 100 deaths you talk about in the us - some 30 odd were due to cardiac arrest. A few were due to shootings.

2 incidents were due to building collapse, one of which claimed 3 lives and the other 2.

So, I guess the headline figures might be a bit misleading, and without fully understanding what’s going on you might leap to the wrong conclusion.

View attachment 420995

Plus 1 in the UK died while swimming the channel. RIP Hughesy.