NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 46

NFPA.ORG/
GRENFELL_ECOSYSTEM
Read the Phase 1 and Phase
2 reports published by the
Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
See a Reuters multimedia
presentation on the global
fire risk faced by people
living in buildings covered
with combustible cladding.
Ten people died in
February in Valencia,
Spain, when combustible
exterior
cladding intensified
a fire in a high-rise
apartment building.
Even so, many thousands of buildings with combustible
facades remain in those countries and in others
around the world, with millions of people at risk. In
February, 10 people died in a high-rise apartment
fire in Valencia, Spain, an outcome blamed on the
rapid fire spread generated by the building's exterior
ACM panels that included a polyethylene core.
What has come to be known in the UK as the
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" cladding scandal " shows no sign of abating. The
government has pledged the equivalent of roughly
$6.5 billion toward remediation efforts to remove
combustible cladding from buildings over 11 meters
(36 feet) in height, but the cost of such work has
fallen largely to property owners, who also face steep
insurance hikes and an increasingly reluctant market
if they try to sell their homes. Some observers fear
that the financial pressure faced by many homeowners
with cladding remediation needs could trigger a
wave of personal bankruptcies across the UK.
The Phase 2 report contains 58 recommendations
designed to close the gaps identified by the inquiry; in
concert with a robust, well-articulated safety ecosystem,
those recommendations could form the bedrock
of a new safety ethos in the UK and beyond, especially
46 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2024
for the kinds of mid- and high-rise residential structures
that are expected to proliferate worldwide in
this century. But the embrace of a safety ecosystem
is also an embrace of transparency and a willingness
to acknowledge risk, which for many individuals and
jurisdictions can seem like a bridge too far.
In continental Europe, for example, no national
surveys exist of buildings with ACM polyethylene
cladding, according to Guillermo Rein, professor of
fire science at Imperial College London. " Most countries
don't want to ask how many buildings have it, "
Rein told Reuters in September, " because if you start
asking, you'll find a number you won't know what
to do with. And if you have 5,000 buildings [with
it], there could be a fire every year. "
As of July 31 this year, the UK had identified 4,630
residential buildings 11 meters and higher with external
wall systems requiring remediation, according to
Reuters. So far, 1,350 have completed remediation,
and 949 are underway. Seven years after the safety
ecosystem disaster of Grenfell Tower, 2,331 buildings
have yet to begin any type of remediation.
SCOTT SUTHERLAND is executive editor of NFPA Journal.
JOSE JORDAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
http://www.NFPA.ORG/GRENFELL_ECOSYSTEM http://www.NFPA.ORG/GRENFELL_ECOSYSTEM
NFPA Journal - Winter 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Winter 2024
