Grenfell Tower Fire - what can be learned from offshore oil & gas?

In a previous article "Grenfell Tower Fire - a lesson for societal risk assessment", I discussed the reaction of society to a tragedy that as currently reported has killed at least 79 people and the learnings that the oil and gas industry can make in terms of the societal risks that Major Accident Hazard sites take.

There is also much that fire safety for high-rise buildings can learn from the oil and gas industry - or more specifically the offshore oil and gas industry. That's because of the similarities of the two environments, the most obvious of which is the confined nature of high-rise buildings and offshore installations and the restrictions that this puts on the escape and evacuation of many people.

In the event of a fire on an offshore installation, it is critical that people are made aware of the fire immediately so that they can make their escape to a place of relative safety. Any delay in an alarm being raised only worsens the situation. Residents of Grenfell Tower have reported that they heard no fire alarms and that they were only woken by the screams and shouts of their neighbours. How many lives would have been saved if residents were woken immediately upon the fire occurring and before it had chance to escalate?

Once an alarm sounds offshore, people are instructed to muster at their designated muster location, normally a Temporary Refuge (more on this later). They do so by using designated escape routes, of which it is commonplace to have at least two routes from every area. This is so that if one escape route became unusable by fire or intense heat, there is at least an alternative escape route. To hear that in the UK high-rise buildings are not required to have two escape routes (stairwells) is difficult to comprehend. If a fire blocks any part of a stairwell, it makes it virtually impossible to escape without being rescued out of a window. What if the building had two stairwells or an external stairwell on each face of the building? How many lives would this have saved?

The advice given to residents was that in the event of a fire they should remain in their apartments until instructed otherwise. The idea being that each apartment is a self-contained box providing protection from fires that have occurred elsewhere. This is very much like the Temporary Refuges that exist on offshore installations. These Temporary Refuges are designed such that people can remain in them, protected from fires, until further actions are issued. To instruct people to remain in their apartments is sound advice assuming there are no weak points. Windows, however, are a weak point. And since the self-contained box has a weak point, it becomes fundamental to fire safety that an external fire making its way into the box through the weak point is not something that is possible. But as we have seen an external fire was actually a very significant possibility. This makes the self-contained box idea flawed in its intention to provide sufficient protection to its occupants. It is imperative that one of the outcomes of the public inquiry is that external cladding either becomes banned or that it can only be made from incombustible materials.

The next comparison that can be made is the evacuation of people from their apartments (Temporary Refuges). On an offshore platform, lifeboats are positioned such that they are as far from fire hazards as possible, often on the opposite side of a Temporary Refuge to the fire hazards. This gives people the greatest chance of being able to travel to the lifeboats without encountering fires or smoke. In a high-rise tower this is much more difficult, because the escape routes (stairwells) are often positioned internally, where the majority of fires would likely exist. And since the only method of escape is to travel downwards, there is a very real chance that people encounter a fire or significant levels of smoke along the way. This only adds to the argument for two stairwells or for external stairwells on each face of the building. Again, it is imperative that future high-rise buildings are constructed with two stairwells or with external stairwells. For existing buildings, external stairwells would be much easier to install than an additional internal stairwell.

It's been mentioned the very significant levels of smoke that people encountered during their escape and that no doubt this has tragically been the cause of fatality for many of the residents. It's worth noting another comparison that can be made with offshore in relation to travel through smoke: every cabin in an offshore installation's accommodation contains smoke hoods for people to wear. This allows them to escape without the fatal risks of smoke inhalation. As someone who understands offshore fire safety, I shake my head at the thought that there are hundreds of thousands of people across the country living in high-rise buildings without access to a smoke hood.

A high-rise building is a very confined environment with limited options for escape, very much akin to offshore oil and gas installations. We only need to glance at the fire safety measures on an offshore installation to see the improvements that can made to fire safety in high-rise buildings.