On ‘Stay Put’ and PEEPs: A Response to Ben Bradford’s Opinion article, ‘Fire safety's misinformation problem’.

I assume Ben Bradford’s article on Linkedin [1] was intended to spark discussion, so I thought I would respond to six of the more general points raised, starting with issues to do with ‘stay put’ and PEEPs.?However, I do not intend to engage in discussion of the incident that motivated Ben to write his article.?

1)?????On ‘Stay Put’

In Ben’s opinion piece, he makes repeated mention of ‘stay put’, suggesting that the principle is, if I may borrow a phrase oft used by Lord Greenhalgh, ‘proportionate, practical and safe’.?It is important to remember that Grenfell Tower and Lakanal House were examples of ‘stay put’ buildings.??These tragedies demonstrate the problem with ‘stay put’ and the dilemma of the ‘unknown unknowns’.?

Indeed, when it comes to Grenfell, it appears that government and some in the fire industry cannot see the wood for the trees. ?While there were many engineering deficiencies and systemic failures that led to the tragic fire, all of which need to be addressed, a primary reason that so many died was a failure to provide an adequate evacuation strategy for ALL building occupants.?If the UK Government had learnt the lesson of Lakanal House, Grenfell Tower would have had a Plan B, the FRS would have had a Plan B, and as a result, it is quite possible that no one would have died on 14 June 2017, or at the very least, the number of fatalities would have been greatly reduced.?This is the tragedy and the primary lesson of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

However, it appears that five years after the Grenfell fire tragedy, parts of the UK fire industry and UK government have learnt little, not even the basic lesson that ‘stay put’ does not always work and so it is essential to have a mandatory ‘Plan B’.?Parts of the UK fire industry seem to be trapped in a hubris Titanic mindset, resolute that there are no looming icebergs, and even if there were, they would present no threat.

Table1: Hubris in engineering, operations and regulations

The weakness of the ‘stay put’ philosophy is that it only works if you have correct structural, systems and management arrangements in place and maintained. Given the mess that the UK construction industry is in, and has been for many years, who can guarantee such a position??While obvious failures may be detected and possibly remedied IF there is an efficient maintenance system in place (but just look at the state of many council buildings), this does not address issues associated with failures that are not obvious, such as fire doors that are not fire doors, door closers that don't work and failure to insert fire stopping, etc.

By all means, in buildings that can demonstrate the required features, employ a ‘stay put’ policy as the first line of defence, but YOU MUST have a Plan B for ALL.?If the Grenfell Tower tragedy has taught us anything it is, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PLAN B!?DON’T PUT TOTAL FAITH IN STAY PUT.?While the new Building Safety Bill addresses some of the issues associated with poor engineering practices that contributed to Grenfell, it fails to embrace the concept of safety in depth.

The argument that Ben puts forward in his points 2, 3, 4 and 7 is that Grenfell was a one-off; if the cladding and compartmentation had been adequate, and had the smoke ventilation system functioned, there would have been no tragedy.?This sounds like the cries of the captain of RMS Titanic, ‘if only that iceberg hadn’t crashed into us’!?Fortunately, following that tragic incident, the cries of the public and enlightened experts drove the authorities to mandate that all ocean-going vessels carry sufficient lifeboats for ALL so that in the unlikely event of a catastrophic incident, ALL would have a chance to evacuate.?Ben does, however, concede in his point 4, ‘It's clear stay put should not have been an indefinite strategy and there was a lost opportunity to change tactics.’?However, he neglects to add that because there was no Plan B, the residents were as trapped as the passengers of the Titanic with no lifeboats, and what’s worse, the FRS also had no Plan B, and so had no concept of when to abandon ‘stay put’ and how to evacuate the building.????

This is why it is essential that ALL buildings (regardless of whether they are designated ‘stay put’) have viable plans to self-evacuate ALL residents and as a result why it is necessary to implement PEEPs (or similar) in ALL buildings.?Without mandating a Plan B for ALL, I fear we will be revisiting this issue when the next iceberg collides with engineering and regulatory hubris.

2)?????PEEPs, damn PEEPs and Slogans

In point 6, Ben argues that ‘all occupants should have an opportunity to evacuate’ even those ‘people with limited mobility’.?But he struggles to see how this can be achieved in a practical and proportionate way, or once again using Lord Greenhalgh’s favourite phrase, in a way that is ‘proportionate, practical and safe’.??My initial response is that I find it difficult to understand how leaving disabled people in a burning building while everyone else evacuates can be considered ‘safe’ or ‘proportionate’.?One solution is to use PEEPs.?While some in the industry and the Government appear to suggest that PEEPs are not ‘proportionate, practical and safe’, I have yet to see any objective evidence to support this.??Neither have I seen any objective evidence to support how suggested alternative strategies can be considered ‘proportionate, practical and safe’ for ALL.

FSEG evacuation experiment involving the use of an evacuation chair on a crowded stair?

3)?????Declining number of fires and fire fatalities

Ben, in his point 10, like others in the fire profession, the FRS and the UK Government, make much about the declining number of fires and fire deaths in the UK.???It is true that the number of fires and fire deaths have decreased by 50% from 2002 to 2019 [2-5], and while this is very good news, it only tells part of the story. Another important measure is the likelihood of a UK citizen dying or being seriously injured should they be unfortunate enough to have a fire.?In 2003 there were roughly 101,000 fires and about 410 deaths [2-5], that is 4.1 deaths per 1000 fires.?In 2019 there were about 51,000 fires and 230 deaths [2-5], that is 4.5 deaths per 1000 fires, so your chances of dying in a fire, should you be unlucky enough to have one, if anything has gone up!?There are similar trends for fire injuries.?The point here is that over the past 20 years the fatality (and injury) rate has not decreased, and this is a trend throughout the period.?If we are going to improve survivability in fires, we need to do something different to what we have been doing for the past 20 years! ?For more information on this please see [6-9].

?Complacency in headline statistics.

4)?????Alleged erroneous articles in Inside Housing

In his opening comments, Ben states, ‘We have seen numerous fire related articles from Inside Housing over the years which have been erroneous and factually incorrect ….’.?

While I cannot claim to have read all the relevant articles published in Inside Housing concerning the issues raised by Grenfell, the ones that I have read I have found to be examples of excellent journalism.?While I may not always agree with all the points raised, they nevertheless have been thought provoking articles, have presented the facts as they were known and have not confused opinion with fact.?If Ben feels that there have been ‘numerous’ erroneous fire related articles in Inside Housing, to the extent that he makes a point of it in a public forum, he should at least provide a couple of representative examples.?Rather than being criticised for their persistent coverage of the Grenfell tragedy, they should be commended, along with the BBC, for keeping in the public eye the scandal that is Grenfell.

Alleged erroneous articles in Inside Housing

5)?????Experts

Ben makes much of what an expert is without defining an expert. ?According to Ben, an expert will, ‘…. have a relevant qualification in fire’ and can demonstrate that they have, ‘experience doing fire work?...... have worked with other fire experts or in any of the well known professional companies in the space.’.?I fail to see how this description, in of itself, justifies labelling someone an ‘expert’.?Surely, he is describing a practicing fire engineer.?If simply working for a well-known firm makes someone an expert, then we have an awful lot of dubious experts in the fire profession!?Surely this devalues the notion of ‘expert’??He also suggests that, ‘They demonstrate intellectual honesty, show intellectual curiosity and know when and how to share…… They understand the two-part concept of risk, appreciate that it can never be reduced to zero and consider proportionality when developing mitigation measures….’. Shouldn’t anyone practicing any type of engineering display these skills and understand these concepts?

Surely an ‘expert’ is someone who displays mastery in a particular discipline, who stands out from colleagues, who leads in a particular area of expertise. ?Furthermore, labelling someone an expert in ‘Fire safety science’, ?‘fire safety engineering’ or ‘fire safety’ is high praise indeed.

‘Fire safety science’, ‘fire safety engineering’ and ‘fire safety’ are each very broad in their disciplines and subdisciplines.?For example, fire safety science includes, chemistry, toxicology, combustion, materials science, structural response, fire suppression, physiology, human behaviour, computer modelling, etc.?I am not aware of any individual that I would call an expert in ‘fire safety science’; however, I know many who are experts in one or several of these areas.?I also know many excellent generalists; these are individuals who have a very good grasp of many areas, in particular in the fire safety engineering profession, but I certainly wouldn’t call them ‘expert’ fire safety engineers.?The difficulty with labelling someone as an expert in ‘fire safety engineering’, for example, is that the general public, journalists and government will believe their expertise cuts across the broad range of disciplines, and so they are able to make insightful comments on any related issue.?

What defines an expert?

What is worse, is when the ‘expert’ also believes this to be true.?How many times have I heard fire engineers who are experts in say the design of sprinkler systems, or cladding systems or expert senior fire officers talk about panic during evacuation??While they may be truly expert in a specific area, it’s not evacuation. To take a more topical example, how many times have ‘expert’ fire engineers offered a professional opinion about PEEPs, when they only have an elementary grasp of human behaviour or evacuation dynamics, and don’t even appreciate the difference between rescue and evacuation?

?It would be better to say, ‘x’ is a fire safety engineer – leaving out the expert label all together, or to say that ‘x’ is a fire safety engineer expert in sprinkler systems.?If this was done, the opinions of true experts would be valued more highly.?This would also reduce the impact of misinformation (deliberate or not) delivered by inappropriate experts.?It would also focus the minds of journalists and government to seek appropriate experts for comment.

6)?????Conformation bias

My final comment concerns Ben’s last point.?Ben notes that his opinion piece has been reviewed by independent fire professionals.?While this is a good thing, it is worth noting, that for a critical review to have true value, it should be an independent blind review undertaken by discipline experts (see my point 5) as is the common practice most reputable journals follow.?I have no idea how Ben managed the review of his opinion piece, for all I know this is precisely what he did, but I suggest that if he simply passed his article to a few likeminded friends and colleagues this is unlikely to uncover logical errors, biases/group think and inaccuracies, it is more likely to be simply an editorial proof reading.

Trapped in group think

I hope this article stimulates discussion on the important topics of ‘stay put’ and PEEPs.?

REFERENCES:

1) https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/fire-safetys-misinformation-problem-ben-bradford/

2) Communities and Local Government. (2015) Fire Statistics, Great Britain, 2013 - 2014. Department for Communities and Local Government.

3) Home Office. (2021) Detailed analysis of fires attended by fire and rescue services, England, April 2020 to March 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/detailed-analysis-of-fires-attended-by-fire-and-rescue-services-england-april-2020-to-march-2021.

?4) Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Website (2021) https://www.firescotland.gov.uk/about-us/who-we-are/statistics.

?5) Stats Wales. Fires, casualties and fatalities by area and financial year (2021). https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Community-Safety-and-Social-Inclusion/Community-Safety/Fire-Incidents/Fires-and-False-Alarms/firescasualtiesandfatalities-by-area-financialyear.

?6)Thompson, O.F. (2020) Towards a comprehensive understanding of human behaviour in dwelling fires. Doctoral dissertation, University of Greenwich.

?7) Thompson, O.F., Galea, E.R. and Hulse, L.M., A review of the literature on human behaviour in dwelling fires, Safety Science, Volume 109, November 2018, Pages 303-312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.06.016

8) ?Thompson, O.F., Hulse, L.M., Wales, D. Galea, E.R., “Get Out, Stay Out” versus occupier independence: The results of an 18 month study of human behaviour in accidental dwelling fires in Kent”, Proceedings of the 13th International Fire Science & Engineering Conference, Interflam 2013 24-26th June 2013, Royal Holloway College, London, UK, Volume 2, pp. 943-954. ISBN 978 0 9556548-9-3, 2013.

9) David G. Wales, Owain F. Thompson, Lynn M. Hulse and Edwin R. Galea, From Data To Difference – Considering the Application of a Large-Scale Database of Human Behaviour in Accidental Dwelling Fires, Human Behaviour in Fire, Proceedings 6th Int Symp 2015, Interscience Communications Ltd, London, ISBN 978-0-9933933-0-3, pp 465-476, Sept 2015.