{"id":367533,"date":"2018-07-01T08:30:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T07:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/expert-witness-on-grenfell-fire-cladding-on-grenfell-tower-was-a-major-hazard\/"},"modified":"2018-07-01T08:30:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T07:30:51","slug":"expert-witness-on-grenfell-fire-cladding-on-grenfell-tower-was-a-major-hazard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/expert-witness-on-grenfell-fire-cladding-on-grenfell-tower-was-a-major-hazard\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert witness on Grenfell Fire: Cladding on Grenfell Tower was \u201ca major hazard\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Expert witness on Grenfell Fire: Cladding on Grenfell Tower was \u201ca major hazard\u201d<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Trevor Johnson<br \/>\n    <br \/>30 June 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The testimony of Dr. Barbara Lane, a fire safety specialist and expert witness to the inquiry on Grenfell Tower, presented a report on the tower\u2019s construction in relation to the relevant fire safety requirements. Officially, 72 people died as a result of the inferno at the West London tower block on June 14, 2017, which was able to spread rapidly due to numerous safety failings.<\/p>\n<p>Lane used photographs and videos from the night of the fire to show how quickly the fire spread around the outside of the building due to the combustible cladding that had been fitted to improve its appearance in a \u201crefurbishment to prettify its outside appearance.\u201d Lane also used photos her team had taken since the fire to show many examples of noncompliant materials and construction.<\/p>\n<p>Lane identified a \u201cculture of noncompliance\u201d that resulted in the blaze and listed many failures to meet building regulations at Grenfell Tower, the majority of which were the result of changes made since it was originally designed and built between 1967 and 1974.<\/p>\n<p>She began her presentation to the inquiry by describing Grenfell Tower as it was first built. While many of its features were not compliant with building regulations now in use, it was largely composed of materials that were non-combustible, such as concrete.<\/p>\n<p>Building regulations required the use of materials and safety features in a way that ensured a fire in one flat would not spread to others, she said. This \u201ccompartmentation\u201d is the basis of the \u201cstay put\u201d and \u201cdefend in place\u201d policies employed by the London Fire Brigade during the fire. These regulatory measures have been in place since the 1960s, she explained,&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/06\/30\/gren-j30.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Expert witness on Grenfell Fire: Cladding on Grenfell Tower was \u201ca major hazard\u201d By Trevor Johnson 30 June 2018 The testimony of Dr. Barbara Lane, a fire safety specialist and expert witness to the inquiry on Grenfell Tower, presented a report on the tower\u2019s construction in relation to the relevant fire safety requirements. Officially, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-367533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}