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Fire
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  Fabian Society  ·  Face  ·  Factory  ·  Facts  ·  Failure  ·  Fairy  ·  Faith  ·  Fake (I)  ·  Fake (II)  ·  Falkland Islands & Falklands War  ·  Fall (Drop)  ·  False  ·  False Flag Attacks & Operations  ·  Fame & Famous  ·  Familiarity  ·  Family  ·  Famine  ·  Fanatic & Fanaticism  ·  Fancy  ·  Fantasy & Fantasy Films  ·  Farm & Farmer  ·  Fascism & Fascist  ·  Fashion  ·  Fast Food  ·  Fasting  ·  Fat  ·  Fate  ·  Father  ·  Fault  ·  Favourite & Favouritism  ·  FBI  ·  Fear  ·  Feast  ·  Federal Reserve  ·  Feel & Feeling  ·  Feet & Foot  ·  Fellowship  ·  FEMA  ·  Female & Feminism  ·  Feng Shui  ·  Fentanyl  ·  Ferry  ·  Fiction  ·  Field  ·  Fight & Fighting  ·  Figures  ·  Film Noir  ·  Films & Movies (I)  ·  Films & Movies (II)  ·  Finance  ·  Finger & Fingerprint  ·  Finish  ·  Finite  ·  Finland & Finnish  ·  Fire  ·  First  ·  Fish & Fishing  ·  Fix  ·  Flag  ·  Flattery  ·  Flea  ·  Flesh  ·  Flood  ·  Floor  ·  Florida  ·  Flowers  ·  Flu  ·  Fluoride  ·  Fly & Flight  ·  Fly (Insect)  ·  Fog  ·  Folk Music  ·  Food (I)  ·  Food (II)  ·  Fool & Foolish  ·  Football & Soccer (I)  ·  Football & Soccer (II)  ·  Football & Soccer (III)  ·  Football (American)  ·  Forbidden  ·  Force  ·  Forced Marriage  ·  Foreign & Foreigner  ·  Foreign Relations  ·  Forensic Science  ·  Forest  ·  Forgery  ·  Forget & Forgetful  ·  Forgive & Forgiveness  ·  Fort Knox  ·  Fortune & Fortunate  ·  Forward & Forwards  ·  Fossils  ·  Foundation  ·  Fox & Fox Hunting  ·  Fracking  ·  Frailty  ·  France & French  ·  Frankenstein  ·  Fraud  ·  Free Assembly  ·  Free Speech  ·  Freedom (I)  ·  Freedom (II)  ·  Freemasons & Freemasonry  ·  Friend & Friendship  ·  Frog  ·  Frost  ·  Frown  ·  Fruit  ·  Fuel  ·  Fun  ·  Fundamentalism  ·  Funeral  ·  Fungi  ·  Funny  ·  Furniture  ·  Fury  ·  Future  

★ Fire

A warren of underground tunnels with no escape route.  A fire chief warning again and again of the dangers yet no-one would listen.  A wooden escalator and a match.  This is the countdown to the worst fire in British transport history.  James Nesbitt: Disasters that Changed Britain V: King’s Cross Fire, History 2018

 

7:45 pm on 15th November 1987: a vast fireball exploded into King’s Cross underground station turning the ticket hall into an inferno.  It’s a story of wooden escalators, piles of rubbish, carelessly dropped matches, but also carelessness and a sense of complacency.  ibid. 

 

Three months earlier a fire had gutted Oxford Circus station.  ibid.

 

 

Families trapped in an unimaginable nightmare from which for many there would be no escape.  James Nesbitt: Disasters that Changed Britain VI: Grenfell Tower

 

The fire at Grenfell Tower: In the early hours of 14th June 2017 a fire ripped through Grenfell Tower in west London.  71 people lost their lives and an entire community was left devastated.  ibid.

 

The problems began decades earlier.  ibid.

 

It would be constructed using the latest building techniques: precast concrete blocks.  ibid.  

 

The Utopian dream of tower-block heaven began to fade.  All over the country poor maintenance, vandalism and social deprivation turned the streets in the sky into slums in the sky.  ibid.

 

 

It’s been almost a year since our worst fire in living memory.  The people of Grenfell were failed but nobody has been held to account.  One year on a community is still waiting for answers.  We asked those involved how it could happen.  We tried to find out who’s to blame.  And we uncover a scandal  Grenfell was wrapped in a flammable product that should never have been there.  Panorama: Grenfell: Who is to Blame? BBC 2018 

 

 

During the twelve months to July, 104 wildfires broke out across the UK, with 9 across a 2-week period in May alone.  Panorama: Britain’s Wild Weather, Justin Rowlatt reporting, BBC 2020

 

 

It’s been a year since fires spread across Australia, scorching and scarring at a speed never seen before.  At least 33 people died, an area bigger than the size of England laid to waste.  Panorama: Australia Burning, BBC 2020

 

 

In the early hours of 14th June 2017 the residents of Grenfell Tower woke up to this  Britain’s worst fire since the Blitz.  Grenfell: The First 24 Hours, ITV 2018

 

Fires in tower blocks are usually contained to a room or a flat so the rapidly spreading flames had taken the Brigade by surprise.  They called for back up.  ibid.

 

On the street outside people are searching for relatives and friends.  ibid.

 

The Grenfell fire claimed 72 lives.  ibid.  

 

 

This was our base, this was a fortress, it was a concrete castle. Grenfell, BBC 2018, resident

 

I was lying in bed when I heard my neighbour’s fire alarm  so no central fire alarm.  ibid.

 

They wasn’t coming out.  They were just inside.  There was long periods of nothing.  ibid.

 

What I loved was how quickly the community came together.  ibid.

 

No-one should have lived there.  It melted like a candle.  ibid.

 

No-one from the council.  No-one.  ibid.

 

Shame on you!  Shame on you!  ibid.  protest at Theresa May  

 

I paid seven hundred pounds a month rent there.’  ibid.  resident

 

More than half of the 230 households displaced by the fire remain in temporary accommodation.  ibid.  caption  

 

 

On 14th June 2017 people across the country watched as Grenfell Tower burned.  For some, this was history repeating itself.  In the decades before Grenfell, five fires across the British Isles gave clear warnings of the tragedy.  But key lessons were ignored.  The Fires that Foretold Grenfell, BBC 2018    

 

Failures that allowed the Tower to be wrapped in cladding that turned the building into an inferno.  Failures that saw people told to stay put in their homes as the Tower burned.  And failures to protect the building from the spread of fire creating a death-trap that took the lives of 72 people.  ibid.

 

Douglas Isle of Man 1973 Summerland: the deadliest fire in the British Isles since the Blitz … One of the largest indoor holiday parks in Europe … Three boys smoking cigarettes had set fire to a crazy golf kiosk … ‘Floor to ceiling flames … a waterfall of flames’ … Fifty people died … The Inquiry found that the building had been wrapped in highly flammable materials causing the fires rapid spread and high death toll.  The Inquiry also found the advice to people to stay put in Summerland seriously hindered the evacuation.  ibid.    

 

5th April 1991 Knowsley Heights: the newly installed cladding on a tower block in Liverpool caught fire … Britain’s first tower block cladding fire.  ibid.  

 

Cladding was not required to be fireproof.  ibid.

 

1999 Irvine North Ayrshire: a cladding fire in western Scotland echoed what happened at Knowsley Heights but this time it proved fatal.  ibid. 

 

Stevenage 2005 Harrow Court … ‘The fire was started by some tea-lights’ … ‘The advice at the time was to stay put.’  ibid.  firefighter 

 

South London 2009: This time six people would die.  At 4:15 on a hot July afternoon a faulty television started a fire on the ninth floor at Lankanal House.  ibid. 

 

 

72 people died in Grenfell Tower, the greatest loss of life in a fire in the UK since the Second World War … A different scandal has been emerging: while individual firefighters did everything they could to save lives … systemic failures within the London Fire Brigade may have led to many people dying who could have survived.  Dispatches: Grenfell: Did the Fire Brigade Fail? Channel 4 2019  

 

Up to 55 of those who died were subject to advice from the London Fire Brigade to stay in the burning building once the fire was out of control.  ibid. 

 

 

Around the world a bizarre ritual persists: man knowingly and willingly matches himself against the flames.  Practised in diverse cultures, embodied in several religions, a mysterious and ancient custom of firewalking has intrigued observers for hundreds of years.  Two puzzling question remain unanswered for centuries: How did the custom originate?  And what protects the firewalkers from being burned?  In Search of s2e3 … Firewalkers, History 1978

 

Firewalking is surprisingly widespread.  ibid.    

 

 

Underground fires can last for up to twenty years.  And are almost impossible to put out.  Secret World of Your Rubbish s1e1, Channel 5 2019

 

 

For over a decade suspicious fires burned businesses and homes in southern California, ultimately causing the deaths of four innocent people.  The local community was rocked by the news that the arsonist was local fire chief and investigator John Orr.  The Killer in My Family s2e6: Relatives of the Pillow Pyro John Orr, Quest Red 2020

 

John was the go-to person in LA for solving arson cases, but he was also the person starting many of the fires.  ibid.

 

On 4th December 1991 John Orr was arrested.  ibid.

 

 

Windsor Palace: only two works of art were lost in the fire.  The blaze took 15 hours to bring under control … In total 115 rooms had been completely destroyed.  Secrets of the Royal Palaces s1e6, Channel 5 2021

 

 

The father who killed six of his children and tried to blame someone else.  Faking It: Tears of a Crime s1e1: Quy & Philpott, Discovery 2017  

 

A fatal blaze and a bizarre media appearance: the couple who tried to cry for the cameras.  ibid.  

 

Derby May 2012: At four in the morning fire roars through a family’s home.  ibid.

 

 

He said he lost his family in the Grenfell fire … It was Britain’s worst residential fire since the Second World War … More than £1 million was raised in the first 24 hours: in total £26 million was donated … He received £360 in cash, fresh food and clothing and temporary hotel accommodation … Now he was applying for a further £5,000 from the Grenfell fund … ‘He never lived there and nobody had ever heard of him’ … A man with 17 different aliases … 20 people in total have been convicted of Grenfell-related fraud.  Faking It: Tears of a Crime s4e1: The Grenfell Conman, Kerry Daynes

 

 

On the 30th of October 2015 a fire breaks out during a concert in the Colectiv club in Bucharest.  It instantly kills 27 youngsters and injures another 180.  Outraged by the fact that the popular club was functioning without fire exits, people take to the streets against the corrupt authorities.  Massive nationwide protests force the Social Democrat Government to resign.  To calm the people’s fury a politically independent Government of technocrats is appointed.  It receives a one-year mandate until the next general elections.  37 more burn victims die in hospitals during the four months after the Colectiv fire.  Storyville: Collective: Unravelling a Scandal, captions, BBC 2021

 

‘The burn patients were kept in a known septic environment, and exposed to some of the most resistant hospital bacteria in Europe.’  ibid.  journalist    

 

 

1994: Here police investigating last night’s fire at a sex cinema in London have confirmed they are treating the case as murder.  The Real Manhunter s1e8: The Dream City Cinema Club Fire, BBC evening news, Sky Crime 2021

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