Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Thoughts on Grenfell and Working at Height...



The Grenfell Tower catastrophe is bringing some shortcomings into focus as far as the availability of rescue equipment that might have been able to assist the emergency services.  There are some pieces of equipment around London that might have been able to reach to the upper stories to provide an avenue of escape.

People familiar with powered access equipment may be aware of the broad population of access equipment from scissor lifts to very tall truck mounted machines, but there has not been a connection between the emergency services and the owners of those machines.

What if the equipment rental companies and the local fire service administrators could begin to learn from each other with the intent of saving lives?  The emergency services could have contact information and lists of the available equipment, and the equipment companies could have employees that have undergone some basic training to safely assist fire personnel in rescues.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Grenfell Tower



The news of the Grenfell  Tower fire is tragic.

There did not seem to be any tall firefighting equipment on the scene that could reach near the top of the tower.  I had thought that the London Fire Brigade had more tall equipment.

The U.S. cities that have some tall aerial rescue and suppression equipment are fortunate that leaders worked to get the equipment that could save lives in a high-rise incident.  Of course, the 110’ and 118’ ‘tall’ ladders and platforms would only work on structures up to 100’-110’ for rescue, and fire apparatus is now available that will reach up to 365’ (112 meters).

I am sure that there will be a plethora of investigations as to what can be learned from this event, but for now, we should all be thinking of the victims, as well as the heroes that have been risking everything in order to save lives and property.