The June fire at Grenfell Tower apartment building in London that left at least 80 people dead raised some questions among State College Borough Council and community members about fire safety locally as new high-rises spring up around the borough.
In response, Centre Region Code Administration reviewed the contributing factors in the Grenfell fire and the required standards for high-rise buildings locally.
Director Walt Schneider said at Monday’s borough council meeting that a number of requirements for high-rises in State College, and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, would prevent a fire from spreading as far as the one in London.
‘These buildings are safe based on the requirements of the state building code and the international codes as we’ve adopted them in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,’ Schneider said. ‘We continue to maintain them as safe because we do fire inspections and we make sure fire doors and all those kinds of features are maintained.’
A key contributing factor in the Grenfell Tower fire was the building’s cladding. The tower had been built in the 1970s and had recently been retrofitted with a new facade backed by insulation. The facade panels and insulation used would not have passed fire tests in the United States, Schneider said.
He added that each of the high-rises in State College — which currently include the Fraser Centre, the near-completion Metropolitan and the under-construction The Rise — are required to have facades with noncombustible materials, and that the buildings can only have a very limited amount of combustible material used in the structure.
‘The material as it was applied in Europe would not be allowed to be applied on these three structures,’ Schneider said. ‘We went back and triple-checked and made sure the façade treatments on each one of these fully met the code.’
The facades for each local high-rise are tested for fire resistance by a national agency, he added.
Another factor that allowed the London fire to spread as it did was that the cladding materials were offset from the building, creating an airstream that acted as a kind of chimney to accelerate the fire up the building, allowing it to run behind the facade panels as well as in front of it. State College high-rises do not have offset facades.
Schneider noted that in approving plans for The Metropolitan, council required that its windows not be operable and that no balconies be included. This is another factor that would contain a fire, he said.
‘The opportunity for the fire to get out to the façade has been limited,’ Schneider said. ‘The fire would have to shatter a window prior to it actually getting out into the façade of the building and trying to run the building’s façade.’
Systems required within the high-rises in State College also would mitigate the potential for a disastrous fire. Sprinklers are required throughout the buildings, and Schneider said that in most cases they are effective in controlling or fully extinguishing a fire before the fire department even arrives.
‘We would not anticipate that fire ever getting to the size it did in Europe,’ Schneider said. ‘Sprinklered properties 90 percent of the time typically control a fire with two heads or less discharged. Quite honestly before the fire department is even dispatched chances are that sprinkler is already doing its job to keep the fire small. We hope the sprinkler fully puts the fire out, but they’re not meant to fully extinguish. They’re meant to keep the fire small and allow the fire department to get there and do their job. Most of the time, percentage-wise the sprinkler system does its job and the fire is extinguished by the time the fire department gets there.’
The State College high-rises also are required to have smoke control and stairway pressurization systems. When a fire is detected, fans are turned on in stair towers and pressurize the area with clean air. That pushes out smoke and particulate matter to keep the stairs clear for occupants to exit the building safely, Schneider said.
Local high-rises also are required to have at least two ways of exiting the building.
Council member Evan Myers said it’s important that the borough keep these issues in mind as business and residential buildings are developed, noting that it was his understanding some code requirements in London had been reduced to be more business friendly.
‘I think that can be an important lesson to us as we think about the things that we might do and how it impacts the safety of our citizens versus the type of environment we want to create,’ Myers said.
