 Knowsley Heights tower block in 2009 | |
| Date | 5 April 1991 |
|---|---|
| Location | Knowsley Heights, Huyton, Merseyside, England |
| Coordinates | 53°25′18″N2°50′38″W / 53.4217°N 2.8440°W |
| Type | Structure fire |
| Cause | Rubbish fire |
| Deaths | 0 |
| Non-fatal injuries | 0 |
The Knowsley Heights fire occurred on 5 April 1991 [1] at the 11-story Knowsley Heights tower block in Huyton, Merseyside. No-one was injured in the fire.
The fire was deliberately started when rubbish was set alight outside the 11-story Knowsley Heights tower block in Huyton, Merseyside. [2] The flames began at the bottom of the building, and spread through a 90 mm (3.5 inches) gap between the wall and the newly installed rainscreen cladding. [2] [3] The fire spread to all floors of the 11-storey building, causing extensive damage to the walls and windows of the building. The interior of the building did not suffer damage, as the fire did not enter the inside of the building. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] No-one was injured in the fire. [4]
The Building Research Establishment (BRE) determined that the cladding around Knowsley Heights was a low risk of combustibility. They also highlighted that the building lacked firebreaks. [4] The cladding used in Knowsley Heights was declared legal. [7] The incident was mentioned by BRE for subsequent changes in building regulations. [3]
The Knowsley Heights fire featured in the BBC Two documentary The Fires that Foretold Grenfell, which was first broadcast in October 2018. [7]
Huyton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. Part of the Liverpool Built-up Area, it borders the Liverpool suburbs of Dovecot, Knotty Ash and Netherley.
The Summerland disaster occurred when a fire spread through the Summerland leisure centre in Douglas on the Isle of Man on the night of 2 August 1973. 50 people were killed and 80 seriously injured. The scale of the fire has been compared to those seen during the Blitz.
Knowsley Council, or Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. It is a metropolitan borough council and provides the majority of local government services in the borough. The council has been a member of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority since 2014.
Court Hey Park is a park in the Bowring Park suburb of Knowsley borough in Merseyside, England. It lies about 4+1⁄2 miles (7 km) east of Liverpool city centre.
St Chad's Church is in Old Hall Lane, Kirkby, Knowsley, Merseyside, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Huyton, the archdeaconry of Liverpool, and the diocese of Liverpool. Its benefice is united with those of St Mark, Kirkby: St Martin, Southdene, Kirkby: and Tower Hill, St Andrew, Kirkby. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
Cladding is the application of one material over another to provide a skin or layer. In construction, cladding is used to provide a degree of thermal insulation and weather resistance, and to improve the appearance of buildings. Cladding can be made of any of a wide range of materials including wood, metal, brick, vinyl, and composite materials that can include aluminium, wood, blends of cement and recycled polystyrene, wheat/rice straw fibres. Rainscreen cladding is a form of weather cladding designed to protect against the elements, but also offers thermal insulation. The cladding does not itself need to be waterproof, merely a control element: it may serve only to direct water or wind safely away in order to control run-off and prevent its infiltration into the building structure. Cladding may also be a control element for noise, either entering or escaping. Cladding can become a fire risk by design or material.
Dame Judith Elizabeth Hackitt,, FIChemE, FCGI is a British engineer and civil servant. A former chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive, she is currently chair of manufacturing trade body EEF.
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On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, England, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. Seventy people died at the scene and two people died later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Blitz of World War II.
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Harley Facades is a British construction company that designs and installs external cladding on buildings. Founded in 1996, it established a specialist cladding division in 2002. In 2015, it was contracted to install cladding on Grenfell Tower in west London. After a June 2017 fire killed 72 people in the tower, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry said Harley bore "a significant degree of responsibility for the fire".
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
On 14 June 2017, the Grenfell Tower fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST; it caused 72 deaths, including those of two victims who later died in hospital. More than 70 others were injured and 223 people escaped. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Second World War.
The United Kingdom cladding crisis, also known as the cladding scandal, is an ongoing social crisis that followed the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 and the Bolton Cube fire of 15 November 2019. The fires revealed that large numbers of buildings had been clad in dangerously combustible materials, comprising a combination of flammable cladding and/or flammable insulation.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower, residential building in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
Criticism of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire primarily consisted of condemnation of issues with the emergency response and fire safety regulation practices in the UK at the time. Broader political criticism was also directed at British society, including condemnation of the response by governmental bodies and UK politicians, social divisions, deregulation issues, and poor transparency overall.