“It is unreasonable that such a fire development should be considered acceptable in Norway”. This is how the report begins, which Norway’s foremost professional environment on fires has been working on for half a year after the big fire in Bergen in 2021. On a hot summer night in August, a municipal block of flats for the vulnerable and drug addicts caught fire. The fire probably started on the outside, and 24 flats were completely engulfed in record speed. From the time the fire service was first notified, until the fire had spread to all balconies, it only took 13 minutes. The fire at Lone took no lives, but the explosive development shocked both the fire service and experts. The investigation into the serious fire is now complete. And the comprehensive analysis can lead to changes in Norwegian building regulations. In the meantime, the inspectors warn against building blocks like the one at Lone. – Many assessments were made here that individually were OK, but when the pieces are put together the final product is certainly not good, says Anne Steen-Hansen, chief researcher at Rise Fire Research and professor of fire engineering at NTNU. Several have questioned the fact that a modern building from 2012 could burn so quickly. – In Norway, such investigations should be carried out more often. The goal is for it to give us answers that can help prevent similar fires from happening, says project manager Edvard Aamodt at the Fire Research and Innovation Center (FRIC), which is behind the report. These have participated in the investigation of the fire. FRIC partners who have participated in the project are RISE Fire Research, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the Directorate for Social Security and Preparedness (DSB), the Directorate for Building Quality (DiBK), Multiconsult, Trøndelag fire and rescue service (TBRT) and Gassco. In addition, external actors from Høgskulen på Vestlandet (HVL), the West Police District, the Bergen Fire Service and the Norwegian Police have contributed to the work. The project has focused on two overarching issues: Why did the fire develop so quickly? Why were there no injuries or deaths in the fire? The aim has been to uncover important learning points that can be useful in the work to improve fire safety for the corresponding buildings and users in the future. This can provide a basis for any changes in the relevant regulations to prevent similar fires. The group has used the police’s investigative documents, the fire service’s own report and building case documents in the meticulous work. The police thought many people were going to die. In the analysis, the investigators have, among other things, collected reports from the police. It says that the police feared many would burn inside. – When the police arrived at the scene of the fire, they were sure that this would be an accident with many fatalities. The escape time was unusually short considering that the fire broke out in the middle of the night, the report states. The police believe someone set it on fire and initially suspected three people. The case was dropped last autumn. – Part of the reason why we chose this fire is that it was still good, even if the starting point was dramatic, says Aamodt. LOST EVERYTHING: Kais Kadhim was one of the 30 residents who got out the night of the fire. He managed to take the cat with him before the flames poured in from the balcony. Several residents news has spoken to said that neighbors who were awake ran around and hammered on doors to wake each other up. Photo: Christine Fagerbakke / news – Violation of the building regulations and unfortunate building choices news has in several cases focused on how the developers had to go through several rounds to get the building approved. In the end, the case ended up on the table of the city council, which checked its own professionals and approved the project with a stroke of the pen. Experts have pointed to several weaknesses in the building – which was erected in violation of approved plans. It also never received a certificate of completion. The balcony facade of the barely ten-year-old block was engulfed in flames and completely damaged – a scenario that the fire prospectus characterized as “unlikely”. BIG DIFFERENCE: The illustration on the left shows how the facade was originally planned. The picture to the right shows what the building looked like when the municipality’s expert authority came to inspect it in June 2014. Photo: Link arkitektur/Bergen municipality The report states that the company that has been responsible for fire safety has done a very poor job. The use of materials in the building is within the regulations, but the solution that was built is described as “very unfortunate”. – The responsible doctors have not taken a position on the health assessment. Many solutions are seen in isolation within the legal requirements, but overall this was a bad solution, points out Steen-Hansen. The building also had no alternative escape route for the occupants on the two upper floors. Had the fire started on the opposite side of the building, the outcome could have been catastrophic. It is a breach of the building regulations. – It is a serious offence, even if in this case it did not have a consequence, points out Steen-Hansen. This is FRIC’s learning point after the Lone fire The report has launched a series of main reasons why the fire could spread so quickly. The research group believes that the fire could have had a far more serious outcome if the fire had started on the other side of the building, where the hallway with the entrance to all the apartments was. This was the only escape route. The balconies: The investigation determined that an unfortunate combination of material use and geometry on the balconies was the main reason why the fire developed so rapidly and intensely. They call the spread of fire in dry cladding and wood in balconies an “under-communicated risk factor”. The fire started on the outside: An external fire start was decisive for the development of the fire. This meant that the automatic extinguishing system and the fire alarm system inside the apartments were activated relatively late in the development of the fire. Equipment on the balconies: Storing many personal belongings on the balconies contributed to increased fire energy and thus probably also to a rapid fire spread. Among other things, many residents had hung sheets and other textiles to prevent access. 80 percent of the residents have said in police interviews that they store belongings on the balconies. Missing fire extinguishers on the balconies: Automatic fire extinguishers on the balconies could have reduced the external fire spread and given an earlier alarm to the fire brigade. This would have provided valuable time for extinguishing efforts. Only one escape route: The fire apparently started on one of the lower balconies/verandas. If he had started in the hallway, which was mainly covered with wooden material, this could have caused major problems for the evacuation of the residents on the upper floors. These residents had the hallway as their only escape route, which is considered a breach of current building regulations. – Failure in control Experts news has spoken to have previously warned that the fire protection and control of Norwegian new buildings is too poor. – How could such a fire happen in such a modern building? It should attract interest all around. Both to find out what caused the fire, but also to prevent this type of building from being built in Norway, long-time fire engineer Ingvar Gjerland told news in 2021. CRITICAL: Fire engineer Ingvar Gjerland followed the fire in Bergen with interest and sought insight into the fire design of the building. – A housing project I would never have approved, he told news. Photo: Gisle Jørgensen / news Now he gets support in the extensive investigation. Chief researcher Steen-Hansen at Rise Fire Research states that the control mechanism to ensure fire safety did not work. In Norway, there is a requirement that all construction projects must be checked by a fire engineer. An independent fire engineer must then check the fire concept. In this case, the bad solution has also slipped through the check. – The independent control has failed. They have also not seen the integrity of the solutions that were proposed, states the chief researcher at Rise Fire Research, who points out that they have not aimed to point out mistakes on the part of the actors behind the project. They indicate that there are many blocks in Norwegian municipalities with wooden facades and wooden balconies. The project group has therefore proposed a number of changes to the Building Act due to the great fire in Bergen. More specifically: in the so-called guide to the building technical regulation. – Building technical regulations with guidelines are a large document, and provisions in the guidelines are largely based on tradition and on solutions that have been assessed as “good enough”. Parts of the guidance can be complicated and difficult to interpret even for fire engineers. Investigations of fires and fire research play an important advisory role in the development of the regulations, says chief researcher Steen-Hansen. This is how they will change the building regulations FRIC believes the fire at Lone reveals weaknesses in the current building regulations. They suggest that the guidance to the regulation be changed to avoid similar fires: This is the proposal: Clearer guidance on how facades and balconies can be designed to prevent external fire spreading. In the Lone fire, ignition on the balconies was assessed as “not likely”. When the fire broke out, the flames spread at high speed both upwards and sideways on the balconies. Material in railings on balconies and corridors, in addition to material in partition walls between balconies, should be counted as external surfaces. This will change the requirements for fire resistance in the materials used. In the Lone fire, the entire balcony construction was made of wood. No concrete was used between the floors. This caused the flames to spread quickly. It should be specified that balconies must function as cooling zones, also in sprinklered buildings when the balconies are not sprinklered. All the apartments in the block at Lone had their own fire cells. This means that it would take some time before the fire could spread from one apartment to the other. But on the balconies, the advisers had not put in measures against ignition, development and spreading. The fire thus spread here and hit every single apartment in the building. It should be considered to require sprinkler systems in zones that are made with a wooden support system, regardless of whether the balcony is open or closed. The research group cautions actors in the construction industry against building wooden balconies in this way until the risks of such design have been examined more closely. “Deviance assessment with regard to the openness of balconies should be discouraged, until the risk has been further investigated”. The police are considering a new investigation The police have been waiting for the report from FRIC since they dropped the arson case last autumn. Now they will assess the extent to which there are grounds for starting an investigation against any of the actors who were involved in planning, engineering and construction of the building. – When we get to review this, we will make an assessment as to whether an investigation should be launched against the construction technical conditions, police attorney Åge Nygård Bergh told news this winter. Bergen municipality’s insurance company has already notified recourse claims against the general contractor LAB AS because they believed the building was too poorly secured against fire. LAB rejected the claim in cash. Now KLP Skadeforsikring has instead turned its attention to Europe’s largest engineering and architectural company, Sweco, which was responsible for the fire design. – We are still considering recourse in the case against the company Sweco in connection with this case. When the report is ready, we will make a new assessment, said department head in KLP Skadeforsikring Lars Wiig to news this winter.
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