An " Unacceptable " Fire Risk !

Fire and rescue services in New South Wales have been diverted from its usual work of issuing fire safety reports by the prevalence of flammable cladding awaiting rectification.  There is now a growing backlog of work waiting to be done and yet we seem no closer to an action plan to strip that cladding and replace it with a safer material.

The Grenfell Tower fire in London happened  in June, 2017, alerting the world to what has become an international problem.  In New South Wales the issue awaits a recommendation from the Building Commission and this contrasts with Victoria, which has implemented a $600 million package to fix buildings with flammable cladding.

We have people living with an unacceptable fire risk in 444 seemingly prestige buildings in this state and we know how that Grenfell Tower inferno started.  A simply fire in a unit gained the intensity to break a window and escape and within minutes the entire outer surface of the building was burning. Quick action by our fire brigade has prevented several similar breakouts spreading to the cladding and luck has been on our side.

There is a much more sinister  danger threatening those buildings with flammable cladding. There is a terrorist element within Australia which has made several attempts to cause death and destruction in support of religious war.  High on the list have been plans to cause an airliner to crash with its high body count.

We go to stringent lengths to screen both passengers and their luggage passing through airports and so far we have been successful in preventing such an attack, but it is frightening to know that there are 444 buildings standing absolutely defenceless against an arson attack and apart from terrorism, we always have a small element of what we call " firebugs " with a propensity to start fires.

It is interesting to interpret the figures suppled by the New South Wales  Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research  ( BOSCAR ), which were obtained through freedom of information.  BOSCAR reports that this risk is " stable " and in fact the number of arson cases decreased from eight in May and June  2018 to just two in the same period this year.

That flammable cladding can not be left in place indefinitely.  It would only take one successful arson attempt to repeat that Grenfell Tower disaster here.  Living with that risk is simply unacceptable  !