As a fire engineer, I have to say: extremely well done! I liked your focus on stay put/shelter in place policies, that’s generally what we want people to do in the UK. However, as this is for an international audience, I’d like to touch on a few points: Know your building Get familiar with the plans and notices posted in YOUR building. Know and follow their advice. Know your escape routes. Know what to do when you hear the fire alarm go off. This goes for your home as well as your place of work. Don’t fight the fire Unless there is a very small fire, outdoors, on a calm day, you a) won’t be doing much with a fire extinguisher anyways and b) risk smoke inhalation, which has extremely dangerous short and long term effects. Stand up for your fire safety Make sure access and egress routes are clear. Talk to neighbours who block the hallways with unnecessary items. Don’t let people park illegally in fire lanes, not even for a few minutes. Demand that your buildings fire equipment is serviced regularly, make sure fire doors close well and close automatically. If your building managers refuse to do something, talk to your city’s fire department, they can conduct an inspection and enforce the fire code. Get involved Some cities have volunteer firefighters, others have other volunteer positions. If you want, get involved, they’ll be happy to welcome you.
Other aspects of your video I’d like to comment on: Sprinklers Sprinklers are, as you said, an additional layer of protection. Without other measures like working compartmentalization, their effectiveness is limited, at least in a residential setting. External insulation External wall insulation, like styrofoam based cladding, can be a risk in high rise buildings, if it doesn’t respect the compartmentalization and spans multiple units without fire breaks. The most prominent example of this is Grenfell tower, which did prompt further investigation and updates to fire codes and procedures world wide. All in all, a fantastic video with well researched information. I loved that you linked additional resources in the description. Thank you!
Thanks for all your hard work in bringing up this information. I'm going to add the "get to know your building" part to the description. I encountered a lot of what you mentioned and ultimately ended up cutting most of it as I wanted to focus on the engineering instead of the "what to do in the fire" element of it.
Yes as a multiple decade volunteer fireman I totally agree. Also great video! And important, if you have no safe way if escaping, make yourself visible! Heck even call 911/112 even if fire services are already on scene. We can use special ventilation techniques to clear the staircases or in extreme cases come to you and provide you with an emergency air supply hood and get you out even through smoked staircases.
@@dgnikon There is no way I'd stay in place if I lived in one of these towers. Doing so puts your life in the hands of multiple layers of people doing their jobs properly. And frankly, that right there is the whole absurdity of staying in place. Keeping the fire isolated to one part of the structure requires the architect did their job properly, the builder including all subcontractors all did their jobs properly (adhering to fire codes) and (as in Grenfell Tower) no unsafe modifications or additions have been made to the structure that completely compromise the isolation system. Of all the things I've learned over the years, trusting people to do things properly isn't one of them. Experience has taught me people are stupid, moronic, lazy, unskilled, inept, take shortcuts out of laziness or penny pinching (upping their profit), don't do their research (Grenfell Tower insulation installers), don't care (Grenfell Tower insulation installers), and building inspectors suffer all of the above which is why things like Grenfell Tower happen. Staying in place requires trusting ALL THESE PEOPLE to have done their jobs properly. WTF? If I lived in one of these structures I'd have full face masks and 15 minute air tanks for them, for myself and all my family members plus a couple spare for guests. And the same number of fire blankets. And if a fire did break out in the building we'd leave and nobody would stop us. Portable air and leaving at the first opportunity would have saved everyone in Grenfell Tower.
@@dgnikon wasn't that what happened in Dubai, where the high rise lit up like a candle because the insulation caught fire. But in total the building was pretty safe, as I remember the fire stayed on the outside. In germany there was an apartment building where the fire started on the balcony, spread out over the insulation to other balconies (was a stormy day), shattered the windows resulting in a total loss of the building, I think there were no fatalities since the alarm worked, but staying inside would have resulted in death.
Firefighter from the U.S. here. I love what you said near the end about the dangers of house fires next to highrise apartment fires. Houses built in the modern day are filled to the brim with synthetic materials, like plastics and foams. These building materials, while significantly cheaper, are also extremely dangerous in fires. When they burn, they give off extremely toxic byproducts, be it by smoke, or gas. Another thing that you touched on, but I really want to emphasize. ALWAYS SLEEP WITH YOUR DOOR CLOSED!!! This gives you waaayyy more time to react to your smoke alarms (assuming they work, of course (change the batteries when they ask you to, please!)) and either escape, or shelter in place effectively. Even those cheap and hollow interior residential doors can keep you safe from extreme heat or fire for several minutes.
I found it interesting how houses became more dangerous because of innovation. Things got better except when a fire breaks out. You're right on closing the door, hopefully more people will do that after watching this video
@@Lam Maybe you should look at some data on this. Look at the NFPA for the US and similar agencies for Canada and the rest of the developed world. You will find the both outright and relative deaths, injuries, and damage has decreased for single family dwellings (along with apartments and multifamily dwellings) over the last 4 decades. Deaths in single family dwellings are less than a third of what they were in 1980 when you look at deaths per million people, the value that really matters when comparing stats. Along with this, house fires are down by half despite there being way more homes today. Homes, just like cars, are safety than they ever have been. Apathy to data, survivor bias, and the insistence of the good old days were better are the bain of improving the world around us. Firefighters have spent the last 6 decades making themselves less and less needed in modern society, and that is a very good thing.
@@adamliske it seems that fires are less common, but the fires that do happen are worse. My guess is that a lot of the reduced risk of fire comes with increased safeguards to electrical standards in homes! I live in a house built in 1938 and while it's generally in great condition and I'm pretty sure the electrical stuff in the kitchen has been updated (probably as of 2008 or so based on the age of the appliances when we moved in?) I wouldn't be surprised if there's a hodgepodge of wiring from different decades throughout the house. Gutting the electrical system is something we're planning to do as soon as we can afford jt
@@critter2 it depends on the building. If you live in a high rise, read the posted safety information in your building and/or ask the building management. Modern buildings with many apartments should be built so fires stay contained in one unit. Older buildings might not be. Smaller buildings probably won't be. Regardless, if you do need to leave, you still need to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Before firefighters get there, any residents who are physically unable to take the stairs (e.g. they use a wheelchair, they've recently had knee surgery) need to be able to use it because it's their only way out. Once firefighters are there, they need access to the elevator
Hi Andrew, I'm a fire alarm technician in Florida. I have to say you did your research on this and your information was flawless. I take my job very serious knowing that lives could be at stake. A big part of fire saftey is knowing what to do when there is a fire present in the building that a individual is at. I hope your videos reaches way more people.
This doesn’t apply in the UK. Many buildings still have the same cladding as the Grenfell tower, the residents are unable to sell their flats and move away because they are knowingly not fire-safe, the building managers won’t remove the cladding because there’s no government pressure to do so and the residents can’t remove it themselves. They are forced to live in a deathtrap
@@mdhazeldine Zero laws outlawing the cladding or requiring firebreaks in the cladding have been passed. Any recladding of buildings is being done by the owners of the buildings at their own expense, not because they were forced to. Any pressure on the building owner to do so is coming strictly from the residents. And for towers like Grenfell which are owned by the local council, pressure from residents don't matter as much as whether the local council member that would vote to pay for that is concerned they'd lose their seat or not. If they're in an area where voters want to limit spending on their council housing and vote accordingly, they're not likely to approve that kind of spending. And frankly, what I've learned about UK's fire safety codes since Grenfell is just baffling to me. London's burned down how many times? And yet their fire codes aren't as strict as the US's. It's a weird position for me to be in cuz usually the UK's got better safety laws in general, but not when it comes to fire!
@@SadisticSenpai61 That type of cladding is currently illegal to use now, but older examples are grandfathered. However, that cladding does not last forever. So as it needs to be replaced, the situation improves.
@@SadisticSenpai61 You are mostly correct as far as I know and hopefully soon you will be far less correct. The UK government, through a number of bodies, is reviewing building safety regulations right now, this includes Approved Document B, BS9991 and BS9999, with particular focus on tall residential buildings, and will be publishing more information over the next couple of years and the information coming out already is being reviewed by industry experts. Parallel to this, building fire safety is under review by major architectural/multidisciplinary studios and fire engineers. The new gateways for planning approval are already raising the standard of fire safety design and we will see the results of that in new builds as designers are now being held to a higher standard that the current standards and regulations, which is a little confusing for all, but will work itself out. The push for the ability for disabled residents to easily be able to evacuate a building without assistance is also making a difference, in particular with the New London Plan in regard to evacuation and fire lifts, although these high standards are also being applied to other projects in the UK. And on top of that there is the new standards coming out for the recording of fire safety information following the Golden Thread and including that in digital construction information, digital construction/BIM models coming from fire engineers, and the new addition of FIREie coming soon, which is similar to COBie BIM information, but for fire risk management. I could go on, but my comment is getting pretty long already. TLDR: Stuff is happening and the standard for fire safety is being improved in the UK in every way that the industry can think of.
Grenfell is a national disgrace, since due to austerity, the refurbishment was approved by a surveyor employed by the development company. The government surveyors only did the admin and no physical inspection. Their were 2 reasons why the fire spread. The first was due to NONE of the 200 fire barriers that would have contained the fire to the exterior area covered by one apartment being fitted. These would have held the fire for 30 minutes, prior to it moving on to the next area. The second (and far worse) problem was 3 inches of flammable insulation applied to the building first. Most installations, although not 100%, would not allow a fire to spread rapidly, so they need to be checked by competent qualified surveyors. Panic removal of the cladding is not the answer, unless it has been checked and deemed unsafe. PS. If you have not already guessed, I am a UK chartered engineer, (now retired).
I'm a fire sprinkler designer who has designed systems for a dozen and a half high rises. I absolutely appreciate this video! High rises absolutely are safer than most other buildings due to the large number of extra requirements, even just for the fire sprinkler system itself. Thanks for helping educate the general public on such an important topic!! You've got a new subscriber. Also, shout out to Seneca College in Toronto for my education.
sprinkler's in 3000SF home 🏡 garage's/shop's/parking and more so with larger 100KW BEV how do you feel/collages/data about it pro or against it i image a car like a 2018 hemi hellcat randomly self fuel and or electric fire when parked and occupencs are in bedroom in bed sleeping it's helpful but metallic fire's my understanding is it can act as a catalyst and increase and spread the smoke and fire 🔥
Can you share some of your knowledge as to the cleanliness of sprinkler water? Movies make it seem like perfectly fine tap water comes out, while I have heard tales that (especially in older buildings that never had a big fire in them) it can be so gunky that it's almost a brown sludge pouring down. What's your experience with older and poorly maintained sprinkler systems? Asking specifically about poorly maintained ones because I can't see many businesses (and much less households) regularly cleaning the pipes.
@@CrotaroThis may depend on location by the water in our buildings were basically the same water as the city water. The water has to be clean to keep the pipes in good running order....especially the sprinklers. I didnt do the sprinkler systems so I could be wrong...we did the firestop materials,fireboard,firestop "caulking". Ive seen the sprinklers in action and its nearly a heavy mist...like the stuff youd see coming from a pressure washer...but less air(very wet). The water couldnt be dirty or the sprinklers wouldnt last very long and would likely get clogged up.
@@CrotaroA 13-D home system, using special plastic pipe, or a 13 commercial system in a high-rise, office building or a distribution center? In a commercial system the first water out is dark and has a particular smell. There are special valve assemblies that keep it from going back into the municipal water main system. The home system isn’t much different from your plumbing system, just don’t drink it. I think this is why IT people are notorious for shutting off sprinkler systems. See Ocado fire in the U.K. Great sprinkler system, right up until it was turned off during the fire. Worried about water and computers, they tend to be the cause of their buildings burning to the ground. Someone should tell them computers are cheap.
I work for a big city FD and the biggest problem we have in appartement buildings (low and high rise) is people wedging fire doors open or interfering with the automatic closing systems. It basically bypasses all the protection of a fire break and spreads smoke everywhere. It's more common in poorly maintained buildings often owned by slumlords but I've also seen it in public housing and expensive condo towers. Only a few days ago we ran a 3am call for a small trash fire in the basement garbage room of a 4 floor 60 apt building, all the hallway and stairs fire doors were jammed open so though the fire was small and never spread from the room, all the stairwells and hallways were filled with smoke. It happens too often.
Exactly, sheltering in place depends on these complex fire proofing systems to actually work. And it requires the Grenfell Tower not to happen where combustible material was used in the construction. I don't care what anyone says, it's safer to evacuate buildings while it's safe to do so rather than tell people shelter in place until it's no longer safe to evacuate. I'm not sitting around counting on a complex fire proof system to save my life when we have multiple examples of it getting people killed and there's 0% chance of me burning to death OUTSIDE the building.
This is why education is so important! I’m 25 and love to study and learn but I’ve never understood the function or importance of fire doors until this video. The extent of my fire training is stop drop and roll. I believe if we took the time to really educate people and let them know an open fire door is literally the difference between life and death almost no one would prop them open. And if someone did they’d probably be policed by others. But ofc people don’t care when no one really understands the significance of them. We just see them as the heavy doors that are always trying to close on you.
9:00 Some sprinkler systems have flow sensors on them. So when they detect the water flowing (Meaning a sprinkler has been triggered) they trigger the fire alarm. I believe some people get that process backwards.
Good video about fire safety and how to properly react to fires in buildings. I work as a fire sprinkler engineer, and noticed a couple of small errors, nothing that changes the overall message of the video just things that bother someone who does this daily. For standpipes, the GPM coming out of them is dependent on what class they are which is dependent on the type of building it is in. While there is a class of standpipes that is rated to give 150GPM, most are rated to output 250GPM out of at least two outlets simultaneously. The response time of sprinklers comes in two varieties, standard response and quick response. You are correct in saying that townhomes and apartments are required to have quick response sprinklers, but many commercial buildings have quick response sprinklers as well. For the commercial sprinklers it does depend on what the building is used for to decide the sprinkler, as an office has much less fire capacity than a paper mill. I also feel like it does a disservice to not mention the codes that govern this design such as NFPA, and FM global data sheets. Feel free to ask any question about sprinkler systems and I will try to answer them best I can.
Informative and well put together. Fire safety should be taught in schools at an early age. I remember being taught basic fire safety in school and it’s come in handy since.
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Did you mention the Grenfell Tower disaster (London, UK; 14 June 2017) where the flawed application of the stay-put strategy was tragically compromised by the building's flammable exterior cladding?
Originally Grenfell was going to be a big part of this video but was cut early. If I had the energy I would have added it back as I think it shows how the regulations have gone from bad to good. I did listen to about 10 episodes of the Grenfell Podcast and much of Barbara Lane testimony as one of the experts called to testify on the cause of the fire and the sufficiency of the fire protection measures
@@Lam IIRC, one of the main reasons so many people died in Grenfell Tower (apart from the cladding burning fast and the smoke entering the windows) was that the stairwell had several doors propped open, letting smoke get everywhere. Is that correct?
@@c2h7 There are many factors caused stairwell to fill with the smokes, doors propped open by fire service passing hoses through from floor below, smoke vent in the lobby only operate one floor at the time, stairwell door only have 20 mins fire rating (if I remember correctly), gas pipe run through stairwell and fire stopping boxing wasn't completed allowing fire and smoke to enter, many flat's front door non-compliant which failed in 15 mins instead of 30 mins (some may have been left wide open if tenant removed door closer) this contribute to filling lobby and stairwell with smoke. And lastly "stay put" ONLY applied if compartment (flat) isn't breached and not spreading fire to adjacent flats. Should be evacuated immediately upon compartment breach.
I really would like to take a second to give a genuine thanks to all the fire fighters and engineers and any respondents. Dying in a fire is probably my number 1 worst way to die, and I really can't imagine the horror of those who perished in such situations. It makes me feel much better knowing there are people who take these risks extremely importantly and do their best to implement any way to reduce chance of death by fire. If I wasn't already in another branch of engineering I honestly would probably have been interested in such things because it really does save lives
A few of the buildings were I lived in Toronto had pressurised hallways that were marketed as keeping cooking odors out of the hallways, I had often wondered if they would keep the hallways clear of smoke as well. Now I know thank you.
One of things that's also important is the consistency and sensitivity of the building's automatic fire detection system. This past summer, I lived in a newly constructed apartment building that has per suite fire detectors, automatic fire doors that are opening during normal use but closes when the system detects a fire, insulated fire escape elevators, and many other advanced features. The only problem is the overly sensitive fire detection system kept triggering and ordering whole building evacuation from people smoking weed in their apartments. After the third such evacuation, 90% of the residents no longer evaculate, which meant the state-of-art automatic system in advertently caused more complacency due to an incorrect setup.
13:30 "you are usually safer staying in your own flat unless heat or smoke is affecting you" I mean.... that WAS fine advice in for instance the UK for a long time, until about 2 decades ago when they started allowing buildings to have their facades refurbished with composite panel cladding containing polyethylene or polyurethane foam insulation; and then as billions around the world saw in 2017 it turned Grenfell Tower into a giant barbecue for people, killing dozens. I'm in the US where this was never allowed for high-rise buildings, so I don't know if they've been able to remove all that cladding on every affected building in the UK so the original advice is true once again, but I doubt it. Anyway, there are plenty of other countries around the world where lots of buildings have the same problem, no recognition of the danger, and little to no oversight on matters of fire safety, so you always need to know the specific situation your particular building is in wherever you are.
Yeah, I'm sad I cut that story and then didn't have the energy at the end to put it back in. The cladding fires issue has it's own wikipedia page and I was falling the Grenfell Inquiry podcast to learn the technical details. Stay put is being debated especially as it's often the first and only strategy in the UK whereas other countries factor in escaping much more. Originally I had much more on what to do for fire safety but I didn't want to turn this into a PSA
Id love to see a video on how high rises defend against tornadoes or other severe weather. There have been some rather close calls with Oklahoma City, I believe. I imagine they’d naturally perform better than even a well engineered home, since the things are so heavy, and are built to sway and whatnot. Ditto if fire protection in office buildings has advanced too, particularly after 9/11.
Your videos are so mesmerizing to watch and much more well-placed and structured than most youtubers. I get a lot of satisfaction out of watching them, and any length of time is worth the wait for this kind of quality! Keep it up
True. I was once in an apartment fire in a NYC apartment building (on Park Ave and 65th street, no less). The fire started in the elevator shaft but was trapped there. Even smoke was contained. We only noticed the true seriousness of the situation when our dog, a German Shepherd passed out from smoke inhalation (plus panic), and we had to evacuate through the exterior fire escape.
Wow! Great content and pertinent to everyday living for all. As a firefighter, you did an awesome job. One suggestion would be adding some simple things to do such as blocking door openings with towels and if needing to leave in smoke, use a wet towel to breath through as a filter. Great job. Definitely sharing. SW
there was this incident that happened in china were a cheap apartment burned down and collapsed, i dont remember how many people died but it was quite a lot.
I just experienced my second fire in this building just last week. What I found amazing was how clueless me and my neighbors were about what to do. We found a spare key open the apartment and extinguished the flames with an extinguisher but opening the door only allowed the smoke out at that point we exited the building and waiting for the fire department. I can't stress this enough, have a plan and follow all the safety rules they teach you. Thank you for the video.
I love your channel, and this video in particular! As a person who has a lot of fire-anxiety, and as an engineer, this video gave me a lot of appreciation for modern technology and the hard work of countless people to keep society safe
The Emergency Operators told the people in Grenfell Tower London to "Stay Put" and most of them died! Granted, it was caused by the wrong materials used on the building, but I think I'd rather take my chance and run.
That "natural vs synthetic" clip at 10:40 is really shocking. P.S. The Iroquois Theater advertised itself as "absolutely fireproof". The fire occurred only a month after it opened.
High rise buildings are required to have special fire alarms called speaker strobes. These can give directions on what to do. If the alarm says to stay in your room, stay. If you leave, it could clog up the stairs, and firefighters wont be able to get up, resulting in more deaths. Only leave if the alarm says to leave.
I live in Texas and one of my jobs is fitting fire doors in new buildings. Never really thought much of it but after watching the vid I realized that my home is outdated and extremely flammable. I have replaced a few doors and have gotten a fire extinguisher for each large room and the hallway. Thanks for making me be a safer more aware man
It was a lot for sure. Multiple revisions on the storyline and many times I thought of saying "that's enough" and going with what I had. Thanks for enjoying it and recognizing the effort ❤️
I’m a building services engineer. Where I come from, fire protection systems are usually among the first systems to be “value engineered” out of the project when funds are tight. We haven’t had major fires in the short history that the country has been in existence which makes property owners think that they are saving money when they ignore these systems.
Well an apartment fire can't kill anyone if they've all been evacuated due to structural failures beforehand lol. So Opal tower residents are still safe.
Saying the media uproar is what's making people more scared of high-rise building fires is missing the point a little bit, especially in the case of the Grenfell Tower fire. You say the line "when a high rise has the right engineering", but Grenfell has proved that sadly, we can't just assume that no corners have been cut.
A fire broke out in my dorm's building, and as I hurriedly made my way to the ground floor, I reached the fire door, but it refused to open. I felt an overwhelming surge of frustration and anger in that moment. After, management did not believe me, but the camera's told my truth. I moved out shortly after.
Thanks! I'd check out the guides below and if you're super keen go talk to the firefighters that service your area. Likely they have preplanning on your building and what they would like you to do in a fire based on that information and how they respond.
12:07 fire services can actually employ makeshift overpressure zones. We have dedicated fans for that. On top of that our station usually sends a team to set up the correct ventilation requirements for this as part of the scouting in such buildings. Another reason why you should not try to leave through a smoke filled staircase, we can make it safe, even older ones.
I was reading about positive pressure ventilation! I was originally going to make a video about firefighting but pivoted. That's an interesting tidbit about the way stairways are made safe that I didn't know about
@@Lam basically what you do is close all the doors to the stairway, including and especially the way to the fire. Then you create an opening that is smaller than the intake (usually the door) and then turn on the ventilator. You can usually extend that to an entire hallway for one level of a building if you open the "exhaust" at the end of that hallway, (it's not really an exhaust, just so there is a flow of air and not smoke from the fire pushed through the cracks as there is no where for the air to go). This way you can safely evacuate level by level even when the building is fully smoke filled when you arrive. It's super cool to see when you have it running. Also way better for residents ladder trucks and emergency respirator hoods.
Thanks for appreciating it! I was wondering if that would go noticed. It would have been even better if I decided to film with the sun in my face but I didn't want to haha
Here in New Mexico a lot of buildings use Stucco which helps wonderfully. In my neighborhood the exposed pilot light to an old water heater ignited paint fumes causing the garage door of the building to shoot across into the street. The house was burned from the inside, the owner wasn't home at the time and survived, and the fire never left the property despite the large amount of flammable waste in the house.
As a Toronto person, you'll know the alarm systems in new condos have made condo fires MORE dangerous due to the ridiculous frequency of false alarms. But hey... at least my de-facto "meh, I aint going anywhere" reaction to a fire alarm turns out to be the correct one.
16.23 The fire rapid fire spread was caused by flammable cladding on the outside of the building which quickly engulfed the whole of the building in flames. Many died in smoke filled exits or in their rooms because they were told to stay put. Similar situations had occurred in other high rise buildings where fire had spread to other parts of the building but it was not acted upon. So much for good design and Regulations in the UK! The Grenfell Tower enquiry is ongoing.
Where i live we build every apartment that is not ground floor with fire protection typically 90 minutes. Its worth saying that fire proof wood structures does exist.Wood is not quite as flammable as people might think. We have wood building that will not burn down even in a major fire.
lol not my apartment. My downstairs neighbor's dog can fart and I will smell it in my apt. Creaky ass wood flooring and structure. This building, a good fire would take to the ground in 25 mins. (I've been on over 500 structure fires in my life... I know how quick this building would go. )
Something rarely mentioned but very hazardous is a homes bathroom fan that removed steam and heat. When these fans get old noisy and struggle to turn on they become massive fire hazards. Energy is put into the motor but isn’t properly used so it is used as heat until it combust. These fire are hot enough to ignite older attic insulation or dry wall even without flames touching it The attic fire will burn without smoke and flame and because there are no smoke detectors in the attic you have no alarm. These fires are found when the entire roof burns out or you find the burnt fan and decided to replace the entire metal housing (the fortunate thing I did) and feel heat pouring out of the attic You could install fire alarms in the attic, or there are fire extinguisher ‘bombs’ that set off from some heat and put out all fires in a smaller space
This door issue is a common problem in buildings in New York. I don't know why, but as buildings get older, the doors don't fit in their frames any more and either can't close because they don't fit in their frames at all, or won't latch closed because (again) they don't fit in their frames squarely.
I lived in a brand new very high rise (first resident in my condo) and the fire door on one of the two stairways was always left open. Made a point to close it every time I walked by, but it was shocking to me that a several month old building didn’t even have a properly closing fire door in the stair well. A few months later there was a small fire in a penthouse, but small enough that all the damage was water damage to a few floors below.
I used to live in Sunnyvale, CA and our apartment building code dictated heavy fire doors on each unit at the hallway. (This was a 3-story building with 135 units.) My current apartment, built in 2016 in San Jose, CA has flimsy wood panel doors that you can stab with a screwdriver (happened to a neighbor). It's 6 stories high, 102 units, wood frame construction. Our instructions are to use the fire exit stairs any time our smoke detector or the building fire alarm goes off. However, most people have stopped evacuating because there are so many false alarms. Some tenants tamper with the wiring (because they're tweakers?) and the system goes off at intervals until repaired. Other tenants just pull the fire alarm in the hallway because they like to see the fire department roll up with lights and sirens. (The fire department hates our building by now.) We also haven't had building-wide alarms when there were fires because of all the damage to the system. However, the fire sprinklers have always worked to keep fires limited to the apartment where it started, even when there is smoke in the hallway after tenants opened the door to air out a cooking fire (and the chemicals from the stove hood fire stoppers). Each studio apartment has a sprinkler in the kitchen area, the bathroom, the living area, the sleeping area, under the overhang in the sleeping area where the bathroom fan exhausts outside, both enclosed closets, and the area between the closets. The main problem here is flooding of the adjacent units and everything below to the ground floor.
10:47 the Wilton Paes de Almeida building, a "modern towering inferno" was an abandoned building that was occupied by homeless people and it didin't had any safety feature, and to get things worse, some structural pillas were removed by the invasors, because it was taking too much space of their "units"...
When I lived in a building like this a unit on my floor caught fire and I didn’t even realize the alarm was going off because of headphones. I only noticed when fire trucks started coming and I saw the lights flashing. Stayed inside until it was over.
How can you talk about shelter in place in the UK without mentioning Grenfell Tower? Shelter in place doesn't work when recent modifications to the building have turned it into a fire hazard and similar high rise buildings with the same cladding issue are currently all over the UK with people living in them.
I am thankful for all those fire extinguishers in buildings. They're great for keeping those heavy doors open when i have to take heavy tools with me on my way to one of the technical rooms. (or "how to defeat two layers of fire protection in one simple step")
Literally 6 days ago there was a fire in my apartment building and instead of listening to the FD I ran down the stairs to see the action. Turns out I developed a “sinus infection” and upper respiratory problems from the smoke😅
I am SO glad to hear they have fire evacuation elevators!! That was always one of my biggest worries: what if a resident on a higher floor is physically incapable of using stairs, and how are they evacuated? (Some people literally have conditions where falling into a parachute could end their life; one condition, muscle turns to bone every time there's scar tissue; another condition, the bones shatter like glass... there's other conditions too, and an elevator is just so much safer, for so many reasons...)
i didnt beleive mt school when they said that the building got a 10/10 on the fire safety test conducted by the Ministry of education and higher education, until i saw this video, the school also taught us to stay un our classrooms and activate the fire expulsion system, the building had every safety feature you just showed, i feel much more confident that im not gonna burn to death at school now
Building engineers are the real hero's They are the ones who truly save lives. This is why the number of structure fires have dropped dramatically over the years and why fire dept's have resorted to having to needlessly chase Ambulances to keep their call numbers up in order to justify their cushy high paying jobs. The public are so mislead about the truth. Sad how the people who truly deserve the credit seldom get any mention or glory by the media and others like Firefighters are so glorified by them.
Thank you for posting this video. It is especially timely, since so many people will be in some kind of public or recovery housing after the floods, hurricanes and fires, and it can be argued that many of them will be elderly. There is a grasping for contract dollars while skimming of duties that lead to bad outcomes, but there is also opportunity to build local capacity and eliminate bad builds. Firefighters will have to go into any mess that happens, and their risks should not be increased by 'good enough for this job'.
I’ve had an interest and fear of fires ever since I watched my best friend’s house burn to the ground. We were in grade 1. Her twin brother and sister perished together in their crib.
Tip: if you ever get stuck in house or apartment due to fire complete blocks your emergency exit. Go to bathroom if you can, turn on shower to keep your self wet and open the drain cover from shower stall or overflow tub cover, place long tube into drain to breath air or smash the toilet out of way and place tube into flange to get air.
I’m honestly very happy you’re not reviewing dash cams right now, you are doing an amazing job with your last few videos I never subscribe so quickly. Also hi from Toronto 👋
I've literally seen all of those crash bars (except the France one) just in Canada alone, lol. I really enjoyed this! This is the first one of your videos that I've watched; it just came up in my video feed at random. I'll take a look at what else you've got. Great work! Thanks for all of this great information put into one wonderful video!
I wouldn't say I live in a highrise apt complex, but they have many of those features. They have the water hookups in the stairs, of course the firefighter elevator thing, and the push bar doors, sprinklers, the basic stuff, I'm not sure about the hookup on the outside, or the vents in the stairwell, but I'm definitely gonna look next time I'm in their.
the ''firefighters using elevators'' part honestly surprised me, because every elevator has a sign saying "in case of fire, use the stairs" so i always thought elevators are not usable due to the heat breaking their systems... never would have guessed it was to save firefighters valuable time and effort to reach higher up areas in flats and other tall buildings
Such a cool video :D The idea of using a elevator in a fire is terrifying, all the instructions where I live are to never use an elevator during a fire
It goes against every bit of instruction in the last 20--30 years! The engineering and code standards for the new "Occupant Evacuation Elevators" were due to 9/11 as they discovered how long it can take to evacuate a skyscraper.
Super informative and interesting video! Just one thing - I spent the whole video wondering if my old apartment building had these safety features so the "In fact, the entire United Kingdom is educated on this" came as a bit of a surprise. I'm British. We are not educated on this. I've never seen that infomercial before despite plenty of fire awareness days at school during the 00's.
Thanks Rhys and good point so I did generalize it and just like any public safety education it's not going to get to everyone especially if you live in an area where there's not many highrise flats.
I am actually surprised you didn't mention anything about inflammable cladding applied to some older buildings. Not sure if they have them in Canada but the "stay put" policy was put into question as fire travels on the outside of the building and engulfs the entire building and there is nothing you can do other than hope the smoke gets you before the fire does.
Very informative video! I learned a lot about fire safety. For clarity, please consider replacing the word "as" in your scripts to show causal relationships. Since "as" is used to mean "concurrently," and to compare, and it's used in various types of grammatical clauses and phrases, its meaning can sometimes be unclear until the sentence has concluded. Therefore, using the words, "since," "because," "thus," and "therefore" make cause and effect relationships unmistakable. Thus, your content's information will be easier to digest for those with focus issues, processing issues, and those for whom English is a second language. We can absorb your wonderfully presented information without mentally re-contextualizing something because we thought you meant "as" to convey "meanwhile" when it turns out you meant "since." Thanks for all your hard work!
The conclusion is great, one extra factor is the sheer number of extra high rises that have been constructed around the world, often in newly developing areas that haven't gotten everything right immediately because they haven't been building many of them until recently. Yes they could copy-paste general rules and regulations from successful regions, but a good portion of the technical know-how of HOW to design all the intricacies of a great high-rise building are just hidden behind these successful property developers' private archives that new entrants don't have all the answers to. So just because they've just been building so many and each of them house so many more people than houses, you're seeing more news coverage on them.
I seriously loved how informative this was. I knew a good amount of it before, but the air circulation in the stairs and specific details about things like fireproof doors were new to me :).
Great video! I would like to question an implication you made about media sensationalism. At the end when you show a picture of the daily mail's front page after the Grenfell tower fire you said the media sensationalise the danger. The reason for the public outcry was not largely due to the perception of high-rises being dangerous; it was that the danger of living in a high rise seemed to be inversely proportional to your wealth. I am sure you are aware of the costcutting and regulatory failures that occurred during the tower's redevelopment. The media were highlighting that this was unlikely to happen at some of the 8 figure penthouse flats 10 minutes drive from the social housing that burnt down. Its a case that highlights that the enforcement of the regulations is as important as the regulations themselves, a point you made very clear with the firedoor comparison!
yeah, quite often high-risers are ending up with the foam insulation on the exterior and it's getting into flames just in a matter of minutes. like a candle.
In Brazil, our regulations require new buildings to have a 'smoke trap' room between the corridor and the emergency stairs, with its own vent so that smoke doesn't pass throught.
it is criminal that there was no clip shown of the rooftop exhaust fan spitting smoke out during a fire :( that system was the most interesting thing to me, would have been nice to see it in action
I'm just glad that in my apartment, I'm on the first floor and so I can just smash threw a window and get out. But yeah, for older buildings, people above you can have their apartments burn up as windows shatter from heat shock and embers flow into the apartment above.
Yeah that almost happened in a BC fire! Luckily the fire department arrived in time. But it wouldn't have spread across the rest of the building quickly
This is pretty cool. I'm an electrical engineer so I always flip right past the fire stuff when I'm reading the code books or plans. I'm familiar with fire ratings on walls but didn't know they encase the conduit passing through walls in that fire resistant goo.
Yep, a major issue is that contractors can go in and punch holes in walls without knowing that they have to be patched with the right firestopping materials. Easy to overlook though as each trade has their own specializations.
After years of consistent false alarms with one siren installed in my bed room... I made the siren more accurate by smashing it to pieces. So far it's accurate all of the time and I reduced the risk of getting disoriented by the extremely loud noise. I no longer evacuate the building when I hear the alarm in the hallway. I give fire-fighters the middle finger when they come tearing through the street with ear piercing alarms on their way to the next false alarm risking lives of other road users. I did learn something though. I took the powerful restraint off my fireproof front door because it was unusable that way. Still not putting it back but I try to remember to close the door behind me when it's on fire. What I do to prepare when the alarm goes... I inspect my apartment for fire, smoke or smells. Then inspect the hallway and inspect the building from my balcony and go back to bed. I am familiar with the official escape routes and have an alternate involving some climbing and a ready rope. Screw the regulations. They are hamfisted and stupid. Meanwhile my building manager refuses to deal with the grease saturated and blocked rangehood ducts which in fact are a huge fire risk. They refuse to keep the concrete stairwell clean which has gotten rather slippery. And at one stage refused to remove stored furniture from a fire escape route. I hope you can understand my attitude towards fire regulations.😮
I lived in a high rise building before. The fire alarm went off so me and my parents went down 28 flights of stairs. When we got down i saw firemen but i think the fire was in the other building and was small.
That's only in modern concrete+steel pan floor construction. Older multi story housing have wooden floors and joists which allows the fire to spread between floors.
Maybe not for high rises, I believe for that classification of building they moved to steel even since the 1871 great chicago fire for many highrise buildings (not at once). For mid rises even today they have wooden floors and joists. Of course I don't know every standard or situation.
"The entire UK is educated on this (stay put policies)." I do fire risk assessments of various properties and I have met absolutely no one who trusts a stay put policy, ESPECIALLY after Grenfell. And after some of the crap I've seen contractors call 'safe' I really don't blame them.
I live on the third floor of a 4 story building in Los Angeles which finished construction in 2021. I feel confident that I’ll be fine if there’s a fire now
As a fire engineer, I have to say: extremely well done!
I liked your focus on stay put/shelter in place policies, that’s generally what we want people to do in the UK. However, as this is for an international audience, I’d like to touch on a few points:
Know your building
Get familiar with the plans and notices posted in YOUR building. Know and follow their advice. Know your escape routes. Know what to do when you hear the fire alarm go off. This goes for your home as well as your place of work.
Don’t fight the fire
Unless there is a very small fire, outdoors, on a calm day, you a) won’t be doing much with a fire extinguisher anyways and b) risk smoke inhalation, which has extremely dangerous short and long term effects.
Stand up for your fire safety
Make sure access and egress routes are clear. Talk to neighbours who block the hallways with unnecessary items. Don’t let people park illegally in fire lanes, not even for a few minutes. Demand that your buildings fire equipment is serviced regularly, make sure fire doors close well and close automatically. If your building managers refuse to do something, talk to your city’s fire department, they can conduct an inspection and enforce the fire code.
Get involved
Some cities have volunteer firefighters, others have other volunteer positions. If you want, get involved, they’ll be happy to welcome you.
Other aspects of your video I’d like to comment on:
Sprinklers
Sprinklers are, as you said, an additional layer of protection. Without other measures like working compartmentalization, their effectiveness is limited, at least in a residential setting.
External insulation
External wall insulation, like styrofoam based cladding, can be a risk in high rise buildings, if it doesn’t respect the compartmentalization and spans multiple units without fire breaks. The most prominent example of this is Grenfell tower, which did prompt further investigation and updates to fire codes and procedures world wide.
All in all, a fantastic video with well researched information. I loved that you linked additional resources in the description. Thank you!
Thanks for all your hard work in bringing up this information. I'm going to add the "get to know your building" part to the description.
I encountered a lot of what you mentioned and ultimately ended up cutting most of it as I wanted to focus on the engineering instead of the "what to do in the fire" element of it.
Yes as a multiple decade volunteer fireman I totally agree.
Also great video! And important, if you have no safe way if escaping, make yourself visible! Heck even call 911/112 even if fire services are already on scene.
We can use special ventilation techniques to clear the staircases or in extreme cases come to you and provide you with an emergency air supply hood and get you out even through smoked staircases.
@@dgnikon There is no way I'd stay in place if I lived in one of these towers. Doing so puts your life in the hands of multiple layers of people doing their jobs properly. And frankly, that right there is the whole absurdity of staying in place.
Keeping the fire isolated to one part of the structure requires the architect did their job properly, the builder including all subcontractors all did their jobs properly (adhering to fire codes) and (as in Grenfell Tower) no unsafe modifications or additions have been made to the structure that completely compromise the isolation system.
Of all the things I've learned over the years, trusting people to do things properly isn't one of them. Experience has taught me people are stupid, moronic, lazy, unskilled, inept, take shortcuts out of laziness or penny pinching (upping their profit), don't do their research (Grenfell Tower insulation installers), don't care (Grenfell Tower insulation installers), and building inspectors suffer all of the above which is why things like Grenfell Tower happen.
Staying in place requires trusting ALL THESE PEOPLE to have done their jobs properly. WTF?
If I lived in one of these structures I'd have full face masks and 15 minute air tanks for them, for myself and all my family members plus a couple spare for guests. And the same number of fire blankets. And if a fire did break out in the building we'd leave and nobody would stop us.
Portable air and leaving at the first opportunity would have saved everyone in Grenfell Tower.
@@dgnikon wasn't that what happened in Dubai, where the high rise lit up like a candle because the insulation caught fire. But in total the building was pretty safe, as I remember the fire stayed on the outside.
In germany there was an apartment building where the fire started on the balcony, spread out over the insulation to other balconies (was a stormy day), shattered the windows resulting in a total loss of the building, I think there were no fatalities since the alarm worked, but staying inside would have resulted in death.
Firefighter from the U.S. here. I love what you said near the end about the dangers of house fires next to highrise apartment fires. Houses built in the modern day are filled to the brim with synthetic materials, like plastics and foams. These building materials, while significantly cheaper, are also extremely dangerous in fires. When they burn, they give off extremely toxic byproducts, be it by smoke, or gas.
Another thing that you touched on, but I really want to emphasize.
ALWAYS SLEEP WITH YOUR DOOR CLOSED!!! This gives you waaayyy more time to react to your smoke alarms (assuming they work, of course (change the batteries when they ask you to, please!)) and either escape, or shelter in place effectively. Even those cheap and hollow interior residential doors can keep you safe from extreme heat or fire for several minutes.
I found it interesting how houses became more dangerous because of innovation. Things got better except when a fire breaks out.
You're right on closing the door, hopefully more people will do that after watching this video
@@Lam Maybe you should look at some data on this. Look at the NFPA for the US and similar agencies for Canada and the rest of the developed world. You will find the both outright and relative deaths, injuries, and damage has decreased for single family dwellings (along with apartments and multifamily dwellings) over the last 4 decades. Deaths in single family dwellings are less than a third of what they were in 1980 when you look at deaths per million people, the value that really matters when comparing stats. Along with this, house fires are down by half despite there being way more homes today. Homes, just like cars, are safety than they ever have been. Apathy to data, survivor bias, and the insistence of the good old days were better are the bain of improving the world around us. Firefighters have spent the last 6 decades making themselves less and less needed in modern society, and that is a very good thing.
@@adamliske it seems that fires are less common, but the fires that do happen are worse. My guess is that a lot of the reduced risk of fire comes with increased safeguards to electrical standards in homes!
I live in a house built in 1938 and while it's generally in great condition and I'm pretty sure the electrical stuff in the kitchen has been updated (probably as of 2008 or so based on the age of the appliances when we moved in?) I wouldn't be surprised if there's a hodgepodge of wiring from different decades throughout the house. Gutting the electrical system is something we're planning to do as soon as we can afford jt
so why arent we updating in infroming people cause i been taught to get out and not take evelators during a fire
@@critter2 it depends on the building. If you live in a high rise, read the posted safety information in your building and/or ask the building management. Modern buildings with many apartments should be built so fires stay contained in one unit. Older buildings might not be. Smaller buildings probably won't be. Regardless, if you do need to leave, you still need to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Before firefighters get there, any residents who are physically unable to take the stairs (e.g. they use a wheelchair, they've recently had knee surgery) need to be able to use it because it's their only way out. Once firefighters are there, they need access to the elevator
Hi Andrew, I'm a fire alarm technician in Florida. I have to say you did your research on this and your information was flawless. I take my job very serious knowing that lives could be at stake. A big part of fire saftey is knowing what to do when there is a fire present in the building that a individual is at. I hope your videos reaches way more people.
Thanks Dillon!
This doesn’t apply in the UK. Many buildings still have the same cladding as the Grenfell tower, the residents are unable to sell their flats and move away because they are knowingly not fire-safe, the building managers won’t remove the cladding because there’s no government pressure to do so and the residents can’t remove it themselves. They are forced to live in a deathtrap
I'm pretty sure there IS government pressure, which is exactly why 100s if not 1000s of buildings are currently being re-clad.
@@mdhazeldine Zero laws outlawing the cladding or requiring firebreaks in the cladding have been passed. Any recladding of buildings is being done by the owners of the buildings at their own expense, not because they were forced to. Any pressure on the building owner to do so is coming strictly from the residents. And for towers like Grenfell which are owned by the local council, pressure from residents don't matter as much as whether the local council member that would vote to pay for that is concerned they'd lose their seat or not. If they're in an area where voters want to limit spending on their council housing and vote accordingly, they're not likely to approve that kind of spending.
And frankly, what I've learned about UK's fire safety codes since Grenfell is just baffling to me. London's burned down how many times? And yet their fire codes aren't as strict as the US's. It's a weird position for me to be in cuz usually the UK's got better safety laws in general, but not when it comes to fire!
@@SadisticSenpai61 That type of cladding is currently illegal to use now, but older examples are grandfathered. However, that cladding does not last forever. So as it needs to be replaced, the situation improves.
@@SadisticSenpai61 You are mostly correct as far as I know and hopefully soon you will be far less correct.
The UK government, through a number of bodies, is reviewing building safety regulations right now, this includes Approved Document B, BS9991 and BS9999, with particular focus on tall residential buildings, and will be publishing more information over the next couple of years and the information coming out already is being reviewed by industry experts.
Parallel to this, building fire safety is under review by major architectural/multidisciplinary studios and fire engineers.
The new gateways for planning approval are already raising the standard of fire safety design and we will see the results of that in new builds as designers are now being held to a higher standard that the current standards and regulations, which is a little confusing for all, but will work itself out.
The push for the ability for disabled residents to easily be able to evacuate a building without assistance is also making a difference, in particular with the New London Plan in regard to evacuation and fire lifts, although these high standards are also being applied to other projects in the UK.
And on top of that there is the new standards coming out for the recording of fire safety information following the Golden Thread and including that in digital construction information, digital construction/BIM models coming from fire engineers, and the new addition of FIREie coming soon, which is similar to COBie BIM information, but for fire risk management.
I could go on, but my comment is getting pretty long already.
TLDR: Stuff is happening and the standard for fire safety is being improved in the UK in every way that the industry can think of.
Grenfell is a national disgrace, since due to austerity, the refurbishment was approved by a surveyor employed by the development company. The government surveyors only did the admin and no physical inspection.
Their were 2 reasons why the fire spread.
The first was due to NONE of the 200 fire barriers that would have contained the fire to the exterior area covered by one apartment being fitted. These would have held the fire for 30 minutes, prior to it moving on to the next area.
The second (and far worse) problem was 3 inches of flammable insulation applied to the building first.
Most installations, although not 100%, would not allow a fire to spread rapidly, so they need to be checked by competent qualified surveyors.
Panic removal of the cladding is not the answer, unless it has been checked and deemed unsafe.
PS.
If you have not already guessed, I am a UK chartered engineer, (now retired).
I'm a fire sprinkler designer who has designed systems for a dozen and a half high rises. I absolutely appreciate this video! High rises absolutely are safer than most other buildings due to the large number of extra requirements, even just for the fire sprinkler system itself. Thanks for helping educate the general public on such an important topic!!
You've got a new subscriber. Also, shout out to Seneca College in Toronto for my education.
Thanks James! I was looking at Seneca fire protection program at one point to see if I could talk to people there. Seems like a great school.
sprinkler's in 3000SF home 🏡 garage's/shop's/parking and more so with larger 100KW BEV how do you feel/collages/data about it pro or against it i image a car like a 2018 hemi hellcat randomly self fuel and or electric fire when parked and occupencs are in bedroom in bed sleeping it's helpful but metallic fire's my understanding is it can act as a catalyst and increase and spread the smoke and fire 🔥
Can you share some of your knowledge as to the cleanliness of sprinkler water? Movies make it seem like perfectly fine tap water comes out, while I have heard tales that (especially in older buildings that never had a big fire in them) it can be so gunky that it's almost a brown sludge pouring down.
What's your experience with older and poorly maintained sprinkler systems? Asking specifically about poorly maintained ones because I can't see many businesses (and much less households) regularly cleaning the pipes.
@@CrotaroThis may depend on location by the water in our buildings were basically the same water as the city water. The water has to be clean to keep the pipes in good running order....especially the sprinklers. I didnt do the sprinkler systems so I could be wrong...we did the firestop materials,fireboard,firestop "caulking".
Ive seen the sprinklers in action and its nearly a heavy mist...like the stuff youd see coming from a pressure washer...but less air(very wet). The water couldnt be dirty or the sprinklers wouldnt last very long and would likely get clogged up.
@@CrotaroA 13-D home system, using special plastic pipe, or a 13 commercial system in a high-rise, office building or a distribution center? In a commercial system the first water out is dark and has a particular smell. There are special valve assemblies that keep it from going back into the municipal water main system. The home system isn’t much different from your plumbing system, just don’t drink it.
I think this is why IT people are notorious for shutting off sprinkler systems. See Ocado fire in the U.K. Great sprinkler system, right up until it was turned off during the fire. Worried about water and computers, they tend to be the cause of their buildings burning to the ground. Someone should tell them computers are cheap.
I work for a big city FD and the biggest problem we have in appartement buildings (low and high rise) is people wedging fire doors open or interfering with the automatic closing systems. It basically bypasses all the protection of a fire break and spreads smoke everywhere. It's more common in poorly maintained buildings often owned by slumlords but I've also seen it in public housing and expensive condo towers.
Only a few days ago we ran a 3am call for a small trash fire in the basement garbage room of a 4 floor 60 apt building, all the hallway and stairs fire doors were jammed open so though the fire was small and never spread from the room, all the stairwells and hallways were filled with smoke. It happens too often.
Exactly, sheltering in place depends on these complex fire proofing systems to actually work. And it requires the Grenfell Tower not to happen where combustible material was used in the construction. I don't care what anyone says, it's safer to evacuate buildings while it's safe to do so rather than tell people shelter in place until it's no longer safe to evacuate. I'm not sitting around counting on a complex fire proof system to save my life when we have multiple examples of it getting people killed and there's 0% chance of me burning to death OUTSIDE the building.
This is why education is so important! I’m 25 and love to study and learn but I’ve never understood the function or importance of fire doors until this video. The extent of my fire training is stop drop and roll. I believe if we took the time to really educate people and let them know an open fire door is literally the difference between life and death almost no one would prop them open. And if someone did they’d probably be policed by others. But ofc people don’t care when no one really understands the significance of them. We just see them as the heavy doors that are always trying to close on you.
You've been knocking these info/story videos out of the park, amazing work again.
Thanks Austin! I'll try to keep doing it
9:00 Some sprinkler systems have flow sensors on them. So when they detect the water flowing (Meaning a sprinkler has been triggered) they trigger the fire alarm. I believe some people get that process backwards.
Good video about fire safety and how to properly react to fires in buildings. I work as a fire sprinkler engineer, and noticed a couple of small errors, nothing that changes the overall message of the video just things that bother someone who does this daily.
For standpipes, the GPM coming out of them is dependent on what class they are which is dependent on the type of building it is in. While there is a class of standpipes that is rated to give 150GPM, most are rated to output 250GPM out of at least two outlets simultaneously.
The response time of sprinklers comes in two varieties, standard response and quick response. You are correct in saying that townhomes and apartments are required to have quick response sprinklers, but many commercial buildings have quick response sprinklers as well. For the commercial sprinklers it does depend on what the building is used for to decide the sprinkler, as an office has much less fire capacity than a paper mill.
I also feel like it does a disservice to not mention the codes that govern this design such as NFPA, and FM global data sheets.
Feel free to ask any question about sprinkler systems and I will try to answer them best I can.
Informative and well put together. Fire safety should be taught in schools at an early age. I remember being taught basic fire safety in school and it’s come in handy since.
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Did you mention the Grenfell Tower disaster (London, UK; 14 June 2017) where the flawed application of the stay-put strategy was tragically compromised by the building's flammable exterior cladding?
Originally Grenfell was going to be a big part of this video but was cut early. If I had the energy I would have added it back as I think it shows how the regulations have gone from bad to good.
I did listen to about 10 episodes of the Grenfell Podcast and much of Barbara Lane testimony as one of the experts called to testify on the cause of the fire and the sufficiency of the fire protection measures
@@Lam IIRC, one of the main reasons so many people died in Grenfell Tower (apart from the cladding burning fast and the smoke entering the windows) was that the stairwell had several doors propped open, letting smoke get everywhere. Is that correct?
@@c2h7 There are many factors caused stairwell to fill with the smokes, doors propped open by fire service passing hoses through from floor below, smoke vent in the lobby only operate one floor at the time, stairwell door only have 20 mins fire rating (if I remember correctly), gas pipe run through stairwell and fire stopping boxing wasn't completed allowing fire and smoke to enter, many flat's front door non-compliant which failed in 15 mins instead of 30 mins (some may have been left wide open if tenant removed door closer) this contribute to filling lobby and stairwell with smoke. And lastly "stay put" ONLY applied if compartment (flat) isn't breached and not spreading fire to adjacent flats. Should be evacuated immediately upon compartment breach.
I really would like to take a second to give a genuine thanks to all the fire fighters and engineers and any respondents. Dying in a fire is probably my number 1 worst way to die, and I really can't imagine the horror of those who perished in such situations. It makes me feel much better knowing there are people who take these risks extremely importantly and do their best to implement any way to reduce chance of death by fire. If I wasn't already in another branch of engineering I honestly would probably have been interested in such things because it really does save lives
A few of the buildings were I lived in Toronto had pressurised hallways that were marketed as keeping cooking odors out of the hallways, I had often wondered if they would keep the hallways clear of smoke as well. Now I know thank you.
One of things that's also important is the consistency and sensitivity of the building's automatic fire detection system. This past summer, I lived in a newly constructed apartment building that has per suite fire detectors, automatic fire doors that are opening during normal use but closes when the system detects a fire, insulated fire escape elevators, and many other advanced features. The only problem is the overly sensitive fire detection system kept triggering and ordering whole building evacuation from people smoking weed in their apartments. After the third such evacuation, 90% of the residents no longer evaculate, which meant the state-of-art automatic system in advertently caused more complacency due to an incorrect setup.
Yeah, that's unfortunate. Too bad they couldn't change how the alerts go out
13:30 "you are usually safer staying in your own flat unless heat or smoke is affecting you"
I mean.... that WAS fine advice in for instance the UK for a long time, until about 2 decades ago when they started allowing buildings to have their facades refurbished with composite panel cladding containing polyethylene or polyurethane foam insulation; and then as billions around the world saw in 2017 it turned Grenfell Tower into a giant barbecue for people, killing dozens. I'm in the US where this was never allowed for high-rise buildings, so I don't know if they've been able to remove all that cladding on every affected building in the UK so the original advice is true once again, but I doubt it. Anyway, there are plenty of other countries around the world where lots of buildings have the same problem, no recognition of the danger, and little to no oversight on matters of fire safety, so you always need to know the specific situation your particular building is in wherever you are.
Yeah, I'm sad I cut that story and then didn't have the energy at the end to put it back in. The cladding fires issue has it's own wikipedia page and I was falling the Grenfell Inquiry podcast to learn the technical details.
Stay put is being debated especially as it's often the first and only strategy in the UK whereas other countries factor in escaping much more.
Originally I had much more on what to do for fire safety but I didn't want to turn this into a PSA
I am currently condo shopping, this video will give me a lot of important things to look out for!
I’m in the fire protection industry . You did a great job explaining how these systems work and how they tie into each other
Id love to see a video on how high rises defend against tornadoes or other severe weather. There have been some rather close calls with Oklahoma City, I believe. I imagine they’d naturally perform better than even a well engineered home, since the things are so heavy, and are built to sway and whatnot. Ditto if fire protection in office buildings has advanced too, particularly after 9/11.
I'm an MEP/FP engineer, and this is spot on. Sadly combustible structure is making a comeback due to it's low cost and deregulation.
Your videos are so mesmerizing to watch and much more well-placed and structured than most youtubers. I get a lot of satisfaction out of watching them, and any length of time is worth the wait for this kind of quality! Keep it up
Thanks! Really appreciate the kind words and for noticing the effort in making these videos!
True. I was once in an apartment fire in a NYC apartment building (on Park Ave and 65th street, no less). The fire started in the elevator shaft but was trapped there. Even smoke was contained. We only noticed the true seriousness of the situation when our dog, a German Shepherd passed out from smoke inhalation (plus panic), and we had to evacuate through the exterior fire escape.
Wow! Great content and pertinent to everyday living for all. As a firefighter, you did an awesome job. One suggestion would be adding some simple things to do such as blocking door openings with towels and if needing to leave in smoke, use a wet towel to breath through as a filter. Great job. Definitely sharing. SW
there was this incident that happened in china were a cheap apartment burned down and collapsed, i dont remember how many people died but it was quite a lot.
Yeah, unfortunately engineering standards are useless when it's not enforced or inspected. Really sad
I just experienced my second fire in this building just last week. What I found amazing was how clueless me and my neighbors were about what to do. We found a spare key open the apartment and extinguished the flames with an extinguisher but opening the door only allowed the smoke out at that point we exited the building and waiting for the fire department. I can't stress this enough, have a plan and follow all the safety rules they teach you. Thank you for the video.
I love your channel, and this video in particular! As a person who has a lot of fire-anxiety, and as an engineer, this video gave me a lot of appreciation for modern technology and the hard work of countless people to keep society safe
You're very welcome Andrew! Thank you!
The Emergency Operators told the people in Grenfell Tower London to "Stay Put" and most of them died! Granted, it was caused by the wrong materials used on the building, but I think I'd rather take my chance and run.
That "natural vs synthetic" clip at 10:40 is really shocking.
P.S. The Iroquois Theater advertised itself as "absolutely fireproof". The fire occurred only a month after it opened.
High rise buildings are required to have special fire alarms called speaker strobes. These can give directions on what to do. If the alarm says to stay in your room, stay. If you leave, it could clog up the stairs, and firefighters wont be able to get up, resulting in more deaths. Only leave if the alarm says to leave.
I live in Texas and one of my jobs is fitting fire doors in new buildings. Never really thought much of it but after watching the vid I realized that my home is outdated and extremely flammable. I have replaced a few doors and have gotten a fire extinguisher for each large room and the hallway. Thanks for making me be a safer more aware man
The editing for this must of taking ages. well done. I watched this with my dad and it was really good
It was a lot for sure. Multiple revisions on the storyline and many times I thought of saying "that's enough" and going with what I had. Thanks for enjoying it and recognizing the effort ❤️
2 days
I’m a building services engineer. Where I come from, fire protection systems are usually among the first systems to be “value engineered” out of the project when funds are tight. We haven’t had major fires in the short history that the country has been in existence which makes property owners think that they are saving money when they ignore these systems.
Really enjoyed this video. May not be completely applicable to the laws in Australia, but certainly helps me ask relevant questions.
Well an apartment fire can't kill anyone if they've all been evacuated due to structural failures beforehand lol. So Opal tower residents are still safe.
Saying the media uproar is what's making people more scared of high-rise building fires is missing the point a little bit, especially in the case of the Grenfell Tower fire. You say the line "when a high rise has the right engineering", but Grenfell has proved that sadly, we can't just assume that no corners have been cut.
A fire broke out in my dorm's building, and as I hurriedly made my way to the ground floor, I reached the fire door, but it refused to open. I felt an overwhelming surge of frustration and anger in that moment. After, management did not believe me, but the camera's told my truth. I moved out shortly after.
Awesome video! I use to live in an apartment and would always wonder what the best plan of action would be!
Thanks! I'd check out the guides below and if you're super keen go talk to the firefighters that service your area. Likely they have preplanning on your building and what they would like you to do in a fire based on that information and how they respond.
12:07 fire services can actually employ makeshift overpressure zones.
We have dedicated fans for that. On top of that our station usually sends a team to set up the correct ventilation requirements for this as part of the scouting in such buildings.
Another reason why you should not try to leave through a smoke filled staircase, we can make it safe, even older ones.
I was reading about positive pressure ventilation! I was originally going to make a video about firefighting but pivoted. That's an interesting tidbit about the way stairways are made safe that I didn't know about
@@Lam basically what you do is close all the doors to the stairway, including and especially the way to the fire. Then you create an opening that is smaller than the intake (usually the door) and then turn on the ventilator.
You can usually extend that to an entire hallway for one level of a building if you open the "exhaust" at the end of that hallway, (it's not really an exhaust, just so there is a flow of air and not smoke from the fire pushed through the cracks as there is no where for the air to go).
This way you can safely evacuate level by level even when the building is fully smoke filled when you arrive.
It's super cool to see when you have it running. Also way better for residents ladder trucks and emergency respirator hoods.
Taking a moment to appreciate the painstaking effort spent at 3:46 to align the camera & shot perfectly to blend in to the news story. Well done!
Thanks for appreciating it! I was wondering if that would go noticed. It would have been even better if I decided to film with the sun in my face but I didn't want to haha
I also noticed and liked it!
Here in New Mexico a lot of buildings use Stucco which helps wonderfully.
In my neighborhood the exposed pilot light to an old water heater ignited paint fumes causing the garage door of the building to shoot across into the street. The house was burned from the inside, the owner wasn't home at the time and survived, and the fire never left the property despite the large amount of flammable waste in the house.
As a Toronto person, you'll know the alarm systems in new condos have made condo fires MORE dangerous due to the ridiculous frequency of false alarms. But hey... at least my de-facto "meh, I aint going anywhere" reaction to a fire alarm turns out to be the correct one.
16.23 The fire rapid fire spread was caused by flammable cladding on the outside of the building which quickly engulfed the whole of the building in flames.
Many died in smoke filled exits or in their rooms because they were told to stay put.
Similar situations had occurred in other high rise buildings where fire had spread to other parts of the building but it was not acted upon.
So much for good design and Regulations in the UK!
The Grenfell Tower enquiry is ongoing.
Where i live we build every apartment that is not ground floor with fire protection typically 90 minutes.
Its worth saying that fire proof wood structures does exist.Wood is not quite as flammable as people might think. We have wood building that will not burn down even in a major fire.
lol not my apartment. My downstairs neighbor's dog can fart and I will smell it in my apt. Creaky ass wood flooring and structure. This building, a good fire would take to the ground in 25 mins. (I've been on over 500 structure fires in my life... I know how quick this building would go. )
Something rarely mentioned but very hazardous is a homes bathroom fan that removed steam and heat.
When these fans get old noisy and struggle to turn on they become massive fire hazards. Energy is put into the motor but isn’t properly used so it is used as heat until it combust. These fire are hot enough to ignite older attic insulation or dry wall even without flames touching it
The attic fire will burn without smoke and flame and because there are no smoke detectors in the attic you have no alarm. These fires are found when the entire roof burns out or you find the burnt fan and decided to replace the entire metal housing (the fortunate thing I did) and feel heat pouring out of the attic
You could install fire alarms in the attic, or there are fire extinguisher ‘bombs’ that set off from some heat and put out all fires in a smaller space
This door issue is a common problem in buildings in New York.
I don't know why, but as buildings get older, the doors don't fit in their frames any more and either can't close because they don't fit in their frames at all, or won't latch closed because (again) they don't fit in their frames squarely.
I lived in a brand new very high rise (first resident in my condo) and the fire door on one of the two stairways was always left open. Made a point to close it every time I walked by, but it was shocking to me that a several month old building didn’t even have a properly closing fire door in the stair well.
A few months later there was a small fire in a penthouse, but small enough that all the damage was water damage to a few floors below.
This video is insanely good! So many informative and vital concepts covered in an easily digestible manner.
I used to live in Sunnyvale, CA and our apartment building code dictated heavy fire doors on each unit at the hallway. (This was a 3-story building with 135 units.) My current apartment, built in 2016 in San Jose, CA has flimsy wood panel doors that you can stab with a screwdriver (happened to a neighbor). It's 6 stories high, 102 units, wood frame construction.
Our instructions are to use the fire exit stairs any time our smoke detector or the building fire alarm goes off. However, most people have stopped evacuating because there are so many false alarms. Some tenants tamper with the wiring (because they're tweakers?) and the system goes off at intervals until repaired. Other tenants just pull the fire alarm in the hallway because they like to see the fire department roll up with lights and sirens. (The fire department hates our building by now.) We also haven't had building-wide alarms when there were fires because of all the damage to the system.
However, the fire sprinklers have always worked to keep fires limited to the apartment where it started, even when there is smoke in the hallway after tenants opened the door to air out a cooking fire (and the chemicals from the stove hood fire stoppers). Each studio apartment has a sprinkler in the kitchen area, the bathroom, the living area, the sleeping area, under the overhang in the sleeping area where the bathroom fan exhausts outside, both enclosed closets, and the area between the closets. The main problem here is flooding of the adjacent units and everything below to the ground floor.
10:47 the Wilton Paes de Almeida building, a "modern towering inferno" was an abandoned building that was occupied by homeless people and it didin't had any safety feature, and to get things worse, some structural pillas were removed by the invasors, because it was taking too much space of their "units"...
Fire containment works. I know of a building where one unit was totally destroyed, but the other 400 units in the 20+ floor building were unaffected.
Thank you, Andrew. I never thought I'd find engineering content this exciting to watch.
Very interesting, high quality video. It even reached the Netherlands. Keep up this good work
All of these system is in my Japanese high rise apartment I was wondering what was that on 11:51 and now I know they do the critical job
As an architecture technologist learning about fire safety and ratings this helped extremely well! Thanks from Toronto!!
Properly communicated the message of fire safety, good job!
This was an incredibly impressive video. you are going places Mr. Lam
When I lived in a building like this a unit on my floor caught fire and I didn’t even realize the alarm was going off because of headphones. I only noticed when fire trucks started coming and I saw the lights flashing. Stayed inside until it was over.
How can you talk about shelter in place in the UK without mentioning Grenfell Tower? Shelter in place doesn't work when recent modifications to the building have turned it into a fire hazard and similar high rise buildings with the same cladding issue are currently all over the UK with people living in them.
I am thankful for all those fire extinguishers in buildings. They're great for keeping those heavy doors open when i have to take heavy tools with me on my way to one of the technical rooms.
(or "how to defeat two layers of fire protection in one simple step")
Literally 6 days ago there was a fire in my apartment building and instead of listening to the FD I ran down the stairs to see the action. Turns out I developed a “sinus infection” and upper respiratory problems from the smoke😅
Amazing content! ❤ Tho, I couldnt not notice Taiwan quietly being amongst the countries in your video. Brilliant 🎉
I am SO glad to hear they have fire evacuation elevators!! That was always one of my biggest worries: what if a resident on a higher floor is physically incapable of using stairs, and how are they evacuated? (Some people literally have conditions where falling into a parachute could end their life; one condition, muscle turns to bone every time there's scar tissue; another condition, the bones shatter like glass... there's other conditions too, and an elevator is just so much safer, for so many reasons...)
Very interesting, I work in love theatre on the technical side and the amount of fire safety engineering that goes into these spaces is incredible.
i didnt beleive mt school when they said that the building got a 10/10 on the fire safety test conducted by the Ministry of education and higher education, until i saw this video, the school also taught us to stay un our classrooms and activate the fire expulsion system, the building had every safety feature you just showed, i feel much more confident that im not gonna burn to death at school now
This was an excellently put together video, great job!
Oh wow! I never even knew about how it could be safer to stay put! Very cool video!
I wouldn't have thought that either!
So fun fact the FDC in a building with Fire Sprinklers can be used in some cases to bump up their pressure as well increasing effectiveness
Building engineers are the real hero's They are the ones who truly save lives. This is why the number of structure fires have dropped dramatically over the years and why fire dept's have resorted to having to needlessly chase Ambulances to keep their call numbers up in order to justify their cushy high paying jobs. The public are so mislead about the truth. Sad how the people who truly deserve the credit seldom get any mention or glory by the media and others like Firefighters are so glorified by them.
Thank you for posting this video. It is especially timely, since so many people will be in some kind of public or recovery housing after the floods, hurricanes and fires, and it can be argued that many of them will be elderly. There is a grasping for contract dollars while skimming of duties that lead to bad outcomes, but there is also opportunity to build local capacity and eliminate bad builds. Firefighters will have to go into any mess that happens, and their risks should not be increased by 'good enough for this job'.
I’ve had an interest and fear of fires ever since I watched my best friend’s house burn to the ground. We were in grade 1. Her twin brother and sister perished together in their crib.
Tip: if you ever get stuck in house or apartment due to fire complete blocks your emergency exit. Go to bathroom if you can, turn on shower to keep your self wet and open the drain cover from shower stall or overflow tub cover, place long tube into drain to breath air or smash the toilet out of way and place tube into flange to get air.
I’m honestly very happy you’re not reviewing dash cams right now, you are doing an amazing job with your last few videos I never subscribe so quickly. Also hi from Toronto 👋
Awesome content. I’m going into property management and they don’t teach you about the Fire Doors. This is very informative, thank you!
As a fire/life safety enthusiast, I can say this is beautifully explained.
Really appreciate the kind words!
@@Lam Haha, no problem. Keep it up!
I've literally seen all of those crash bars (except the France one) just in Canada alone, lol. I really enjoyed this! This is the first one of your videos that I've watched; it just came up in my video feed at random. I'll take a look at what else you've got. Great work! Thanks for all of this great information put into one wonderful video!
Thanks! This was filmed around Toronto so that's why you've seen them haha
@@Lam subscribed! 😁
I wouldn't say I live in a highrise apt complex, but they have many of those features. They have the water hookups in the stairs, of course the firefighter elevator thing, and the push bar doors, sprinklers, the basic stuff, I'm not sure about the hookup on the outside, or the vents in the stairwell, but I'm definitely gonna look next time I'm in their.
the ''firefighters using elevators'' part honestly surprised me, because every elevator has a sign saying "in case of fire, use the stairs" so i always thought elevators are not usable due to the heat breaking their systems... never would have guessed it was to save firefighters valuable time and effort to reach higher up areas in flats and other tall buildings
Such a cool video :D The idea of using a elevator in a fire is terrifying, all the instructions where I live are to never use an elevator during a fire
It goes against every bit of instruction in the last 20--30 years! The engineering and code standards for the new "Occupant Evacuation Elevators" were due to 9/11 as they discovered how long it can take to evacuate a skyscraper.
Super informative and interesting video! Just one thing - I spent the whole video wondering if my old apartment building had these safety features so the "In fact, the entire United Kingdom is educated on this" came as a bit of a surprise. I'm British. We are not educated on this. I've never seen that infomercial before despite plenty of fire awareness days at school during the 00's.
Thanks Rhys and good point so I did generalize it and just like any public safety education it's not going to get to everyone especially if you live in an area where there's not many highrise flats.
I am actually surprised you didn't mention anything about inflammable cladding applied to some older buildings. Not sure if they have them in Canada but the "stay put" policy was put into question as fire travels on the outside of the building and engulfs the entire building and there is nothing you can do other than hope the smoke gets you before the fire does.
Very informative video! I learned a lot about fire safety.
For clarity, please consider replacing the word "as" in your scripts to show causal relationships. Since "as" is used to mean "concurrently," and to compare, and it's used in various types of grammatical clauses and phrases, its meaning can sometimes be unclear until the sentence has concluded. Therefore, using the words, "since," "because," "thus," and "therefore" make cause and effect relationships unmistakable. Thus, your content's information will be easier to digest for those with focus issues, processing issues, and those for whom English is a second language. We can absorb your wonderfully presented information without mentally re-contextualizing something because we thought you meant "as" to convey "meanwhile" when it turns out you meant "since."
Thanks for all your hard work!
Thanks! I didn't know this was a thing. I'll see what I can do in the future
I can see how experiencing a fire can be psychologically painful for many people and traumatizing
The conclusion is great, one extra factor is the sheer number of extra high rises that have been constructed around the world, often in newly developing areas that haven't gotten everything right immediately because they haven't been building many of them until recently.
Yes they could copy-paste general rules and regulations from successful regions, but a good portion of the technical know-how of HOW to design all the intricacies of a great high-rise building are just hidden behind these successful property developers' private archives that new entrants don't have all the answers to.
So just because they've just been building so many and each of them house so many more people than houses, you're seeing more news coverage on them.
This is a very well written and researched video. Great job! -A fire safety enthusiast/ alarm collector.
I seriously loved how informative this was. I knew a good amount of it before, but the air circulation in the stairs and specific details about things like fireproof doors were new to me :).
Thanks!
Great video!
I would like to question an implication you made about media sensationalism. At the end when you show a picture of the daily mail's front page after the Grenfell tower fire you said the media sensationalise the danger. The reason for the public outcry was not largely due to the perception of high-rises being dangerous; it was that the danger of living in a high rise seemed to be inversely proportional to your wealth. I am sure you are aware of the costcutting and regulatory failures that occurred during the tower's redevelopment. The media were highlighting that this was unlikely to happen at some of the 8 figure penthouse flats 10 minutes drive from the social housing that burnt down. Its a case that highlights that the enforcement of the regulations is as important as the regulations themselves, a point you made very clear with the firedoor comparison!
Well researched, fantastically explained, great animation, easy sub.
We in the Netherlands are thaught to evade elevators during fire, because when loss of power happens, you can get trapped in one.
After your video on guardrails I’m happy to see you’ve done more like it!!
yeah, quite often high-risers are ending up with the foam insulation on the exterior and it's getting into flames just in a matter of minutes. like a candle.
In Brazil, our regulations require new buildings to have a 'smoke trap' room between the corridor and the emergency stairs, with its own vent so that smoke doesn't pass throught.
it is criminal that there was no clip shown of the rooftop exhaust fan spitting smoke out during a fire :( that system was the most interesting thing to me, would have been nice to see it in action
Your research is MIND BLOWING! Keep up your fantastic work!!🎉
I'm just glad that in my apartment, I'm on the first floor and so I can just smash threw a window and get out. But yeah, for older buildings, people above you can have their apartments burn up as windows shatter from heat shock and embers flow into the apartment above.
Yeah that almost happened in a BC fire! Luckily the fire department arrived in time. But it wouldn't have spread across the rest of the building quickly
This is pretty cool. I'm an electrical engineer so I always flip right past the fire stuff when I'm reading the code books or plans. I'm familiar with fire ratings on walls but didn't know they encase the conduit passing through walls in that fire resistant goo.
Yep, a major issue is that contractors can go in and punch holes in walls without knowing that they have to be patched with the right firestopping materials. Easy to overlook though as each trade has their own specializations.
After years of consistent false alarms with one siren installed in my bed room...
I made the siren more accurate by smashing it to pieces. So far it's accurate all of the time and I reduced the risk of getting disoriented by the extremely loud noise.
I no longer evacuate the building when I hear the alarm in the hallway.
I give fire-fighters the middle finger when they come tearing through the street with ear piercing alarms on their way to the next false alarm risking lives of other road users.
I did learn something though. I took the powerful restraint off my fireproof front door because it was unusable that way. Still not putting it back but I try to remember to close the door behind me when it's on fire.
What I do to prepare when the alarm goes...
I inspect my apartment for fire, smoke or smells. Then inspect the hallway and inspect the building from my balcony and go back to bed.
I am familiar with the official escape routes and have an alternate involving some climbing and a ready rope.
Screw the regulations. They are hamfisted and stupid.
Meanwhile my building manager refuses to deal with the grease saturated and blocked rangehood ducts which in fact are a huge fire risk.
They refuse to keep the concrete stairwell clean which has gotten rather slippery.
And at one stage refused to remove stored furniture from a fire escape route.
I hope you can understand my attitude towards fire regulations.😮
I lived in a high rise building before. The fire alarm went off so me and my parents went down 28 flights of stairs. When we got down i saw firemen but i think the fire was in the other building and was small.
That's only in modern concrete+steel pan floor construction. Older multi story housing have wooden floors and joists which allows the fire to spread between floors.
Maybe not for high rises, I believe for that classification of building they moved to steel even since the 1871 great chicago fire for many highrise buildings (not at once).
For mid rises even today they have wooden floors and joists.
Of course I don't know every standard or situation.
There were many in Grenfell Tower, London who died because of the "stay put" advice, and many who survived because they ignored it!
"The entire UK is educated on this (stay put policies)." I do fire risk assessments of various properties and I have met absolutely no one who trusts a stay put policy, ESPECIALLY after Grenfell. And after some of the crap I've seen contractors call 'safe' I really don't blame them.
I live on the third floor of a 4 story building in Los Angeles which finished construction in 2021. I feel confident that I’ll be fine if there’s a fire now
So that's not a high rise and you shouldn't take this advice on what to do. If there's a fire you need to get out