The Clandon Park Fire: Questions from a National Trust Member

Having read the Report of Fire prepared by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service I feel that a number of questions relating to the incident require clarification.

Whilst the report is entitled Report of Fire it does not outline in any great detail very much information about the fire safety history of the building and tends to concentrate more on the cause. However, with any serious fire like this what happened before, during and after the fire tells us more about what really happened and why?

Two months ago before the publication of this report I made these comments about the fire:

“It is so sad to see buildings like this devastated by fire when we have so much technology and expertise available today to help us prevent such occurrences.

“As can be seen by the structure that remains, many of the internal and external walls remain intact and so the fire appears to have spread both vertically and horizontally at a very rapid pace – so why did this happen? Was it because of poor fire separation or inadequate fire detection systems, perhaps the staff fire procedures were not good enough or could it have been a poor fire risk assessment or a combination of all of these factors?

“What of course we do know is that if fires start in these old buildings the results can be devastating and sprinklers would certainly have helped but there is a reluctance to install these types of systems in buildings like this due to cost and disruption. These days there have been tremendous advances in fire detection and warning technology and there are systems that can detect very small shouldering fires and alert the occupiers and fire service in minutes. In addition to this there are materials and methods available today that can improve the fire resistance of doors and structures without detracting from the overall appearance – so were these installed here or were they too costly as well?”

Unfortunately, today we rely on what is called a Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) which is usually a piece of paper completed by a competent person that looks at the building and the various fire safety features and factors and decides if the building is safe – as there were no reported injuries it could be said that the FRA did what was intended but what about the loss to our nation – well that is for the National Trust to answer.”

The National Trust replied and indicated that they were waiting for the fire service report and I replied, “whilst the fire service report is important I would have thought that your report was more pertinent as it should give a more comprehensive picture of what happened prior to the fire”.

We now have the fire service report but I feel that we now need to see the Trust’s report about the fire in the hope that it will answer these concerns.

Areas of Concern

With a report like this on such a serious fire I would have expected a plan and timeline to be available in the report that would enable the reader to establish such things as:

• Where horizontal and vertical fire separation was provided?
• Where both fixed and portable fire-fighting equipment was installed?
• Where automatic fire detection was positioned?
• What other active and passive fire precautions were installed and did they work?

In addition I would have expected it to include:

• What fire safety maintenance had been carried out?
• Which fire escape routes were used?
• What fire training had staff/volunteers received?
• What inspections had taken place both from the NT, insurers, risk assessors and the fire service?
• What was the Fire Safety Policy and associated action plans?

Without a layout plan it is very difficult to follow the pattern of events with any degree of accuracy:

If you take for example the statement contained in 4.3 “As part of the investigation the building’s fire alarm panel information was accessed and the timing and location of activated smoke detectors show that prior to the arrival of the fire service smoke had travelled to the roof space.” If you examine the timings 
you will note that the 999 call was made at 16.08 and the fire service arrived at 16.17. This statement, if the timings are correct, tells us that within 9 minutes the smoke had travelled from the basement to the roof space.  So, how did this happen:

• Did the person who discovered the fire make any attempt to tackle the fire – remember it is stated “He went to the fuse board to investigate the loss of power and on opening the cupboard discovered the fire inside” – there is no reference to smoke or fire at this time, only loss of power so it is reasonable to assume that the fire was not too large at this point and could have been tackled with a fire extinguisher by a trained person.

• If we now look at the smoke and fire spread and the speed at which this happened – did the person that discovered the fire shut the door on the fire, was it a fire door, how did the smoke and fire get into the lift shaft and was there any fire separation to the shaft? Were other fire doors closed?

• If we now consider Part 7.1 c) that states, “It is believed the fire was able to spread in to the room above the distribution board cupboard due to a lack of fire compartmentation above the board.

An electrical contractor’s report in 2010 noted a lack of fire stop/barrier to the ceiling recesses of the distribution board cupboard.

This report did not recommend any remedial work regarding this issue.”

Whilst the electrical contractor’s report did not recommend any remedial work who in the NT decided not to do anything about it because clearly the contractor was concerned enough to raise the issue and this may have been the reason the fire was able to spread so quickly – so this may have been a very costly omission for a small amount of work.

• Looking at Section 8.2 the approximate time of the fire starting is given as 16.00 hours – so it can be assumed from this figure that apart from the power failure between 16.00 and 16.08 when the fire was discovered not a lot happened as there are no reports of fire or smoke until 16.08 but within the next 9 minutes smoke travelled to the roof space from the basement.

• If this fire was because of an electrical fault it would have been beneficial to see that the NT had fully complied with the current electrical regulations and that there were no outstanding requirements or recommendations that had not been complied with.

I would have thought that in a building like this thermal imaging technology would have been used as this has the ability to detect problems like this.

• One media report states The Trust insists all safety measures had been installed, although the absence of sprinklers will surely have to be explained when the fire report is finally made public. Heritage experts will also be scrutinising the Trust’s fire risk assessment to see if the house’s grade I-listed status had compromised safety recommendations. It would also have been helpful to see the Fire Risk assessment for this building.

• According to another media report the NT also stated when asked if extra defences had been installed in other National Trust properties since the Clandon Park disaster,“All of our properties have regular inspections from their local fire service and from insurers, so our buildings already have the right sort of fire precautions built in, compartmentation or others. But the thing we need to check is that there isn’t more that we can do and that the compartmentation we have is absolutely fire-proof.”

• One important question that needs answering in more detail is How a fire that allegedly started in a cupboard and was discovered by a member of staff, was able to develop at such a rate that 95% of the building was damaged?

• It is also clear from reports in the media that the fire service also had its problems and these are some of the concerns that were highlighted in the media:

• Whilst the first appliance arrived in 8 minutes the second appliance took 21 minutes missing its target by 6 minutes. In practice this meant that there was only one 4-man crew available to tackle the fire for 13 minutes at the most important stage of the fire.
• Comments from firefighters, who toiled unsuccessfully to tackle the fire, paint a picture of frustration and potentially missed opportunities.
• An internal review by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SF&RS) following the fire reveals the service took on board many of its frontline firefighters’ concerns about how the operation was handled.

The time it took to summon a crucial pumping system, as well as “unclear” allocation of roles at the scene, are just some of the “areas of learning” identified in a Command Review Corrective Action Plan.

The Cause of the Fire

Whilst the cause of the fire appears to be a strong possibility I have now discussed this with an electrical engineer colleague and we share the following concerns:

• It would be interesting to know when the last inspection of this distribution board was carried out and exactly what was done during the inspection.
• If this distribution board was delivered from the manufacturer with this fault – has the manufacturer confirmed this point and if so, I believe that this information should be made available for the benefit of other interested persons.
• With an installation of this age and of this nature why didn’t the NT use “thermal imaging” to check for these possible problems?
• Was any discolouring of cables observed prior to the fire?

I did ask Eaton the company that acquired MEM about the incident and they replied as follows “Unfortunately, at no point during the creation of this report was Eaton contacted by or asked to be involved by the investigators. As you can appreciate, because we have not been involved in any part of this investigation and are not privy to any of the physical or photographic evidence relating to the creation of the report, we are unable to comment or speculate on the likely cause of the fire as well as any assumptions related to the supply, installation, commissioning and ongoing maintenance of the electrical system in Clandon Park”.

In my experience I believe that where an item of equipment is involved and suspected of causing a fire the manufacturer should always be consulted, as they are likely to be an important link in the investigation. Eaton also went on to state “It is unfortunate that no-one asked us to be involved in the investigation as without access to any of the physical evidence or very precise technical questions, it is impossible to comment when what is presented is the investigator’s opinion and assumption.”

Conclusions

I don’t believe that this report gives us a great deal of information about the wider aspects of the incident and it certainly does not give me any confidence that it reflects exactly what happened. It is important that we learn from incidents like this and I think that as a National Trust member for many years and from someone who has given their time freely to this organization we deserve to see the full picture.

I have also stated in previous investigations that I don’t believe that the authority that has been responsible for giving both good will and statutory advice should be the one to produce such a report, as there is a “vested interest” in the subject, which in my opinion is not likely to produce an open and honest conclusion.

I think that the NT has a duty to make their internal report public so that we are able to establish a clearer picture of all the events that occurred prior to this devastating fire.