architector

« Il y a le feu sur le chantier !»

At 10 :40 am, during the weekly meeting, a contractor came bursting in the room and yield “there is a fire on site”
All six buildings were evacuated, electricity shut down, the fire fighters arrived twenty minutes later– they were called for a casual garbage fire while a 4 stories bldg was trully starting to be on fire!
I was stuned, a part of the wood façade was burning, from the 2nd floor up to the roof, smoke was greyish. The zinc roof standing out 2 meters was beeing licked by the flames - it lays on top of pine tree boards…a fire match could have been enough for an accident (the fire protecting films were not yet applied underneath it, nore in between the top of the facade and the undercover). When the chief firefighter arrived, a hammer on his shoulder, he asked me to show the way to the building in construction , one of the most advanced part in the project in fact!!!
We went up to the second floor, the smoke could be smelled on the 3rd floor, below the roof. Smoke started to be dense, fire fighters smoke detectors started to beep. The fire was controled from outside by a 30 yards ladder raised from the fire truck, a fire fighter was on top with a water lance flooding the terraces and the façades. But it was too late, the fire had reached the ventilation space between the zinc roof and the addic concret floor, and spreaded like in a shaft, horizontally under the 300m-square roof(2700sqft?).
We went up to the 4th floor to attack the fire from above. Smoke was dense, I had to stay close to the window while the fire fighters were trying to burst the zinc open. They had no tools for it, the electricity was down, I was describing them the structural principal of the building so they could stop the fire spreading north and south to adjacent buildings without anyrisk to fall down in case the roof would collapse.
During 45mn I followed the chief fire fighter watching the fire gainning under the roof – observing the smoke coming out of the ventilation holes. When flames came out I knew that was it. Finally a gaz electrical circular saw was brought up, the fire showed its face. It took them 3 hours to stop it.
Today 3 floors are flooded, 30% of the roof is spread open, all the façades (2nd to 4th floor) and the roof is to be rebuild. We should be delayed about 12 months.
Next monday is the first day of expertise!
Insurances will show no mercy...

posted by architector @ 1:02 PM