Questions are being raised of the safety measures at Loafers Lodge in the wake of this week's fatal fire, with one expert saying "the expectations of the fire design couldn't possibly have worked" at the site of the deadly blaze.
Fire engineer Carol Caldwell described the incident as "horrific".
"It's something you never want to see," she told Breakfast. "You never want to wake up to that news."
And there are "certainly" things that could've been done differently to give people a better shot at survival, Caldwell said.
Fire engineer Carol Caldwell said "the expectations of the fire design couldn't possibly have worked" at Loafers Lodge. (Source: Breakfast)
"Sprinklers are a huge life safety feature, but they're not always required in buildings," she explained.
"You can have a building up to probably seven or eight storeys of this type that would not require sprinklers according to the prescriptive New Zealand fire design legislation."
Caldwell also pointed to fire compartmentalisation — a mandatory requirement in a building like Loafers Lodge — as a safety feature that can make a key difference.
"Your room is a separate fire cell, you're in a fire box," she explained. "The door to the room should be a fire door on a self-closer with the idea that, if the fire starts in that room, it's contained in that room.
New details have also emerged of what occurred before the fatal fire. (Source: 1News)
"Then your quarter is a separate fire cell as well, and then you have a stairwell that's a separate fire cell.
"The idea is... there's time for the other people in the building to be alerted and be able to get out of the building."
But something had "obviously" gone "tragically wrong" with the system at Loafers Lodge, she said.
"The expectations of the fire design couldn't possibly have worked... There's so much we don't know."
Caldwell added that, if you have too many false fire alarms in a building, "people get complacent and they don't respond".
"We need the investigation to figure out where things failed, and then we can look at the regulations," she said.
"This just shouldn't be happening in New Zealand."
Calls for inquiry into building regulations
The Green Party co-leader said fire regulations are just one part of the story. (Source: Breakfast)
Green Party co-leader James Shaw has called for a "wide-ranging" inquiry into Aotearoa's building regulations in the fire's wake.
"Many of the people who were apparently there were some of the most vulnerable members of our community, and yet we create a situation in which they live in accommodation which can apparently kill them," he told Breakfast this morning.
"And you have to remember that fire regulation is only part of the story.
"Many of the houses that people on lower incomes have to live in give them respiratory illnesses... I just don't think it's good enough.
"We live in one of the wealthier countries in the world, and it is a political choice to allow poverty to perpetuate."
SHARE ME