User:Triptothecottage/Lacrosse tower fire

The Lacrosse tower fire occurred in the early hours of 24 November 2014 in Melbourne, Australia, when a cigarette left on a balcony caused flammable cladding on one side of the high-rise building to catch alight. The fire climbed almost the entire height of the fourteen-storey apartment tower within minutes. Although rapidly brought under control by attending fire crews, the fire caused the evacuation of hundreds of residents and damage to apartments throughout the building.

The incident brought significant attention to the problem of combustible cladding on structures in Melbourne and across Australia. When the Grenfell Tower fire in London claimed dozens of lives some months later, the Lacrosse fire was again recognised as a potentially catastrophic event.

The builders, architects, certifiers and fire engineers of the building were held jointly responsible for $5.7 million in damages to apartment owners by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in 2019, although the defendants lodged an appeal heard by the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2020. As a result of the Lacrosse fire, a subsequent fire in Melbourne and international incidents like the Grenfell fire, a new Victorian state government agency was ultimately set up to rectify the widespread combustible cladding problem.

Background

Urban renewal of the Docklands area to the west of the Melbourne CBD began in the early 1990s. Following demolition of the defunct rail and port facilities, Docklands Stadium became one of the first major developments in the area, opening in 2000. The stadium precinct

Incident

A resident of apartment 805, five floors above Latrobe Street, noticed a smell of smoke around 1:30 am on 24 November. He investigated the kitchen and checked the stove was turned off, and went back to bed. Some time later, he was woken by housemates who had discovered a fire on the balcony. They attempted to extinguish the fire with a bucket of water but were unable to, so evacuated the building and called emergency services.

At around 2:23 am, the first of many Triple Zero calls was answered by Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority calltakers, and three pumper appliances of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade were dispatched to the building at 2:24:13. At around the same time, a smoke alarm in the corridor adjacent to apartment 805 activated the building fire indicator panel, generating an automatic call to the fire brigade and starting the evacuation alarms in the building. The building's evacuation system was intended to operate progressively, first alerting floors nearest the fire, then sequentially moving upwards through the building, then finally the floors below the fire. However, subsequent investigations found that the alarm operated on level 8 for only 30 seconds before fire destroyed the wiring; flames were moving so quickly up the building that alarm wiring was compromised before it could sound. Most residents later recalled they had been woken by neighbours or the sirens of the approaching fire brigade.

Over the next three minutes, five further Triple Zero callers reported a large fire visible on the outside of the building. At 2:26:14, shortly after the first responding appliances left their stations, the Fire Services Communications Controller upgraded the response to a second alarm; an additional pumper was dispatched along with a teleboom, rescue appliance and fire commander while Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria were notified.

Over a dozen calls in the following two minutes reported the fire had reached level 5 or level 6. At 2:29:04, less than six minutes after the initial report, fire officers en route reported flames out the side of the building and requested a ladder platform appliance; after arriving on scene, the incident controller upgraded the response to a third alarm at 2:30:13 and reported fire all the way to level 10 of the building.

In the initial minutes of the response, firefighters concentrated on evacuating the building as quickly as possible. An MFB commander took control of the incident at 2:38:18, raised the response to a fourth alarm, and reported flames had reached the roof. Firefighters remained uncertain about the nature of the fire and whether it had penetrated beyond the balconies.

Teleboom and ladder platform appliances had arrived on scene by 2:41 am and immediately began attacking the fire externally. At 2:55 am, assistant chief officers taking over the scene reported that the fire on the outside of the building had been largely extinguished, but officers overseeing internal operations reported the building was filled with thick smoke and struggled to determine whether fires were burning inside the structure. Four minutes later, the fire was declared under control.

By this point several hundred residents of the building had evacuated to Latrobe Street: Department of Human Services unit and State Emergency Service resources were deployed to establish an evacuation centre. The coach terminal at the adjacent Southern Cross Station complex was identified as a suitable location and residents were directed to move there at 3:45 am. Over 100 firefighters remained on scene extinguishing pockets of fire, accounting for residents, and commencing the investigation.

Bibliography

• Genco, Giuseppe (April 2015). Lacrosse Building Fire (PDF). Melbourne: City of Melbourne Municipal Building Surveyor. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
• MFB Fire Safety (2015). Post Incident Analysis Report: Lacrosse Docklands. Melbourne: Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board. Retrieved 25 March 2021.