I was in Bangkok in the 90s and was staying in a high rise hotel. The codes seem to be a joke. There was 16 gauge Romex running on the inside surface of the closet. It almost looked like bell wire. I assume it was fused at 7 amps, but who knows. It was used to light a fluorescent lamp inside the closet turned on by a switch activated by the sliding closet door. There were other thing, but this stood out. Also, I was watching them build a high rise next door. The workers where in tee shirts, open shoes and no hard hats.
I was in a hotel in Toronto, staying on the 11th floor. At around 1:00 AM the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. It turned out that the fire was below us, on the 7th floor.
As we were walking down the stairs, the smell of the smoke was getting stronger and stronger. I was nervous, but not overly so, until the firemen arrived.
At first the progress down the stairs was steady and at a reasonable pace. Then the fireman arrived and began to come up the stairs with all of their equipment on. That forced all of the hotel guests to one side of the stairs and resulted in a stop and go pace. You could feel the nervousness growing in the crowd as we were standing on the stairs, not moving, with smell of the smoke getting stronger. I can only imagine how it must feel when there are actually flames, especially "Towering Inferno" type flames.
In the end, we all made it out with no real problems. The fire was minor and put out quickly.
This will probably be under investigation for weeks if not longer. By the time they determine the cause, it's considered "old news", so it's not published. The media like the "spectacular", in other words the things that catch people's attention. Maybe the media in that country is different, but if they are like the U.S. news, they rarely followup on things.
It's like there was a local fire around here months ago. The home owner was badly burned and was in critical condition. The news said the cause of the fire was under investigation. There was never any followup story. Although I did not know the person, I knew a neighbor. A few months after the fire, I spoke to that neighbor, who said the owner was doing well, but the fire was still under investigation. I could not believe it was STILL under investigation. These investigators go into these buildings shortly after the fire, and should have their reports completed within a few days. I think they just dont want to release their findings. But it was good to know the owner was doing well, even though no one else in town knows it, because there was no followup in the media.
Personally, I agree with another poster in this thread, that the fire was caused by an incident with the fireworks. But that's just a guess based on what was going on at the time.
I would say that that is a lousy guess. The fire started way before any fireworks were set off.
I quote from:
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"The fire broke out around 9:30 p.m., about two-and-a-half hours before the midnight fireworks display was set to begin."
Some reports on the day of the incident indicated that the authorities decided to go ahead with the fireworks in order to keep the crowd "contained".
Cancelling the display just hours before midnight would have sent those crowds out into the surrounding streets - some of which were closed, along with some of the subway stations - possibly in panic mode, which could have seriously hampered the fire control efforts. They already had the crowd contained, so they felt is was safest to just go ahead with the display and then disperse the crowds via the already arranged plan.
Paintedcow wrote: "Which appears to be because the interior sprinkler system stopped the spread of the fire into the interior of the building. Otherwise we may have seen something similar to the collapse of the World Trade Center on
9/11. One of the WTC buildings that collapsed was taller than this Dubai building. A quick google search show the tallest WTC building at 1362 ft. This Dubai building is 1106 ft.
Personally, I have never seen why they make buildings that tall anyhow? "
No we would not have. Neither the Dubai hotel nor the WTC could collapse because of fire. No matter how long it burned in either place.
While the details of the WTC have always been suspicious, (and I dont want to get into that), I have to disagree with what you said. Steel beams twist and bend from excessive heat, and concrete cracks and even will explode in sections as it gets hot.
I saw the aftermath of a furniture store fire. A concrete building with steel beams for the roof, covered with metal. That roof was nothing but a mass of twisted steel, and half the walls collapsed as the roof came down. (this was just a one story building). Some of those support beams were probably 16" wide by 10" thick "I" beams. They twisted and deformed until they fell.
I've also seen what happens when chunks of concrete surround a large bonfire, and seen people hurt by flying pieces. Or when I was using a cutting torch and laid the torch on the driveway (that's a no-no).
If a tall structure has steel failure halfway up the building, and ur begins to lean, consider all that weight on top, and it WILL collapse in no time, and likely destroy the lower floors (below the fire) as the weight crashes down.
Red hot steel is more like a liquid than a solid. Anyone who has done any blacksmith work knows that for fact.
I did fire investigations for 10 years and it wasn't at all unusual (especially in industrial applications) for the steel I-beams get hot to weaken, bend and collapse. We had one that was a insulation factory and the fire load was largely newspapers.
Shortly after the twin towers collapse someone on Rush Limbaugh show mentioned that the buildings beams were not asbestos protected above some floor, can't remember which one. The enviro whackos had a protest. Had the beams been fire protected with asbestos, the building might have survived.
Stormin Mormon wrote: " The enviro whackos had a "
HOW can you proclaim yourself Christian and not care about GOD's Earth?
Steel has a melting point, just like any other metal. It was proven time and again that the fires burning in the Trade towers was not hot enough to even mildly warp those trusses and columns. What was actually burning? Anything you would find in a typical office. The jet fuel was largely exhausted within minutes of the planes' impact. Good show, those planes were, and that's all. The WTC exoskeleton type frame had multiple redundancy and took it with flying colors.
If the fires had, the towers would not have collapsed in nearly such a neat fashion - right into their own footprints. They would have fallen sideways, taking out anything from Woolworth to the Financial Center to the Stock Exchange itself.
Yes, something did melt on camera - non- structural aluminum facia nearest those fire floors.
The explanation I heard (over 50 years ago - but it still seem logical) is that there is a tradeoff between the cost of building/running elevators and the per-square-foot cost of real estate.
The initial cost of putting up such buildings must be extremely high. Th higher they build, the more labor intensive it becomes and the stronger the foundation must be. Elevator cost is minimal compared to to building the structure. Apparently it must be cost effective, but it sure is hard to imagine how.
It starts with the money, but there is more involved. There is also bragging rights for the architect, the contracting firm, the city, the company, etc.
Take a look at the video on this page, which details the trick used make the Chrysler building the tallest structure in the world (as they say, "for now"). It was all about the competition between 2 former partners to build the tallest building.
In some cases, being the tallest, the best, the prettiest, etc. can command higher rents just because of the prestige. "Oh, that firm has offices in the tallest building in the world? They must be good at what they do." Impressions mean a lot in the business world.
One problem with building higher is that the ground-level footprint of the required number of elevators becomes prohibitive (consider the space required for the shaft itself, plus the vestibule/waiting areas. Note that elevators are height-limited[*], so you'll need to devote almost entire floors in the middle to elevator lobbies feeding the upper floors.
[*] Roughly 500m with traditional steel rope.
Note also that the rope weight increases exponentially with height.
"In very tall buildings, almost 70% of the elevator's weight is attributed to the cable itself, and when the rope gets too long it cannot support its own weight"
"Consequently, long cables cause damage to the shaft and to themselves. For example, in the former World Trade Center Twin Towers, the elevators' cables swung back and forth in the building, and over the decades, their movements resulted in wearing deep holes in the shaft walls"
New designs include double-deck elevators to reduce the require floor footprint.
A good discussion of elevators and skyscrapers is here:
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