Telling people they have a flood risk rating of 10 is less powerful than explaining how much they’re likely to pay to deal with flooding over the next five years.
Homes overlook a forest in the wildland-urban interface in Arizona.
Marius von Essen
Since the Grenfell Tower fire claimed 72 lives in 2017, Australia has identified flammable cladding on more than 3,400 buildings. Despite apartment owners’ fears and rising costs, few have been fixed.
Residents haven’t been able to return to their Mascot Towers apartments since being evacuated in June 2019.
Bianca De Marchi/AAP
Identifying and fixing apartment defects can be challenging, especially as they’re often the shared responsibility of all owners in the building. A new guide aims to help navigate the pitfalls.
Extreme wildfires can fuel tornadoes, creating erratic and dangerous conditions for firefighters.
David McNew/Getty Images
The public inquiry into Grenfell makes its first report – but those responsible for the circumstances leading up to the fire are yet to face the consequences.
Focus on the fire service.
John Gomez/Shutterstock.
It will take time to digest the details of the 830-plus page report from phase one of the inquiry, but there are clear improvements to be made.
The materials used for cladding buildings can greatly affect a building’s overall vulnerability to fire. In Australia, buildings with flammable cladding continue to pose safety concerns.
SHUTTERSTOCK
Ensuring a building will be safe against fire requires careful consideration from not only fire engineers, but also from builders, architects and building owners.
Estimated costs for Victoria alone range from hundreds of millions to as much as $1.6 billion If work to rectify buildings fitted with combustible cladding isn’t well handled.
The burden of regulatory failure hasn’t just hit residents of evacuated apartments like the Neo200 building in Melbourne – it affects everyone living in a building with serious defects.
Ellen Smith/AAP
Years of regulatory failure are having direct impacts on the hip pockets of the many Australians who bought defective houses or apartments. It’s turning into a multibillion-dollar disaster.
Can Australians be confident that the new National Construction Code will ensure new buildings avoid structural defects like those that led to the evacuation of the Opal Tower (left) in Sydney?
Dylan Coker/AAP
Under the new code, buildings are hardly likely to differ measurably from their fault-ridden older siblings and can still fall short of a six-star rating. It’s possible they may have no stars!
Flames spread rapidly up the external wall cladding at the Lacrosse building in Melbourne in November 2014. More than four years on, the combustible panels are still in use.
MFB
Architects, certifiers and engineers who work as consultants to builders are on notice about potential liability for the use of flammable cladding, but governments are also culpable for their actions.
Combustible cladding on the Neo200 building facade allowed the fire to spread quickly from floor to floor.
MFB/AAP
The risks of combustible cladding on high-rise buildings have long been known. And audits have identified hundreds of Australian buildings with this cladding. Delay in replacing it is inexcusable.
Victorian Governor Linda Dessau places a flower on a model of Victoria at a memorial service for the ten-year anniversary of the 2009 Victorian bushfires.
David Crosling/AAP
The Black Saturday fires transformed the way Australia responds to bushfires.
The fire in the Melbourne CBD on Monday was a reminder of the urgency of developing a system that guarantees only materials that meet building safety standards are used.
Bekah Jane/Twitter
Fortunately, no lives were lost in the latest cladding fire in Melbourne, but it’s a stark reminder of the urgent need to track and verify that building materials comply with safety standards.