Dousing the blaze of bad publicity

With apologies for stretching a line from Oscar Wilde, to lose one major multi-storey timber frame building to fire during construction may be considered a misfortune, to lose three in just over a year is going to be construed by people with a vested interest as carelessness, or proof of some inherent safety problem.

Last week fire struck a timber frame apartment block in Hatfield (p6). The cause is still unknown. But one thing that’s not in doubt, is that it was serious, not just for this particular building, but also for the image of the timber frame and timber industries. It’s already a splash story in Building magazine and a video even features on YouTube.

There are plenty of advocates of other building systems looking for any excuse to give timber frame a kicking and there’s no surprise they’re setting about making the most of this incident. Making it potentially more damaging still, it is being lumped together by the propagandists with two other timber frame site blazes in the last 13 months in London and Newcastle.

As Stewart Dalgarno, president of the UK Timber Frame Association (UKTFA), told TTJ, timber frame buildings, either completed or during construction, actually pose no greater fire hazard than other types. It is the most widely used form of building worldwide and its record in this area compares with those of masonry or cast concrete. What is more, the UKTFA is backing research and introducing guidance for builders to improve site safety further. At the same time, new products, like Arch’s just-launched Vacsol FR, are coming to market to enhance timber frame fire resistance.

What needs to be done now, of course, given the inevitable adverse publicity that flows from incidents like Hatfield, is to broadcast all this good work far and wide Guess that’s down to all of us.