Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

As part of a study of fires in dwellings in 1956 an analysis has been made of those which occurred in blocks of flats of six or more storeys. There were 132 such fires reported of which twenty-seven were in buildings of post-war construction and 105 in buildings of pre-war construction. About 97% of the fires in high flats were confined to the compartment in which they originated. The analysis revealed no major differences between fires in high flats and fires in dwellings in general except that the proportion caused by heating apparatus was very much lower in the flats. None of the reports examined revealed any difficulties or deficiencies in connexion with escape from fire in post-war blocks of flats.