Cladding expert: ACM dangers were ‘well known’ before Grenfell tragedy
A cladding expert has told the Grenfell Tower Inquiry that manufacturers and contractors should have been less complacent before the 2017 tragedy because of a number of widely reported fires in other countries in the years leading up to it
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According to the AJ s sister title
Construction News Sakula highlighted a number of fires that were propagated by aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding with a polyethylene (PE) core. That same combination caused the fire to spread at Grenfell Tower, where 72 people were killed.
Some of the fires listed in a report he prepared for the inquiry included the 2013 fire at the Al-Hafeet Tower in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates, a 2015 fire at the 63-storey Address Hotel in Dubai, also in the UAE, and one in Ramat Gan, Israel in 2016. No fatalities were reported with two of these fires, with one death at the Address Hotel incident.