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It has been a month since the deadly space heater-induced apartment fire at the Twins Parks housing complex claimed the lives of 17 people and displaced more than 200 families from a largely Gambian immigrant community in the South Bronx. The incident has turned into a bellwether for the state of... View full entry
On the heels of [the] horrific Bronx fire that killed 17 people, including eight children, Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Ritchie Torres on Tuesday unveiled a "4-point federal fire safety package" that includes addressing sprinklers, self-closing doors, heaters and federal investigation powers. — ABC 7
The pair of lawmakers had recently joined together to push the federal government to include the Cross Bronx Expressway into the infrastructure bill. Their new fire safety plan includes a mandate on automatic space heater shutoff features. The early-January fire that killed 17 at the Twin Parks... View full entry
The fire that ripped through Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building in 2018 was so fierce and all-consuming that the cause can never be known conclusively, according to a long-awaited report. — The Guardian
The report by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), which involved more than 172 weeks of excavation and examination of hundreds of tons of debris, along with analysis of witness testimonies, CCTV, and photographic evidence, deemed the cause of the fire as “undetermined”. This was the... View full entry
The fire was started by a malfunctioning space heater in the bedroom of a third-floor apartment on Sunday. Fire officials say the door of the apartment did not close as residents fled and that allowed smoke to spread throughout the building. — The New York Times
The deaths and injuries in Sunday’s tragically avoidable accident were exclusively the product of smoke inhalation as the fire itself was contained to the apartment and outside hallway. The blaze came just days after another horrible incident in Philadelphia that claimed the lives of... View full entry
Jennifer Diamond, a spokeswoman for the team fighting the Caldor Fire, wasn’t sure who wrapped the Phillips Tract cabin but said she’s helped cover a historic backcountry building with foil in the past. Aside from historic buildings, firefighters might choose to wrap a remote cabin where property owners have already cut back vegetation, cut down overhanging trees and cleared roofs and gutters of debris. — The San Francisco Chronicle
The cabin was among many in the South Lake Tahoe region to adapt a temporary version of an adaptability approach that has become increasingly popular during a year that has already seen over a million acres scorched in California alone. The ongoing Caldor Fire has destroyed more than 700 homes as... View full entry
Owners of London's Grenfell Tower are expected to announce later this month that the tower will be demolished due to safety concerns. This decision comes more than four years following the fire that claimed the lives of 72 people. UK housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, has been notified... View full entry
Starting today, the Catholic University of America’s School of Architecture and Planning in collaboration with Massachusetts-based nonprofit Handhouse Studio are building a full-scale replica of a truss that belonged to the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. As part of a teaching project by... View full entry
Over the weekend a fire broke out at 102 North Highland Avenue in Marfa, Texas, the two-story brick building best known as the Architecture Office of Donald Judd. According to an Instagram post by the Judd Foundation, the interior of the building, which was undergoing an extensive three-year... View full entry
An investigation by the Better Government Association (BGA) and the Chicago Tribune has found that, since 2014, at least 61 people have died in Chicago buildings where city officials were aware of fire safety problems. Buildings where the deaths occurred, 23 of which were children under the age of... View full entry
Executives who sold combustible insulation for use on Grenfell Tower perpetrated a “fraud on the market” by rigging a fire test and making “misleading” claims about it, a public inquiry has heard.
Celotex, a subsidiary of the French construction materials company Saint-Gobain, behaved in a “completely unethical” way, admitted Jonathan Roper, a former assistant product manager.
— The Guardian
A fire has broken out in a downtown Beirut building near the city's port where an explosion last month killed nearly 200 people, wounded thousands and left the city's residents traumatised.
It was not immediately clear what caused the fire in one of the city's best-known buildings that was the work of the late Iraq-born British architect, Zaha Hadid.
— Al Jazeera
The ZHA-designed commercial building was reportedly still under construction, and one corner appears to be badly damaged from the fire, according to first news reports. Welding is rumored to be the cause of the fire. No injuries have been reported so far. This story is still developing. UPDATE... View full entry
It has been a year to the day since a fire devastated the Notre Dame cathedral, causing its spire to collapse and leaving the 850-year-old church's future in doubt. [...]
But with the coronavirus shutdown bringing restoration efforts to a standstill -- and the country's attention now focused elsewhere -- the somber anniversary is set to pass with little fanfare.
— CNN
Click here to catch up with Archinect's complete coverage that followed the devastating news of the Notre Dame blaze on April 15, 2019. #notredame #paris #incendie #désastre pic.twitter.com/jpNosqFGGp— Kinsley Laurence (@KinsleyLaurence) April 15, 2019 The moment the cathedral's spire... View full entry
Officials in Los Angeles are reconsidering closing a legal loophole that exempts tall buildings built between 1943 and 1974 from fire sprinkler requirements after an unsprinkled high rise apartment tower on the city's Westside caught fire yesterday for the second time in recent years, injuring a a... View full entry
Fragile and flammable, Eucalypti have been implicated in worsening wildfires across the world. But there's little consensus over their culpability, value, or future in California's landscape. Defenders and opponents each say that science and history are on their side. — The Guardian
A long-simmering battle over the current and future status of California's Eucalyptus trees is close to bubbling over again, as the increasingly present risk of catastrophic fire events pits Eucalyptus lovers against native plant enthusiasts who would like to see the tinder-producing groves... View full entry
The samples he collects will help scientists better understand how the massive increase in seasonal wildfires burning through residential areas might be affecting our health. Where smoke once contained the remnants of only biomass (trees and other organic matter), fires are now burning up homes—structures that contain thousands of synthetic chemicals, paints, plastics, and metals that smolder and combust into tiny particles. — National Geographic