Four dead, dozens injured and missing and a neighborhood ravaged by fire
The Campanar district of Valencia experienced one of the worst tragedies in its history this Thursday. A massive fire has burned nearly 140 homes in just one hour, leaving a tentative balance of four people dead and many others injured and missing. The fire was so violent and fast that the firefighters had great difficulty in controlling it and preventing it from spreading to other buildings.
Three key factors: temperature, wind and fuel material
According to experts, the fire has spread with such speed due to the combination of three key factors. The first, the very high temperatures that have been recorded this week in the city, which have exceeded 40 degrees. The second, the westerly wind, which has been blowing strongly throughout the day, reaching gusts of 60 kilometers per hour. And the third, and perhaps the most decisive, the material of which the facade of the two affected blocks of flats is made, which turns out to be highly flammable.
The facade contained polyurethane, the same as London’s Grenfell Tower
It is polyurethane, an element that is used as an insulator for the aluminum plates that cover the facade. This material is highly combustible and can cause flames to spread vertically very easily. This was explained by the specialist who carried out the appraisal of the building a few years ago, Esther Puchades, who warned of the danger posed by this type of cladding. Polyurethane has already been the cause of several deadly fires in other countries, such as the one that killed 70 people in the Grenfell Tower in London in 2017, or the one that destroyed the Windsor Tower in Madrid in 2005, without causing victims
The Technical Building Code prohibits combustible materials on facades
The professor of the Department of Civil Engineering of Construction and Civil Engineering Projects of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Antonio Hospitaler, who went to the scene after the fire, stated that the spread through the facade is “much faster than an outdoor fire” and that, if they had built it with brick, “it would not have spread”. Hospitaler pointed out that the Technical Building Code, which was amended in 2006 and 2017, “provides for this kind of situation and that the materials on the facade are not combustible to prevent the spread of fires”. This expert indicated that now it is the investigation that will have to determine the origin, if the fire started inside a home, passed to the facade and, from there, to the rest of the building , or if it originated on the same facade.
A Catalan real estate company sold the flats as “privileged housing”
The two blocks of flats were built in 2005 by the Catalan real estate company Fbex, owned by the developer Juan Parada Henares. In a promotional video, Fbex presented the buildings as “cutting-edge and unique” and emphasized that the facades were clad with an innovative alucobond-type aluminum material, which, in retrospect, it described as “difficultly flammable” or directly “non-flammable”. The real estate company also ensured the “maximum quality in construction materials with modern facilities, finishes and equipment” and stated that it had carried out “quality controls throughout the building process”. At the time, the flats were worth 300,000 euros, as the same neighborhood has testified. A figure that, at the time, was very high, but which was part of the real estate boom and in one of the most luxurious areas of the capital of the Valencian Country. Some time later, the property of Henares collapsed, leaving a debt of nearly 30 million with public administrations after entering bankruptcy.
A skeleton that remembers the worst fire in the city’s history
Now, what has been home to 400 neighbors has become a skeleton that remembers the story of the worst fire in the history of the city. A kind of giant match that has been giving off smoke for hours and hours and is now starting to go out. Of course, leaving the dark trail of flames that may still hide more fatalities.