It will not be difficult to find the origin of the fire
· Synthesis, which has been hired by an insurance company, expects that within two days it will be able to determine the origin, source and cause of the Campanar fire, in Valencia, as soon as the court investigating it authorizes its entry. building. This is what the company's president and technical director, Felix Cesar Alonso, told EFE. Synthesis, a company dedicated to investigating the origins of fires, has worked on cases such as the Windsor Tower in Madrid, which burned down in 2005, or the two nightclubs in Murcia that burned down last year.
Alonso says the speed of fire spread was already seen in the 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower social housing in London, which killed 80 people and had the same type of facade in Valencia. “I'm a little terrified about this kind of interface, because you know where the fire starts, but not where it ends,” he says.
He explains that in the case of brick or concrete slab construction, if a fire occurs in the house, the flames go outside, or at most, the fire affects the upper floor. On the other hand, in fires with a vented façade, it is not known where the smoke, which contains particles that have not yet burned, will end up, but it can create a flame within this gap and cause a chimney effect. In the case of Thursday's fire, he says the fire was exacerbated by the strong winds blowing in Valencia.
He explains that when they are able to reach the building, the company's technicians will remove the unaffected panels to collect samples and send them to the laboratory and determine the category of the substance inside. He says it is a combustible material, but it is still too early to determine what type it is.
He says finding the source of the fire won't be too complicated, and they'll know within a day or two. However, he admits that more complicated will be figuring out how the fire spread throughout the building. To do this, they will examine the floor where the fire started in detail, as well as the floors directly above and below it.
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