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FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Fire Investigation => Topic started by: Richard Maze on August 22, 2007, 07:07:18 PM
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I am trying to access a copy of the fire investigation report into the fatal fire at Woolworths Manchester in 1979. Does anyone know if this report is available on the web?
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Not the official one - A good ref library should be able to get it for you.
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PM me for a copy!
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Thanks to everyone who contacted me about this, especially John and Anthony. Very much appreciated.
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so - is there an e version on the web???
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E-version, yes, in the web, no, not unless you subscribe to Technical Index or similar (officially ;-) )
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Hi, Iam very interested in this disaster, as it would prove useful for my Msc dissertation, can anyone direct me to useful sources?
Thanks!
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Hi, Iam very interested in this disaster, as it would prove useful for my Msc dissertation, can anyone direct me to useful sources?
Thanks!
Send me e-mail for reply.
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As earlier in the thread I have the official report. The training film 'Fire & Smoke' from 1980/81 has some footage of the fire as well as having CFO Bob D interviewed on it ( I have this in PC compatible format too).
Youtube only has a couple of minutes from a 1969 fire in a US woolworths fire
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BRE www.bre.co.uk may be worth trying - they produced a video of their investigation into the fire, but it may not be available now. If it isn't obviously on the website, try contacting them.
The results of this work was reported in Fire Safety Journal, 3 (1980/81) pages 55-65, (Elsevier Sequoia SA) as "The Manchester Woolworth's Store Fire, May 1979: Burning characteristics of the Furniture.
Authors are W D Woolley, S A Ames and P G Smith. The article has a short summary of the fire incident as a lead-in to the test work.
Other BRE work following on from this was in two stages. Stage 1 was a look at the effect of sprinklers on the Woolworth's fire load and was reported to the Joint Fire Prevention Committee of the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council (CFBAC) in 1982 - I do not know if any of this was published publically.
Stage 2 was an extension into sprinklers for life safety for the then Home Office, and a summary report "Sprinklers for Life Safety in Department Stores" on behalf of the Joint Committee on Fire Research of the CFBAC was published in 1992. (J A Harwood and B T Hume, Research Report Number 51.)
Besides the official report, 'Fire' produced reports on the fire in October 1979 and on the resultant inquest in July 1980.
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The publications generally used are
GMCFS. 1979 Fire Investigation Report F. W. Woolworth & Co… GMCFS, Swinton.
JFPC of CFBAC, 1980 Report of the Planning / Legislation sub-committee Home Office Fire Department, London
Fire Service College library has them, but due to staffing and funding cuts (again!) the easiest way to get them from there (unless you bribe Carole!) is to use a local library 'inter-library loan', will cost you about £2, give them the reference and tell them that FSC library has the documents, should be sorted in a couple of days.
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Also see if you can get hold of Bob Graham who was closely involved at time; don't have his current e mail.
He was involved with this charity:
http://www.welephant.co.uk/
See also
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/13/13934_woolworths_lessons_that_went_unheeded.html
http://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/news--events/latest-news/lessons-from-manchester-tragedy-estimated-to-have-saved-thousands-of-lives-.aspx