Rosepark : Cupboard fire door may have stopped blaze

A blaze that killed 14 elderly residents in an Uddingston care home could have been prevented if a fire door had been fitted and closed on a cupboard where the blaze broke out.

At the resumption of the fatal accident inquiry into the blaze, Martin Shipp, a fire scientist who staged a series of reconstructions of the events at Rosepark Care Home, said the fatalities could probably have been avoided if the linen cupboard had been fire-proofed and a sprinkler system installed.

Mr Shipp was among a team of experts from the Watford-based Building Research Establishment called in to investigate the blaze, which ripped through the home in the early hours of January 31, 2004.

Subsequent probes by Strathclyde Fire and Rescue and the Health and Safety Executive concluded that the fire had started in a linen cupboard on the ground floor where sheets, blankets and toiletries – including a number of aerosol canisters – were stored. One of the home’s fuse boxes was also fitted to a wall inside the cupboard, and it is believed that an electrical malfunction in it may have sparked the blaze.

But Mr Shipp, 61, found that if the linen cupboard had been kept closed and covered with a fire-resistant door – as all residents’ bedrooms and corridor partitions were – it “would probably have resulted in the fire self-extinguishing and being contained within the cupboard, despite the presence of aerosol canisters”.

Instead, exploding hairspray and shaving foam containers fuelled the blaze, said Mr Shipp.

According to fire safety regulations, flammable items are not supposed to be stored alongside heat sources, such as a fuse box. However, before the break for Easter the inquiry heard evidence from the home’s matron, Sadie Meanie, who said that a lack of storage space forced staff to stow linen and toiletries in the ground floor cupboard.

However, Mr Shipp added that even without the aerosols, the other contents of the cupboard would have stoked a fire of sufficient size to generate life-threatening conditions in the corridor and open bedrooms.

Upholstered foam-filled bath chairs left sitting in the passageway were also burned up as the flames raced through the home, spreading into the bedrooms of residents who preferred to leave their doors open overnight. Reconstructing events with a sprinkler system in place, which had not been in place at Rosepark at the time of the blaze, Mr Shipp found that “while it would not have extinguished the fire it would have rendered conditions tenable in all areas for about an hour”, buying extra time for the staff and rescue services.

In bedrooms sealed shut by closed fire doors, residents would have been kept safe for a full two hours while the sprinkler system helped keep the blaze under control, Mr Shipp said.

At Rosepark however, the experts estimated the survival time for residents on the ground floor who kept their doors open overnight would have been less than eight minutes. The cause of death would be asphyxiation from toxic fumes, they said, rather than burning.

As for the cause of the fire, the Building Research Establishment report shown to the inquiry concluded: “No definitive ignition source or cause of ignition has been identified, although it appears there is common ground that the fire started due to a malfunction in electrical equipment within the cupboard.”

The Rosepark blaze had been unusual, said Mr Shipp, because at the time the authorities had not considered residential care homes to be particularly hazardous buildings. “Before Rosepark, care homes were not particularly on the radar. They were not perceived as being particularly high risk,” he said.

The inquiry continues.