Loft fire barriers missing in 12 Kongsberg housing cooperatives

Fire barriers separating homes on lofts were missing in 12 of 19 housing cooperatives examined in Kongsberg, according to Dagbladet. The same type of multi-unit housing is common across Norway.

Myhrløkka housing cooperative is now preparing to upgrade its buildings to reduce the risk of fire spreading. The cooperative, built in 1953, is the last of those identified in the survey to begin the work.

“I am glad that we have started. You are always worried that something might happen. Fire is the most frightening thing, and what people fear most,” chairwoman Hanne Skarseth Kleven said as she walked through the loft.

The loft has no fire separation walls between the homes below. From one end, it is possible to see all the way to the other.

Fire inspector Jan Robin Herregaarden said the current risk was above the permitted level. Inside the building, he pointed to a wall made only of thin panelling next to the stairwell.

“This is already an example of how freely a fire can spread,” Herregaarden said.

The buildings affected were constructed before 1985 and contain several homes under the same roof. A regulation introduced in 2016 requires their fire safety to be brought up to at least the 1985 standard. One of the key requirements is fire separation between homes on lofts, or an equivalent measure.

Without such barriers, a fire can spread from one home to another through the loft without being stopped for the required minimum of 30 minutes.

Kleven said the upgrade had taken time because the board members all work and have to carry out the work in their spare time. Technical fire adviser Roger Hoki Fløan praised the cooperative for thorough planning, which he said would help prevent work from having to be redone.

Herregaarden carried out the survey in 2021, four years after a fire at a care centre in which one person died. A row-house fire in 2020 that spread rapidly through a loft prompted him to examine older multi-unit housing more closely.

He said he did not believe conditions in Kongsberg were worse than elsewhere. The Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection also said it had no reason to believe conditions were better or worse in other municipalities.

That means many housing cooperatives could have fire safety deficiencies similar to those found at Myhrløkka, the report indicates.