Melbourne’s Neo200 building was plagued by safety failures including fire alarms that didn’t work, a lack of fire-rated doors and a flat battery inside the building’s crucial fire indicator panel, a key fire investigator has revealed.
While the 43-storey Neo200 tower only had 1.5 per cent of its facade covered in combustible polyethylene-core cladding and the fire that broke out in February this year only directly damaged six apartments, the failure of essential safety measures was so great it resulted in total evacuation of the building for 11 days after the fire, Melbourne Fire Brigade Commander Mark Carter told an industry function.
Commander Carter said the Neo200 owners were paying about $30,000 a year to a number of contractors servicing essential safety measures.
“When the full forensic analysis of the building was done, there were so many issues found with ESMs that you are actually left to question are they getting what they paid for?” he told an industry gathering last week.