In the early hour of November 25th, 2014 at Melbourne’s Lacrosse tower, a fire began with a smoldering cigarette on the balcony of apartment 805 left atop a plastic food container. Flames quickly emerged and engulfed the balcony’s wooden table before leaping to the southern wall, covered in combustible aluminum cladding.

The 21-storey residential high-rise on Latrobe Street saw the blaze rapidly climb 13 floors in a matter of minutes. Over 400 residents were evacuated, all escaping unharmed despite the failure of the building occupant warning system which melted due to fire’s intense heat. The structure suffered severe damage to the cost of which has exceeded $12 M.

The building was clad in Alucobest, an aluminum composite panel with a high concentrate polyethylene core. This combustible cladding caused the flames to spread vertically up the side of the building and penetrate the internal parts of the structure. Fire fighters have described never having seen a fire behave like this and it has challenged the conventional way they fight fires in high- rise buildings.

The Lacrosse fire resulted in the strata owners bringing Australia’s first cladding lawsuit.  They successfully sued the builder LU Simon for poor contracting and building standards that led to the use of combustible cladding on the structure. In turn the builder sued the design professionals and recovered against them. Some 4 years after the fire, Judge Ted Woodward found the fire engineer responsible for 39 % of the damages, the certifiercopped 33 % and the architect, 25%. The French backpacker that left the cigarette in the plastic container was held responsible for 3 % although the judge noted he had ‘left the jurisdiction’ so the builder was left to pick up his tab.

This incident preceded the <Grenfell>fire and raised serious concerns among the Australian construction industry regarding the regulation and standards of building products nationwide. However,it took the tragic death toll of <Grenfell> for governments worldwide to get serious about banning products and reviewing standards.  Remarkably, the Lacrosse judgement found the use of aluminum cladding had been standard in Australia for the previous four decades, despite concerns raised about its flammability as early as 1968.

The Lacrosse story is not over yet. An appeal case decision is pending.