Full cladding removal is not necessary in all buildings, one of the country’s leading fire engineers says after a fire-spread test he conducted showed a Melbourne high-rise could stay safely inhabitable with about $40,000 worth of work instead of a $4 million replacement of all combustible panels.

The test Jonathan Barnett conducted on Monday showed fire was unlikely to jump between facade panels on a 24-storey Melbourne apartment tower, because a 1-metre-wide concrete layer separating the panels was sufficient to prevent the upwards spread of flame.