Grenfell fireys failed

Official inquiry slams Brigade’s response to deadly inferno

THERE were serious shortcomings in the London Fire Brigade’s response to the Grenfell Tower inferno in which 72 people died, according to the official report into the tragedy.

Inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick said fewer people would have died had key decisions had been made earlier. The 1000-page report concluded the June 2017 fire started as an electrical fault in a fourth floor flat, and the main reason the flames shot up the building at such speed was the tower’s combustible aluminium cladding.

Sir Martin criticised the London Fire Brigade for its “stay-put” strategy when residents were told to remain in their flats by firefighters and emergency operators for nearly two hours after the blaze broke out just before 1am. The strategy was rescinded at 2.47am, the report said.

Sir Martin praised the heroics and bravery of individual firefighters, but described the “stay-put” strategy as an “article of faith within the LFB so powerful that to depart from it was to all intents and purposes unthinkable”.

The report into the tragedy, which was due to be published today, also accused the brigade’s commissioner Dany Cotton of “remarkable insensitivity” after she said she would not have done anything differently on the night.

He added: “the Commissioner’s evidence that she would not change anything about the response of the LFB on the night, even with the benefit of hindsight, only serves to demonstrate that the LFB is an institution at risk of not learning the lessons of the Grenfell Tower fire.”

Ms Cotton announced her retirement in June.

A London Fire Brigade spokesman said: “The Inquiry’s findings are not being published until Wednesday morning.

“And it would be inappropriate for us to comment on them until then.”