Inquiry critical of stay-put advice to Grenfell residents

The fire service’s response to the Grenfell Tower blaze was criticised yesterday after it emerged that four separate commanders had taken charge before ‘‘stay-put’’ instructions to residents were finally abandoned.

The public inquiry into the disaster was told that the fire brigade’s policy of asking people to remain in their flats had ‘‘effectively failed’’ 30 minutes after the first call to emergency services at 12.54am on June 14 last year.

However, residents were stopped from leaving until 2.47am, by which time the tower was largely covered in flames and command of the fire had changed three times between London Fire Brigade officers.

Before the advice was lifted, 187 residents ignored it and managed to escape, the inquiry was told.

After it was lifted only 36 people managed to make their way out of the smoke-filled tower.

The ‘‘stay-put’’ policy is used for fires in high-rise buildings. It is designed to ensure that firefighters can reach the unimpeded.

Nabil Choucair, who lost six members of his family on the 22nd floor, said that fire commanders should have abandoned the policy after the blaze had spread to the top of the outside of the tower within 20 fire minutes. ‘‘As soon as it spread upwards . . . it’s something you are not going to tackle,’’ he said. ‘‘The fact is they should have changed their policy from tackling the fire to a rescue policy. The people that judged to make that decision [to keep the stay-put policy] should all be changed.’’

Choucair’s sister Nadia, 29, was seen waving a flag from her window, after becoming trapped with her husband, Bassem, 38, and their three daughters, Mirena, 13, Fatima, 11, and Zeinab, three. The children’s grandmother, Sirria Choucair, 60, was also with them on the 22nd floor.

Barbara Lane, a chartered fire engineer commissioned by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry to analyse the fire, which killed 72 people, said the ‘‘stay-put’’ strategy should have been stopped after it became clear that the flames had reached the top of the tower.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said the policy ‘‘may well have to be changed’’. Dany Cotton, the London Fire Brigade commissioner who was on the scene from 2.29am, told the inquiry: ‘‘I have never seen a building where the whole of it was on fire. Nobody has ever seen that.’’

A London Fire Brigade spokesman said the ‘‘stay-put’’ policy remained for all high-rise towers not covered in flammable cladding. For the approximately 100 towers in London which have been identified as having dangerous cladding, the brigade has temporarily suspended the policy and moved to a ‘‘simultaneous eviction strategy’’ where all or parts of the building are evacuated at one time in the event of a fire. – The Times