Grenfell ‘could have been evacuated in a matter of minutes’
GRENFELL Tower could have been fully evacuated in just seven minutes before fire took hold of the building, an expert said yesterday.
The 24-storey high-rise was devastated by an inferno in June last year, claiming 72 lives.
But Professor David Purser said the building’s single narrow staircase would have allowed all of the estimated 293 people inside to come down at the same time.
The toxicologist and fire safety scientist described a “golden early period” when people can escape from fires before conditions rapidly deteriorate.
Prof Purser told a public inquiry into the disaster he had descended from the top of the high-rise in three and a half minutes.
He said: “If there were 293 people in the building, that would represent an ideal nominal evacuation time of the whole population to the lobby in seven minutes if they all suddenly went into the stair.
Elderly
“Of course, in practice you have children, elderly people, some disabled.”
Prof Purser, who has been awarded a CBE for services to fire safety, added: “Although the single stair at Grenfell was quite narrow, there was a good handrail.
“The physical capacity was enough for all of the occupants to have evacuated safely within minutes if there had been some means of alerting them to evacuate such as, for example, a general tower alarm system, which of course we don’t have.”
In a presentation yesterday, Prof Purser told the inquiry it was reasonably safe for residents to descend the stairs until about 2am – more than an hour after the blaze broke out.
After that time, the lobbies and stairwell had become “hazardous” with toxic smoke, although people continued to escape the tower throughout the night. The inquiry has heard that London Fire Brigade reportedly did not begin changing its “stay put” advice to those inside the building until around 2.35am.
Prof Purser said occupants were exposed to heat or smoke in different ways depending on where they were in the building, and whether they tried to leave or stay put.
He said those who did not make it out of the tower are more likely to have died from breathing in toxic smoke than being burned, although it was difficult to assess the conditions they were exposed to because most of the bodies were “completely consumed”.
He added: “It is a strong possibility that those who died did so from smoke inhalation rather than being burned.”
He added that while irritant smoke can be unpleasant and cause breathing difficulties, people are “relatively unaware” of inhaling toxic gases, such as carbon monoxide and cyanide.
The hearing continues.