SHATTERED HEROES WHO FOUGHT THROUGH NIGHT

MORE than 250 firemen battled through the night to bring the ‘unprecedented’ inferno under control in scenes likened to a war zone.

Braving flying debris so they could enter the burning building, they rescued 65 people from the flames in what was described as the worst incident since the Blitz.

One 27-year veteran of the London Fire Brigade said the scenes were like ‘the Towering Inferno and 9/11 rolled into one’.

And yesterday, covered in dust and grime, they looked shattered as they sat in the shadow of the smouldering building after fighting the blaze for hours on end.

Still dressed in protective gear, they took a well- deserved rest as acrid smoke continued to belch from the tower and its debris littered the surrounding area.

Steve Apter, safety director from London Fire Brigade, praised those who in ‘particularly arduous conditions’ tackled a blaze which was unheard of in terms of ‘scale, speed and spread’.

London Fire Commissioner Danny Cotton said: ‘This is an unprecedented incident. In my 29 years of being a firefighter, I have never ever seen anything of this scale.’

After getting the first call at just before 1am, more than 60 appliances were dispatched to the scene in West London.

One fireman, named as Terry, told how he was part of the team for eight straight hours from 2am. ‘When we turned up we could only see one side on fire but in a couple of hours that whole building was engulfed,’ he told LBC’s James O’Brien.

‘It was like The Towering Inferno and 9/11 rolled into one. To get in the building we were running a

‘I’ve never seen anything like it’

gauntlet of flying debris, and the police were using their riot shields.

‘Me and my crew were involved in rescues. People were coming down the stairs in smoke. I don’t know how they were breathing. We had breathing apparatuses on and we were basically carrying them down the stairs.’

Terry said that despite nearly three decades in the fire brigade he had never seen ‘anything like it, ever’. He added: ‘How can a building go from a fire in a flat, which we believe was on the lower floors, to literally 100 per cent of the building on fire? It’s unbelievable.

‘I only went as far as the 10th floor. What we saw, that [death] toll is going to rise.’

Ian Leahair, executive council member for the London Fire Brigade Union, said: ‘I’ve not seen bravery like this in all my 27 years.

‘The amount of firefighters that have gone into this building, the exhaustion levels they battled through, it is nothing short of heroic.

‘The same applies to our control room staff, who on top of fielding all the calls from the public and getting those they can to a safe place, have had to have horrific conversations with people trapped in the building, fearing for their lives.

‘The firefighters are devastated because they have done all they can but they couldn’t do more.

‘It’s too early to talk about cuts or whether anything else could have hindered the response. That is for an official inquiry, which will no doubt follow.

‘But all I can say is that with the resources we do have, the firefighters who have attended have done a tremendous job and will continue to do so.’