Grenfell ‘lesson must be learned’

INFERNO: Tower on fire A FIREFIGHTER who rescued nine people from the Grenfell Tower inferno says officials always vow to learn from disasters – but “never do”.

Aldo Diana, a crew manager at Battersea Fire Station, was one of the team of 250 who battled the blaze on June 14 last year.

Seventy-two people died, and 65 were saved from the deadly flames and smoke.

Now retired, Aldo, 55, said the authorities must learn from mistakes which caused the catastrophe.

He added: “I can’t stand the politics side of it – people saying, ‘We’ll learn from this’.

“They always say it, and they never do. They never learn, and it happens again.”

On the night, Aldo and a partner were ordered to one of the upper floors of the 24-storey building.

They went into the blazing tower five times, and on each occasion they found people struggling to escape and led or carried them to safety.

He said: “Maybe I should have more emotions. I am an emotional person – I cry over animals on TV – but with the fire service, I just seemed to switch off.

“I was doing a job to save lives, and I saved lives that night as best I could.”

Aldo speaks out on TV programme Grenfell: The First 24 Hours, on ITV tomorrow at 9pm.

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GUESTS sparked a bank holiday fire scare when they lit a barbecue on their 12th floor room balcony at the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone, Kent.