‘Stay put’ advice was abandoned - manager

A fire control room manager on the night of the Grenfell Tower blaze became “increasingly uncomfortable” with the stayput policy and abandoned it within 15 minutes of her arrival.

Joanne Smith, senior operations manager for the London Fire Brigade (LFB), was on call on June 14 last year.

After listening to operators’ calls and becoming aware of deteriorating conditions inside the tower, she made the “quicktime” decision that residents should be told to evacuate.

In a written statement to the public inquiry she said: “I had arrived at Stratford at about 2.15am. Within 10 to 15 minutes the decision was made to change policy and that decision was mine.”

Ms Smith said she told Adrian Fenton, deputy assistant commissioner responsible for the brigade co-ordination centre, they should consider changing the policy.

“The information fed back by the CROs (control room operators) from residents and the conditions they were in led me to believe that they had no way of waiting to be rescued.”

The new advice was passed to fire personnel on the ground and residents on emergency calls.

Residents were advised to “get out, hold hands and get wet towels to put around themselves”. Ms Smith said from 2.30am until 4am the influx of calls was “utterly relentless”.