Union chief: Don’t blame firefighters for Grenfell deaths

‘They didn’t clad the tower’, FBU protests

A FIRE union boss has hit back at criticism of firefighters in the Grenfell disaster inquiry’s report, accusing the Government of “evading scrutiny”.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, pointed out that firefighters “did not put flammable cladding on Grenfell Tower”.

And he insisted the public “will be baffled that people... have not already been prosecuted.”

The first part of the inquiry report into the June 2017 blaze, which killed 72 people, was leaked yesterday. It focuses on the events of the night.

In it, inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-bick criticised London Fire Brigade’s “stay put” policy, and said lives could have been saved if people had been evacuated earlier.

Residents were told to remain in their flats for nearly two hours after the fire, which began in a fridgefreezer, broke out.

Sir Martin praised firefighters’ bravery, and said the “principal” reason the blaze spread so quickly was because the block’s flammable cladding “acted as a source of fuel”. But he said many “institutional” failures meant the brigade’s preparation for such an incident was “gravely inadequate”.

And he censured LFB commissioner Dany Cotton’s “remarkable insensitivity” in saying she would not have changed anything about the night’s response.

The report also found mistakes made in responding to the Lakanal House high-rise fire, in Camberwell, South London, in 2009, which killed six, “were repeated”. The second phase of the inquiry, due to start in January, will analyse the wider situation, including the block’s design.

Mr Wrack said the inquiry should have first examined “the real causes of what happened to Grenfell and why flammable cladding was wrapped around the building”.

He said: “You should look at the causation and who took the decisions... because there are government ministers who are evading scrutiny. Yet the actions of individual firefighters are being scrutinised.”

He also tweeted: “Firefighters did not put flammable cladding on Grenfell Tower. Firefighters risked their own lives time and again.”

Jeremy Corbyn paid tribute to the firefighters, adding: “Thousands are still at risk because of the Government’s failure to remove similar cladding from other tower blocks.”

You should look at the causation and the decisions

MATT WRACK OF FBU DEFENDS COLLEAGUES

RAPPED Dany Cotton, left, was deemed ‘insensitive’

INQUIRY Sir Martin Moore-bick and Matt Wrack