Fire chief scrapped stay-put plan after frantic 999 calls

A FIRE control room manager on the night of the Grenfell Tower blaze ordered “stay put” advice to be abandoned after just 10 minutes of listening to frantic phone calls, an inquiry heard.

Joanne Smith said that after arriving at the control room where workers were giving advice to families trapped inside the burning tower, she became “increasingly uncomfortable” that residents were told to stay in their homes.

The senior operations manager for the London Fire Brigade said that her years of experience and the nature and length of the calls from residents were behind the “quick-time” decision.

But by the time she had arrived at 2.15am, the advice, which some families have blamed for the death of loved ones, had already “substantially failed”.

Experts have said that the guidance had failed by 1.26am, when flames reached the top of the building and the stairwells filled with smoke. In a written statement to the public inquiry into the blaze, Ms Smith said: “I had arrived at Stratford at approximately 2.15am – within 10 to 15 minutes the decision was made to change policy and that decision was mine.”

Ms Smith, who was on call, was paged at 1.15am and while she was on the phone to the control room, which was temporarily based at Stratford because of maintenance work in their usual office in Merton, she heard the fire was developing rapidly and told colleagues she was on her way in.

Once the decision was made to abandon the “stay put” policy, residents were advised to get out and control room operators were told they may need to adopt more “forceful and blunt language” to emphasise the necessity of evacuation.

Ms Smith said that from 2.30am until 4am, the influx of calls to the control room was “utterly relentless”, adding: “There were tears. Lots and lots of tears. Looking around, I can only describe the staff as looking broken.”

She said that workers in the control room were “incredibly worried” the building could collapse, and made a “collective decision” not to watch coverage of the fire on television. Ms Smith will continue giving evidence to the inquiry today.