‘I thought Grenfell blaze was out,’ firefighter tells inquest

AFIREFIGHTER has described the tantalising moment he believed the Grenfell Tower blaze was extinguished, after becoming tearful when footage from the night was played to an inquiry.

Charles Batterbee, a crew manager at North Kensington fire station, was one of two firefighters tasked with putting out a kitchen fire on the fourth floor of the block.

He had crawled into the smokeclogged room and doused what appeared to be a fridge blaze at around 1.20am, radioing his colleagues two floors below to say “we had done our job”. But flames had burned through a window and crept on to the flammable external facade. It would sweep up the building in minutes, trapping dozens inside.

Yesterday the firefighter said he would “never get over that shock” of realising the block was still ablaze.

Mr Batterbee became upset and requested a break after footage of his entry to Flat 16 with colleague Daniel Brown was shown to a hearing at Holborn Bars. But after a short adjournment he he talked counsel to the inquiry Richard Millett QC through the video and his actions that night.

Due to the heat, it had taken several attempts to enter the compartment, he recalled, at which point it became clear the window was gone.

The blaze was on the right-hand side of the room, near the window, he said, and they then directed a jet of water out of the window to draw smoke out.

He told the hearing: “At that point, it was just a standard bread-andbutter job, it was no different from any other compartment fire...

“Then I noticed out of the window, up to the right-hand side, I noticed flames, something was alight.”

He was unable to tell if his subsequent warning message was received as his earpiece had fallen out of his headset.

Mr Batterbee described seeing a large extractor fan box outside the window in flames, holding on to Mr Brown as he leaned out of the window in an effort to extinguish it.

Mr Batterbee said he did not realise the external cladding panels were ablaze until he left the building.