The Grenfell Tower fire

Ye gods, this sounds bad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40269625

http://news.sky.com/story/huge-fire-engulfs-west-london-tower-block-10915008

And people are saying the fire alarm did not go off.


Hopefully they will find out what caused the fire.

So shocked and upset at what  I have been seeing this morning.  What a terrible tragedy, and immediately it reminded me of the 9/11 tower block and the harrowing stories being related this morning.  How could such a thing happen and how on earth did that fire take hold so quickly, from reports it took less than half an hour.  My heart goes out to all those people involved in this awful tragedy, and I hope that there are not too many casualties.

How horrific. Just heard now that there are confirmed fatalities.

Terribly sad.

Met police say 6 people have so far died but that figure is expected to rise.

People often moan that there is no community spirit these days; I'm glad to say that isn't true.

http://news.sky.com/story/london-tower-fire-community-rallies-to-aid-victims-10915388

Horrific and so tragic. Imagine how terrified this poor girl was, she was home alone, really hope she's found safe:


Missing girl, 12, phoned mum in terror from fire escape of Grenfell Tower as inferno tore through building

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/missing-girl-12-phoned-mum-10620297

This is close to you isn't it chrissie?   Dreadful, incomprehensible tragedy.  Poor, poor people, how could such an horrendous thing happen it is horrific how quickly it spread.   Dreadful things happening in London recently.    x

Hi Bluebell, not really near me as I'm in North London but I do use that shopping centre sometimes. Such a terrible thing to happen, can't imagine what those poor people went through. xx

chrissie wrote:Hi Bluebell, not really near me as I'm in North London but I do use that shopping centre sometimes. Such a terrible thing to happen, can't imagine what those poor people went through. xx

Glad to hear it wasn't close to you chrissie. I'm unfamiliar with London now, West and North is only a few miles apart isn't it?
I just can't imagine how terrible it must have been for the residents there.

It's around 10 miles from me so not that far I suppose. As you said, so many terrible things have happened lately, I wonder what next when I put the news on in the morning xx

If you read the news internationally, you'll recognise that the owners of that apartment tower should be prosecuted and, as for my opinion, be "executed". This looks, on the basis of what I've seen and read today, like manslaughter, involontarily maybe, but still. Highly inflamable materials, no real escape routes, no emergency lights, no maintenance of important things like electricity, no smoke detectors, no maintenance of fire-extinctors. Nothing.
Saving money and killing so many innocent, just for the money.

I read, that the tenants have been complaining often and regularly on these points. And that NOTHING had been done. That's criminal.

Sorry. Rant over. But no, not really ... :-(

Exactly right, Chatelaine, heads should roll,  but as they're rich Corporate heads hand-in-hand with the Tory council I bet documents are being shredded as we speak. Here's the concerns of the residents association:

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/kctmo-playing-with-fire/


Grenfell Action Group

Working to defend and serve the Lancaster West community

KCTMO – Playing with fire!




It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the  KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders. We believe that the KCTMO are an evil, unprincipled, mini-mafia who have no business to be charged with the responsibility of  looking after the every day management of large scale social housing estates and that their sordid collusion with the RBKC Council is a recipe for a future major disaster.
Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation. We believe that the KCTMO have ensured their ongoing survival by the use of proxy votes at their Annual General Meeting that see them returned with a mandate of 98% in favour of the continuation of their inept and highly dangerous management of our homes. It is no coincidence that the 98% is the same figure that is returned by the infamous Kim Jong-un of North Korea who claims mass popularity while reputedly enslaving the general population and starving the majority of his people to death.
It is our conviction that a serious fire in a tower block or similar high density residential property is the most likely reason that those who wield power at the KCTMO will be found out and brought to justice! The Grenfell Action Group believe that the KCTMO narrowly averted a major fire disaster at Grenfell Tower in 2013 when residents experienced a period of terrifying power surges that were subsequently found to have been caused by faulty wiring. We believe that our attempts to highlight the seriousness of this event were covered up by the KCTMO with the help of the RBKC Scrutiny Committee who refused to investigate the legitimate concerns of tenants and leaseholders.
We have blogged many times on the subject of fire safety at Grenfell Tower and we believe that these investigations will become part of damning evidence of the poor safety record of the KCTMO should a fire affect any other of their properties and cause the loss of life that we are predicting:
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/fire-safety-scandal-at-lancaster-west/
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/more-on-fire-safety/
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/another-fire-safety-scandal/
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/grenfell-tower-still-a-fire-risk/
In October 2015 a fire ripped through another KCTMO property, the 14 storey Adair Tower in North Kensington, causing mass panic and resulting in a number of residents taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation. It is reported that had it not been for the swift actions of the London Fire Brigade the consequences of this fire and potential loss of life could have been much worse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11967592/50-rescued-from-burning-flats-in-Kensington.html
In the aftermath of the Adair Tower fire the London Fire Brigade found that the KCTMO had not been looking after the safety of residents properly and issued an Enforcement Order compelling them to improve the fire safety in the escape staircases and to provide self closing devices to all the tower block’s front doors. A further audit by the London Fire Brigade of the neighbouring Hazelwood Tower (located alongside Adair Tower) found similar breaches of health and safety legislation and an Enforcement Order was also issued for this property forcing the TMO to address the serious concerns of the Fire Brigade’s inspectors. What is shocking is that a decade ago a fatality occurred due to a fire at Hazelwood Tower and the Fire Investigation Team ordered that the grills on the fire escape staircase be covered over. This never happened and it is believed that the uncovered grills at Adair House (Hazelwood Tower’s twin block) acted like a chimney and were responsible for the accelerated spread of the fire and smoke damage.
In the last twenty years and despite the terrifying power surge incident in 2013 and recent fire at Adair Tower, the residents of Grenfell Tower have received no proper fire safety instructions from the KCTMO. Residents were informed by a temporary notice stuck in the lift and one announcement in a recent regeneration newsletter that they should remain in their flats in the event of fire. There are not and never have been any instructions posted in the Grenfell Tower noticeboard or on individual floor as to how residents should act in event of a fire. Anyone who witnessed the recent tower block fire at Shepherds Court, in nearby Shepherd’s Bush, will know that the advice to remain in our properties would have led to certain fatalities and we are calling on our landlord to re-consider the advice that they have so badly circulated.
The Grenfell Action Group predict that it won’t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the heath and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can’t say that they haven’t been warned!

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Just read that the death toll now risen to 12.

Terrible stuff.

Châtelaine wrote:If you read the news internationally, you'll recognise that the owners of that apartment tower should be prosecuted and, as for my opinion, be "executed". This looks, on the basis of what I've seen and read today, like manslaughter, involontarily maybe, but still. Highly inflamable materials, no real escape routes, no emergency lights, no maintenance of important things like electricity, no smoke detectors, no maintenance of fire-extinctors. Nothing.
Saving money and killing so many innocent, just for the money.

I read, that the tenants have been complaining often and regularly on these points. And that NOTHING had been done. That's criminal.

Sorry. Rant over. But no, not really ... :-(

My feelings exactly. It`s harrowing listening to the news.

Chatelaine, the owners are the London Borough of Chelsea and Kensington I think. They are council flats. Now is this down to corruption within the Council or cost cutting because of Tory austerity ?

A fire officer was being interviewed on Radio 4 just now and he said it is almost impossible for any fire brigade to tackle a fire in some of those high rise flats these days because the windows are hermetically sealed and with the fascias any water they spray will just bounce off - it cannot penetrate. All they can do is try to rescue people by going up the main staircase and banging on doors. Absolutely horrific.

That's alarming, Dee Coy.
The first thing a government should do is assure safety for their people.
If money and "contacts" count more: it IS a criminal offense.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/grenfell-tower-fire-live-updates-10619185

Death toll now 17.

Sniffer dogs sent in.

Not sure thats a good idea.....ask the McCanns Sandra!!
And there are some who still argue dogs dont work! Sad:-(

Dogs sent into tower to search for victims as death toll rises to 17

Specialist urban search and rescue dog teams are to go through the building looking for victims, officials have confirmed.
"They will go through the building and the surrounding area looking for any identification of people," says London fire commissioner Dany Cotton.

"The benefit of using those dogs is that they are clearly much lighter than people and they can cover a greater area is a short space of time."

She anticipates crews - some 300 have been involved in tackling the incident so far - will be at the scene for days to come, working with the police and other experts "to ensure that we do the best for the people who are waiting for news of their loved ones".

"This will be a detailed fingertip search, " she said, which could take "weeks".

"Obviously this will be a very slow and painstaking process," she added.
Seventeen people have died in the Grenfell Tower fire but the death toll is still expected to rise, Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police said.

He added: "There are 37 people receiving treatment, of which 17 are still in critical care

"Like we explained yesterday, our absolute priority for all of us is about identifying and locating those people that are still missing.

"It would be wrong for me to get into numbers that I do not believe are accurate."

Adam Boulton‏Verified account @adamboultonSKY · 1h1 hour ago



SCANDAL Minister @NickHurdUK is taking MPs Qs in W'minster Hall at 1330 but govt blocking TV camera access

I was up in that area yesterday for a meeting and I spent several hours at various points around the police cordon. It was deeply shocking to see the building which was still in flames and billowing smoke at 6.30pm. People were traumatized and people were angry, quite rightly so. It is so clear from the charred remains of the building that it was a fire hazard waiting to happen.

IMO it would have been impossible to get enough fire engines close to the block as there is very limited road access and it is narrow. Therefore, once the blaze took hold, I don't think they could have got enough engines nearby to contain the blaze. Plus they probably also need to have used helicopters to spray the roof and try to evacuate tenants in the higher levels from the roof.

I think what happened is that the fire started in a kitchen on the fourth floor. From reports I have read the resident in whose flat the fire started packed a bag and alerted his neighbours to the fire at 12.50am and they evacuated. When they left the building two fire engines were outside. One of the neighbours is reported as saying the fire was quite small when they left as she could see it through the open front door of the flat. If this was the case, it begs the question of whether a fire extinguisher or fire blanket might have been enough to contain the blaze? Surely this would be the minimum one would expect in terms of fire equipment? Fire extinguishers plus blankets in each corridor? There could even be designated people within the block who were trained to know how to use the equipment. Surely it is better to 'nip a fire in the bud' while it is still contained within one room?

It does beg the question of why the fire crews who were on the scene before 1am could not use their hoses to try to extinguish the fire before it spread plus also enter the building while it was still safe to do so and try to extinguish the fire before it spread from the flat.

I can only assume that flames from the fire reached the external cladding of the building quite quickly - presumably from the kitchen window - and once the cladding was alight outside the building it was highly flammable and the flames whipped up between the cladding and the building creating an inferno in minutes. Presumably, the fire crews had no idea that the cladding would be so inflammable and thought they had more time on there hands than they did.

As others have noted,it would appear that the fire procedures and precautions were woefully inadequate. No emergency lighting. Not enough fire escapes. No sprinkler systems. No alarms that could be properly heard for heaven's sake! That is just so basic.

Surely there could even be exterior fire escapes? Or emergency shoots or slides such as they have in aircraft?

By the time enough fire engines had arrived the blaze was out of control and people were trapped in the building.

It would seem that the residents had endured several years of noisy building work when the cladding was put up and the council were unhelpful and did not listen to their complaints. Nor were they even allowed to have a proper residents' association it would seem. From at least one report I have read from a resident (I will try to find the link) the council and building contractors adopted a heavy-handed approach and their concerns about safety and fire hazards were dismissed and minimized.

Lives were most definitely put at risk by the council not taking the residents concerns seriously. Greed and corruption, imo.

This appears to be part of a much 'wider agenda' that has been going on for years.

The Grenfell Action Group believes that this course of action is the only way that the negligence, incompetence and systemic failings of the KCTMO can be exposed and meaningful change brought about. Many local residents believe that the TMO is little better than a mini-mafia which treats its residents with contempt and never misses an opportunity to bully, intimidate, disrespect and belittle them. Complaining or mounting resistance to this dysfunctional organisation is futile as the TMO seems completely unable or unwilling to respond sympathetically to the legitimate concerns of residents.

Complaints are often sidetracked, ignored or simply responded to with brazen lies and falsehoods. KCTMO staff are frequently just plain rude and unhelpful and any individual who risks putting their head above the parapet to expose wrongdoings or shortcomings can expect malicious persecution by those in power within the KCTMO.

The Memoli Report highlighted a similar range of unacceptable practices and behaviour in 2009 and many local residents believe that the TMO failed to improve significantly following the Memoli scandal and has since reverted completely to type. Most of the failings identified by Memoli are as prevalent today as they were when the original report was published. This treatment of residents by the KCTMO is totally unacceptable and the Grenfell Action Group is demanding change.

We urge our readers to examine the contents of the Memoli Report and then approach local Resident Associations, local councillors, or your local MP, urging them to pressurise the RBKC to launch another independent investigation into how the KCTMO operates today and to explain why they have failed so dismally to respond to the recommendations made by Memoli in 2009.

It is a shame that we ourselves cannot approach RBKC directly to demand a new and fully independent investigation into the TMO, but it is a well known fact that both RBKC and the TMO are extremely hostile to the Grenfell Action Group and are highly unlikely to respond positively to any approach from us. It is also well known that collusion between RBKC and the KCTMO is endemic and ongoing and has led directly to the long-term managed decline of many social housing estates in North Kensington.

The Grenfell Action Group believes that the RBKC will have no appetite to ruffle the feathers of their co-conspirators in the social cleansing of North Kensington, and as the sordid and protracted undermining, disempowerment and ultimate dissolution of Lancaster West EMB proved, the RBKC and KCTMO are as thick as thieves.





https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/grenfell-action-group-demands-new-kctmo-investigation/