Grenfell Tower

June 6th 2018

The public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower tragedy has identified a catalogue of failings that helped fire to spread hampered efforts to save lives.

A non-functional fire lift for emergency workers, wrongly installed barriers against flames inside the building’s cladding and the widespread use of combustible material all played their part in a fire that killed 72 people, a damning report by Dr Barbara Lane found.

In addition, the “stay put” advice to residents had “effectively failed” less than 40 minutes after the outbreak of the fire, and there was “an early need for a total evacuation” due to the rapid spread of flames across the face of the tower, the document that ran to hundreds of pages said.

The report also found that no one in authority appeared to have investigated the potential fire risk posed by the cladding materials, which in any case did not comply with regulations.

More information on today’s hearing can be found here.