LonDON — A fire tore through a 24-story West London apartment building early Wednesday, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than 70. The cause is still under investigation.
How did the fire start?
The fire was first reported at 12:54 a.m. The site was Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, built in 1974, which housed at least 400 people in 120 apartments across 20 residential floors. Firefighters responded within six minutes. The blaze began on the fourth floor and spread to the top with a velocity and intensity that stunned the 250 firefighters who responded. Pockets of fire were still blazing on Thursday morning, more than 24 hours after the fire broke out.
Commissioner Dany Cotton of the London Fire Brigade said it was too early to speculate on the cause. Early news reports said that the fire may have been caused by the explosion of an electrical appliance, but nothing has been /confirm/ied. The police have ruled out terrorism.
How did it spread so quickly?
That is a major question for investigators. Usually, high-rise buildings are designed to contain a fire in its unit of origin, and in contemporary buildings, alarm systems and sprinklers are the norm.
Grenfell Tower was recently fitted with exterior aluminum cladding.
Such cladding, which often consists of aluminum sheets sandwiched over some kind of insulation, has been seen as a factor in past blazes, including three major high-rise fires in Dubai.
The United States and Britain have relatively tough regulations on the potential flammability of internal material used in cladding, but other factors — such as how panels are made and installed — could come into play.
Christopher Miers, the managing director of Probyn-Miers, a forensic architecture firm that examines buildings that are defective or fire damaged, said the panels “are safe to use, but they need to be properly used and they need to be well constructed and the building needs to be well managed.”
Matthew Needham-Laing, an architect and engineering lawyer who specializes in building defects, said the dark smoke that engulfed the building was a telltale sign of burning cladding material.
“It looks to me — and certainly a lot of people are saying the same thing — it looks to me like a cladding fire,” he said.The material in the cladding, he said, is “flame retardant, so it doesn’t catch fire as easily, but the temperatures you’re talking about are often 900, 1,000 degrees centigrade, and in those conditions, any material will generally burn, and they do, and the thick black smoke was sure to be from that insulation.”
Firefighters resting near the site of the blaze. London Fire Brigade said officers were likely to remain there for 24 hours.Credit Matt Dunham/Associated Press
Who owns the building?
Grenfell Tower is owned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, one of 32 boroughs that make up Greater London, along with the City, London’s financial district. Day-to-day management is contracted out to the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization.
In May 2016, the building underwent a $12.8 million renovation, including the cladding, double-glazed windows and a communal heating system.
Nicholas Paget-Brown, the council’s leader, told the BBC that whether the refurbishment was done appropriately “will need to be the subject of a separate investigation.”
“We need a thorough inquiry into why this fire started, why it spread so quickly, and whether there was anything in place to slow down its progress,” he added.
He said his immediate concern was finding housing for displaced residents.
Flames and smoke engulfing Grenfell Tower.
Did the building meet current standards?
After six people died and more than 20 were injured in a 2009 fire in Lakanal House, a tower block in Camberwell, in the southeast of London, a parliamentary group called for a review of fire safety rules, and an inquest advised the government to urge that sprinklers be installed in high-rise buildings.
The review has been dragging. Gavin Barwell, a housing minister until he lost his seat in the general election last week and was then appointed Prime Minister Theresa May’s chief of staff, has come under criticism for the delay.
Grenfell Tower’s management company carried out an overhaul of the fire safety system only last year, considering it a model for its many properties. In board meeting minutes last year, it said it would use the same approach on “all major works projects.”
The overhaul came after years of complaints by tenants, and after a deficiency notice was issued by the London Fire Brigade last year relating to another building.
What was the safety protocol, and was it followed?
The fire action protocol said that residents who were safely inside their apartments when there was a fire elsewhere should stay put, keeping doors and windows closed. The procedure is not uncommon for such towers in Britain.
A 2014 residents’ newsletter defended this policy on the grounds that the building had been designed to meet “rigorous fire safety standards.” It said apartments had recently been fitted with front doors that could “withstand a fire for up to 30 minutes, which gives plenty of time for the fire brigade to arrive.”
Paul Munakr, a seventh-floor resident, told the BBC that alarms in the building had not gone off, leading to initial confusion as to whether there was a fire.
But David King, a building engineer, said that in his three-decade career, he had never heard of residents in high-rise buildings being told to stay put.
Two men hugging within the security cordon around Grenfell Tower.Credit Daniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Had safety issues been raised?
The Grenfell Action Group, a residents’ group, said it had raised alarms for years about the management of the building.
In a post last November, the action group said that, despite a fire at another tower managed by the company, and power surges found to have been caused by faulty wiring at Grenfell Tower in 2013, residents had received no “proper safety instructions.” The group predicted that it would take a “catastrophic event” to spur the management company to action.
The group said the management company had responded to the concerns by posting fire safety instructions — including the “stay put” policy — at the building entrance and outside elevators on every floor.
A fire risk assessment for the tower conducted in November 2012, and cited by the Grenfell Action Group, said that fire extinguishers in the basement boiler room, the elevator monitor room and the ground floor electrical room were out of date. “Some located in the roof level areas had ‘condemned’ written on them in large black writing with a last test date of 2009 or 2010,” the report said. It was not clear if the extinguishers had since been updated.
How has management responded?
The management company declined to comment on safety concerns, and referred reporters to a statement on its website by its chief executive, Robert Black, calling the fire “devastating” and expressing heartbreak at the reports of injury and loss of life.
In a statement, the Rydon Group, the contractor that refurbished Grenfell Tower last year, said its work “met all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards.”
“We will cooperate with the relevant authorities and emergency services and fully support their enquiries into the causes of this fire at the appropriate time,” the company added.
Harley Facades Limited, which made the cladding, has not responded to requests for comment.
