Grenfell Tower fire

Grenfell Tower was part of the Lancaster West Estate, a council housing complex in North Kensington. The 24-storey tower block was designed in 1967 in the Brutalist style of the era by Clifford Wearden and Associates, and the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council approved its construction in 1970.[3][4][5][6] The building was constructed by contractors A E Symes of Leyton from 1972–74.[7]

The 220-foot-10-inch (67.30 m) tall building contained 120 one- and two-bedroom flats.[8] The upper 20 of 24 storeys were residential floors, with each having a communal lobby and six dwellings, with ten bedrooms between them.[8] The lower four storeys were originally used for non-residential purposes.[note 2] Later, two lower floors were converted to residential use, bringing the total to 129 apartments, housing up to 600 people.[9] The original lead architect for the building, Nigel Whitbread, said in 2016 that the tower had been designed with attention to strength following the 1968 Ronan Point disaster and "from what I can see could last another hundred years."[11]

Like many other tower blocks in the UK, Grenfell Tower was designed to be operated under a "stay put policy" in the event of fire. The idea was that if a fire broke out in one flat, thick walls and fire doors would contain the fire long enough for the fire service to bring it under control.[12] Only those in the affected dwelling would be expected to evacuate.[13] The building was designed under the assumption that a full evacuation would never be necessary. There was no centrally activated fire alarm and only a single central staircase.[14][15] Unlike in many other countries, UK regulations do not require a second.[15] In 2010, a fire broke out in a lobby and was quickly extinguished.[16]

Until 1996, Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council managed its council housing directly. In 1996, the council created Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO), a tenant management organisation which would manage its council housing stock.[17] KCTMO had a board comprising eight residents (tenants or leaseholders), four council-appointed members and three independent members.[18] The tower was built as council housing, but fourteen of the flats had been bought under the Right to Buy policy. These were occupied by leaseholders, or were privately rented out by them on the open market.[19]

Grenfell Tower in 2009, before the renovation and the installation of the cladding

Grenfell Tower underwent a major renovation, announced in 2012 and conducted over 2015–16.[9][20] The tower received new windows, a water-based heating system for individual flats and new aluminium composite rainscreen cladding.[21][22][23] According to the application, the purpose of the cladding was to improve heating and energy efficiency, and external appearance. Mark Harris, of Harley Facades, said, "from a selfish point of view", his company's preference was to use (cheaper) aluminium composite material.[24][20]

Two types of cladding were used: Arconic's Reynobond PE, which consists of two coil-coated aluminium sheets that are fusion bonded to both sides of a polyethylene core; and Reynolux aluminium sheets. Beneath these, and fixed to the outside of the walls of the flats, was Celotex RS5000 PIR thermal insulation.[25][26][27] An alternative cladding with better fire resistance was refused due to cost.[28] In 2020, it emerged that a key shareholder in Arconic at the time was also a major donor to the Conservative Party.[29]

The original contractor, Leadbitter, had been dropped by KCTMO because their price of £11.278 million was £1.6 million higher than the proposed budget. The contract was put out to competitive tender and won by Rydon, whose bid was £2.5 million less than Leadbitter's.[30] Rydon carried out the refurbishment for £8.7 million, with Artelia on contract administration and Max Fordham as specialist mechanical and electrical consultants.[30][31][32][33][34] The cladding was fitted by Harley Facades of Crowborough, East Sussex, at a cost of £2.6 million.[35]

Residents had expressed significant safety concerns before the fire.[36] Twelve years earlier, a report had criticised the tower's emergency lighting.[37] The Grenfell Action Group (GAG) ran a blog in which it highlighted major safety problems, criticising the council and KCTMO for neglecting fire safety and building maintenance.

In 2013, the group published a 2012 fire risk assessment by a KCTMO Health and Safety Officer which recorded safety concerns. Firefighting equipment at the tower had not been checked for up to four years; on-site fire extinguishers had expired, and some had the word "condemned" written on them because they were so old. GAG documented its attempts to contact KCTMO management; they also alerted the council's cabinet member for Housing and Property but said they never received a reply.[38][39] In 2013 the council threatened one of the bloggers with legal action, saying that their posts amounted to "defamation and harassment".[40] Two women living in Grenfell Tower, Mariem Elgwahry and Nadia Choucair, were threatened with legal action by KCTMO after they campaigned for improved fire safety.[41] They later died in the fire, at the age of 27 and 33.

In January 2016, GAG warned that people might be trapped in the building if a fire broke out, pointing out that the building had only one entrance and exit, and corridors that had been allowed to fill with rubbish, such as old mattresses. GAG frequently cited other fires in tower blocks when it warned of the hazards at Grenfell.[42] In November 2016, GAG attacked KCTMO as an "evil, unprincipled, mini-mafia" and accused the council of ignoring health and safety laws. GAG suggested that "only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of [KCTMO]", adding, "[We] 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 [sic] and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can't say that they haven't been warned!"[43] The Grenfell Tower Leaseholders' Association had also raised concerns about exposed gas pipes in the months before the fire.[44] As with the majority of tower blocks in the UK, Grenfell Tower did not have fire sprinklers.[45]

Meanwhile, in June 2016, an independent assessor had highlighted 40 serious issues with fire safety at Grenfell Tower and recommended action to be taken within weeks. In October, the assessor asked the KCTMO why there had been no action taken for more than 20 issues in the June report. In November 2016, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority served a fire deficiency notice, listing many fire safety issues at Grenfell Tower that required action from KCTMO by May 2017. Areas of concern identified included fire doors, the smoke venting system and the firefighters' lift controls.[46][47]

One of the earliest fires that involved cladding materials was the 1973 Summerland disaster on the Isle of Man, which caused 50 deaths. Part of the reason why the fire spread rapidly through the leisure centre was the acrylic sheeting on the exterior of the building.[48][49] In the 1991 Knowsley Heights fire, fire spread up the entire height of an 11-storey building due to its exterior cladding, though it did not enter the interior and nobody was injured.[50] In 2009, external composite panels also played a role in the spread of the Lakanal House fire in Southwark.[51] An article in The Guardian three days after the Grenfell Tower fire described it as a "tragedy foretold", highlighting that there had been previous cladding fires such as the 2015 fire at The Marina Torch in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.[52]

In 2016, a non-fatal fire at a Shepherd's Bush tower block spread to six floors via flammable external cladding. In May 2017, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) warned all 33 London councils to review the use of panels and "take appropriate action to mitigate the fire risk".[53][54][55][56]

The fire started in the early hours of Wednesday 14 June 2017 at around 00:50 BST (UTC+1), when a fridge-freezer caught fire in Flat 16, on the fourth floor.[57] The flat's resident was woken by a smoke alarm. He entered the kitchen and discovered the fridge-freezer smoking. He alerted his lodgers and neighbours, then called the LFB at 00:54.[57][note 3] The first two fire engines ("pumps") arrived six minutes later.[59][60] The initial incident commander said that the fire was visible at this point as a "glow" in the window.[61] A further two pumps were also dispatched.[62][63] Any residents of the tower who called the fire service were told to remain in their flat unless it was affected, which is the standard policy for a fire in a high-rise building,[57] as each flat should be fireproofed from its neighbours. Also due to this policy, the building had no central fire alarm.

Most of the firefighters entered the building. They set up a bridgehead (internal base of operations) on the second floor and connected hoses to the dry riser. They first entered Flat 16 at 01:07. It was a further seven minutes before they began tackling the kitchen blaze. At approximately 01:08, the fire began to penetrate the window frame.[63] Within a few minutes, it was setting the surrounding cladding panels on fire. Observing this, the incident commander requested another two pumps and an aerial appliance at 01:13, which also triggered the dispatch of more senior officers, a fire investigation unit and two command vehicles.[63] Another firefighter was asked to try to prevent it spreading with a water jet, though this jet could not reach higher than the fourth floor, and due to fears of causing a dangerous build-up of steam on the inside, it was not aimed directly at the window.[64]

By the time the firefighters began extinguishing the kitchen fire, a column of flames was quickly advancing up the side of the building. At 01:15, a firefighter discovered smoke in Flat 26 (directly above Flat 16), another discovered residents who had fled smoke on the fifth and sixth floors, and large quantities of debris began falling from the burning façade.[63] The flames spread up the side at a "terrifying rate".[65] Attempts to fight the fire with an external jet were unsuccessful, as it was mostly burning behind the waterproof rainscreen.[63] By 01:30, a rising column of flames had reached the roof and the fire was out of control.[66][63] The fire on the eastern exterior spread sideways and brought smoke and flames into multiple flats.[67][65][68][69]

By 01:18, 34 of 293 residents had escaped.[57] The busiest phase of evacuations was between 01:18 and 01:38, when 110 escaped,[57] with many being woken up by their smoke alarms when smoke entered their flat. Due to Ramadan, many observing Muslim residents were awake for the pre-dawn meal of suhur, which enabled them to alert neighbours.[70][71]

LFB rapidly escalated its response during this time period. The number of pumps in attendance was raised from six to eight at 01:19, with a specialist fire-rescue unit, bulk breathing apparatus carrier and damage control unit being sent too. Pumps were made up to 10 at 01:24, then to 15 at 01:27 along with a second aerial platform. Two minutes later pumps were made 20 and two more fire-rescue units were mobilised, and pumps were made up to 25 at 01:35, also triggering the dispatch of an Assistant Commissioner.[63] Dany Cotton, the Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, was also called out and began driving to the scene from her home in Kent.[note 4] The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) were called at 01:24 to manage the gathering crowd outside.[63] Five minutes later, the London Ambulance Service were also called.[63]

Due to fire doors not closing and sealing properly, smoke began to spread from affected flats into the lobbies.[62] By 01:33, LFB were receiving calls from residents who reported being trapped in their flats.[63] At some point between 01:30 and 01:40, smoke began to enter the stairwell.[57] The Inquiry later estimated that despite this, the stairs were still passable for over half an hour.[73] Evacuation rates slowed, with 20 escaping between 01:38 and 01:58.[57] More than half of those still trapped at 01:58 were killed, while 48 were rescued between 01:58 and 03:58.[57] The fire continued to spread sideways on the exterior, and by 01:42 had reached the north side.[62]

LFB call handlers collected information from trapped residents and this was relayed to the LFB's command unit that was parked outside. Communicating through radio proved difficult, due to noise, the sheer volume of talk and possibly the concrete building structure. Instead, details of trapped residents were written on slips of paper and ferried by runners from the command unit to the bridgehead on the second floor. At the bridgehead, incoming firefighters were assigned flats to go to and briefed on whom they would need to rescue.[74] They donned breathing apparatus and headed to the flat to search for its residents.

The firefighters encountered thick smoke, zero visibility and extreme heat when they climbed above the fourth floor.[60][75] Furthermore, some residents had moved location to escape the smoke. Three firefighters who went to rescue a 12-year old girl on the 20th floor were unable to find her. Unknown to them, she had moved up to a flat on the 23rd floor, was on the phone to a control operator who had no means of knowing what the firefighters were doing,[63] and later died in this location.[76] Another two firefighters were sent to a flat on the 14th floor with a single resident, only to find 8 people (four of them eventually escaped).[77]

Witnesses reported seeing people trapped inside the burning building, switching the lights in their flats on and off or waving from windows to attract help, some holding children. Eyewitnesses reported seeing some people jumping out, and four victims were later found to have died from "injuries consistent with falling from a height".[78][79] At least one person used knotted blankets to make a rope and escape from the burning building.[80] Frequent explosions that were reported to be from gas lines in the building were heard.[60]

Outside operations were hindered by falling debris, including burning pieces of cladding. Due to this danger, the police moved crowds away from the building as a safety precaution. The MPS Territorial Support Group was present; besides being a specialist unit for public order policing, they provided riot shields to protect firefighters from falling debris.[81]

Shortly after 02:00, a major incident was declared and the number of fire engines was raised from 25 to 40, the number of fire-rescue units increased to 10, command vehicles to six, aerial platforms to four, and operational support units to two.[62] Over the course of the operation, 250 firefighters attempted to control the blaze,[82] with more than 100 firefighters inside the building at a given time. Assistant Commissioner Andrew Roe assumed direct command of firefighting operations for the next 11 hours. Rather than command the operations directly, Commissioner Cotton served as a Monitoring Officer, overseeing Roe and providing moral support to firefighters. She admitted that LFB had broken their own safety protocols by entering a large building without knowing whether it was in danger of structural collapse.[72] It was not until the following afternoon that structural engineers were able to assess the structure and determine that it was not in danger of collapse.[60]

By 02:20, the level of smoke in the stairwell constituted a threat to life, although some survivors did escape beyond then.[73] At 02:47 the "stay put" policy, advising those residents in areas unaffected by the blaze to remain there, was abandoned in favour of general evacuation.[13] After this point only 36 further residents were able to escape. Experts on the subsequent inquiry into the disaster later said that the "stay put" policy should have been discarded an hour and twenty minutes before it eventually was.[83]

Grenfell Tower in the early morning of 14 June. The burnt cladding is visible on the outside of the building.

By sunrise, firefighters were still busy fighting the fire and attempting rescues on the inside. At 04:14, police addressed the large crowd of onlookers and urgently instructed them to contact anyone they knew who was trapped in the building—if they are able to reach them via phone or Twitter—to tell them they must try to self-evacuate and not wait for the fire brigade.[84] By 04:44, all sides of the building had been affected.[62]

Only two further rescues took place, with one resident being rescued at 06:05 and the last being rescued at 08:07.[62] Firefighters rescued all remaining residents up to the 10th floor and all but two up to the 12th floor, but none got higher than the 20th floor during this time; only two people escaped from the highest two floors.[57]

Grenfell Tower two days after the fire broke out

At a news conference in the afternoon of 14 June, LFB reported firefighters had rescued 65 people from the building and reached all 24 floors.[85] Seventy-four people were confirmed by the NHS to be in six hospitals across London with 20 of them in critical care.[86]

The fire continued to burn on the tower's upper floors. It was not brought under control until 01:14 on 15 June and firefighters were still damping down pockets of fire when the Brigade issued an update on 16 June.[87] The fire brigade also used a drone to inspect the building and search for casualties.[88] The fire was declared extinguished on the evening of 16 June.[89]

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, a number of unsubstantiated reports about casualties circulated online, which were to later be debunked, including that the government had covered up details of the fire and babies' miraculous survival stories.[96][97][98][99][100] A later investigation by BBC Panorama found no evidence that these survival accounts were credible: neither the Metropolitan Police, London Ambulance Service nor any A&E departments were able to find any record of this happening.[101][102]

The fire caused 72 deaths, including one who died in hospital a day later and another who died in January 2018.[103][104][105] The latter occurred after an official death toll was announced by police in November 2017.[106] The incident ranks as the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Second World War.[107]

Police examined the remains of Grenfell Tower and used "every imaginable source" of information "from government agencies to fast food companies" to identify casualties. Their analysis of CCTV evidence concluded that 223 people (of 293 present) had escaped.[108] This investigation took five months, with only 12 fatalities being identified on the actual day of the fire.[95] By the following week, police had estimated that 80 people had died.[109] This was the most widely quoted estimate in the media for several months.[110][111] On 19 September 2017, Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy suggested that the number of dead could be lower than 80 because eight people were being investigated for making fraudulent financial claims for non-existent victims.[110][111][112] By 1 June 2018, this had led to five people being convicted of fraud.[113][114] Obstacles to identifying fatalities included the fact there was no formal register of who was in the building,[115][116] and the number of undocumented subtenants, migrants and asylum seekers who were believed to have been living there.[117] Mayor Sadiq Khan called for an amnesty to ensure that people with pertinent information could come forward.[118]

Survivors came from 106 of the tower's 129 flats; eighteen people among the occupants of these flats were reported as dead or missing presumed dead, whereas most of those killed were said to have been in the remaining 23 flats between the 11th and 23rd floors.[119] Some people from lower floors may have tried to move up the building, and it is thought a number of people may have ended up in one flat.[120] Some victims were identified from 26 calls to 999 made from inside the 23 flats.[1]

The dead included many children,[121] five of whom were students at the nearby Kensington Aldridge Academy.[122] The youngest of those known killed, Leena Belkadi, was 6 months old. One victim died in hospital on 15 June 2017 due to inhalation of fire fumes.[104] Additionally, one then pregnant survivor lost her baby through stillbirth as a result of the fire.[123]

The first Coroner's Inquests opened on 23 August 2017[124] and all other inquests were opened by 23 November 2017.[125]

In the aftermath of the fire, members of the local community, including a residents group called Grenfell United,[126][127][128] stated that the official figures were far short of existing estimates, with some believing that the death toll was "in hundreds".[129] Ten days after the fire, only 18 deaths had yet been officially recorded, compared to the estimate of 80 and the eventual figure of 72.[130][131] Rumours that the toll was higher than official figures persisted after the official figures were confirmed.

On 26 July 2017, at the fourth public meeting of the Grenfell Response Team, a local volunteer reported that there had been at least 20 suicide attempts in north Kensington since the fire, one of which had been successful.[132][133][134] The mental health of many survivors was damaged.[135]

LFB Commissioner Dany Cotton defended the heroism of emergency service workers who themselves were affected by trauma.[82] An on-call counsellor was made available. Around 80 firefighters and Met Police officers were reported to be suffering from their experiences.[136] Cotton told LBC Radio that she too was undergoing counselling.[137][138]

An extra four full-time counsellors were employed (reversing previous staff reductions) and 60 volunteer counsellors were brought in. All firefighters who attended Grenfell were given a psychological health check. The BBC reported that LFB used its reserve budget to bring counselling staff back to 2008 levels.[139]

In July 2017, NHS England issued an open letter to GPs giving advice on symptoms for mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that those affected by this fire (or recent terrorism) may be experiencing.[140] It is estimated that 67% of people caught up in the fire, who lost relatives, were rescued or evacuated from the tower, need treatment for PTSD. Further between 26% and 48% of people living nearby who were not evacuated but witnessed the fire have PTSD. It is unclear how far this indicated reaction to the fire and how far previously existing psychiatric conditions were being uncovered.[141]

The Metropolitan Police Service assigned 250 detectives to the fire, placing additional workload and personal stress on a force that was also investigating recent terrorist incidents, including the London Bridge and Finsbury Park attacks.[142]

Psychologists worked at Kensington Aldridge Academy to support students returning to the original site. Measures have been taken to protect student welfare, such as shielding classroom windows overlooking the tower.[122]

On 21 September 2018, the coroner, Fiona Wilcox, expressed concern for the long term physical health of victims and emergency service workers exposed to smoke and dust inhaled during the fire, and its subsequent clear up. Those affected could be at increased risk of conditions such as cancer, asbestosis, COPD and asthma. The tower is known to have contained asbestos and other toxins. In her letter to NHS chief executive Simon Stevens, Wilcox notes that firefighters involved in the September 11 attacks suffered significant health problems from smoke inhalation. She asked for a physical health screening programme to be established to help prevent future deaths.[143][144]

Public Health England have been monitoring the quality of the air around the derelict tower. In a March 2019 report, they stated that "the risk to public health from air pollution remains low."[145] While the fire itself released many toxic chemicals, they were quickly dispersed in the wind.[146] There has not been a full assessment of the risk posed by soil contamination.[145] Also in March 2019, an independent study led by Professor Anna Stec reported in the journal Chemosphere that research had uncovered "significant environmental contamination" in the soil and buildings around the local area, including significant concentrations of benzene, benzo(a)pyrene, phosphorus and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.[146][145] Chemicals in the soil are unlikely to seep into the air, but could be uncovered through activities such as gardening.[145] Stec said her findings showed "the need for further in-depth, independent analysis to quantify any risks to residents."[145]

Grenfell Tower was insured by Protector Forsikring ASA for £20 million, but the direct costs of the fire are likely to be substantially higher. According to The Times, the financial impact of the fire could reach as high as £1 billion due to a combination of litigation, compensation for deaths and injuries, rehousing and rehabilitation, the cost of demolition and rebuilding and the possibility that other tower blocks may have to be improved or evacuated.[147]

Councils said the government is not releasing funds to increase fire safety in many other tower blocks after the Grenfell fire although they promised lack of finance would not prevent essential work. The government is not paying to put sprinklers into older tall buildings though sprinklers are required in new buildings over 30 metres tall.[148][149]

In the 22 November 2017 Budget, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced that an extra £28 million was being provided to help victims. He asked that local authorities without the means to make buildings safe should contact central government. Of the fire he said: "This tragedy should never have happened, and we must ensure that nothing like it ever happens again."[150]

On 4 January 2018, BBC News reported the Met Police were asking the Home Office to pay for the investigation, which was one of the largest, most complex and most expensive in its history. A figure of £38 million was quoted.[151]

On 9 May 2019, Housing Secretary James Brokenshire announced the £200m cost of replacing cladding on private tower blocks would be paid for by the Government, reversing the position of leaving costs to owners.[152]

It was initially reported that the fire had been started by a faulty refrigerator.[154] Police confirmed on 23 June that a faulty fridge-freezer had initially started the fire and named the model as a FF175BP fridge-freezer produced under the Hotpoint brand for Whirlpool.[155] Owners of the types FF175BP and FF175BG were urged to register their appliance with the manufacturer to receive any updates. Sixty-four thousand of these models were made between March 2006 and July 2009, after which the model was discontinued. It is unknown how many are still in use.[156]

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) commissioned a product safety investigation into the Hotpoint FF175B fridge-freezer. Independent experts examined the remains of the appliance recovered from Grenfell and exemplar models of the same type. They concluded that the design met all legal safety requirements, and there was no need to issue a recall of the model. Consumer group Which? complained that the legal requirements were inadequate.[157][158]

Tenants had repeatedly complained about electrical power surges causing appliances to smoke and such a surge may have set the fridge-freezer on fire. The local authority knew about complaints and had paid tenants compensation for damaged appliances. Judith Blakeman, a local Labour councillor, said the surges affected many appliances including fridges. Blakeman maintains that the cause of the surges was never solved.[159]

On 27 November 2018, evidence given to the Grenfell Tower inquiry by electrical investigating engineer Dr J. Duncan Glover suggested that in Flat 16 the fridge-freezer compressor relay wiring was not tightly fitted. In his view, this probably created additional electrical resistance leading to overheating and igniting the outer plastic insulation of the wire at 90°C. Glover described the state of the fusebox following a short circuit to the compressor. During questioning, he compared US and UK safety standards, noting that US regulations require a steel back to the fridge to help contain a fire, whereas UK fridges were allowed to have only a plastic backing.[160]

Anatomy of Grenfell Tower cladding.[161] The structure consists of 3 mm cladding (Reynobond PE), 50 mm ventilated cavity, 150 mm insulation (Celotex RS5000) and 250 mm existing concrete.[162]

The newly renovated façade of the tower is believed to have been built as follows:[163]

• exterior cladding: aluminium sandwich plates (3 mm each) with polyethylene core
• a standard ventilation gap (50 mm) between the cladding and the insulation behind it
• an insulation made of PIR (polyisocyanurate) foam plates (150 mm) mounted on the existing facade
• the existing prefabricated reinforced-concrete facade
• new double-glazed windows of unknown type and material, mounted in the same vertical plane as the PIR foam insulation plates[164]

Both the aluminium-polyethylene cladding and the PIR insulation plates failed fire safety tests conducted after the fire, according to the police.[165]

Earlier in 2014, safety experts had cautioned that the planned insulation was only suitable for use with non-combustible cladding. The Guardian saw a certificate from the building inspectors' organisation, Local Authority Building Control (LABC), which stated that the chosen insulation for the refit should only be used on tall buildings with fibre cement panels, which do not burn. Combustible panels with polyethylene were put up on top of insulation known as Celotex RS5000, made from polyisocyanurate, which burns when heated, giving off toxic cyanide fumes. Despite the above, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea certified the Grenfell tower building work as allegedly conforming to "the relevant provisions". Council building inspectors visited the site 16 times from August 2014 to July 2016. Kooltherm, a phenolic insulation, was also used on Grenfell. Kooltherm was never tested with polyethylene core aluminium panels according to the manufacturer. The manufacturer, Kingspan, "would be very surprised if such a system [...] would ever pass the appropriate British Standard 8414 large-scale test". Kooltherm's LABC certificate states phenolic products, "do not meet the limited combustibility requirements" of building regulations.[166]

The combustible materials used on Grenfell Tower were considerably cheaper than non-combustible alternatives would have been. There appear to have been intense cost pressures over the Grenfell refurbishment. In June 2017, it was stated the project team chose cheaper cladding that saved £293,368, after the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation mentioned in an email the need for "good costs for Cllr Fielding Mellen [the council's former deputy leader]".[166]

A building control officer from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea reportedly passed the cladding on Grenfell Tower on 15 May 2015, though there was a nationwide warning that the combustible insulation used should only be used with cladding that does not burn.[167]

Structure of an ACM sandwich panel. In the case of Reynobond PE, the aluminium sheets' thickness is 0.5 mm (0.020 in) and overall panel thickness is either 3, 4, or 6 mm.[168][169]

Fire safety experts have said that the building's new external cladding was a possible cause of the rapid spread of the fire.[170] Experts said the gap between the cladding and the insulation worked like a chimney to spread the fire.[164] The cladding could be seen burning and melting, causing additional speculation that it was not made of fire-resistant material. One resident said: "The whole one side of the building was on fire. The cladding went up like a matchstick."[171]

Concerns about the dangers of external cladding were raised years before, following a fire in 1991 at flats in Knowsley Heights, Merseyside.[172][173] Recent major high-rise fires that have involved flammable cladding are listed below.[172][174][175][176]

Records show that a contractor had been paid £2.6 million to install an "ACM rainscreen over-clad" during the recent refurbishment at Grenfell Tower.[35] ACM stands for "aluminium composite material", also known as a sandwich panel, the combustibility of which depends on the choice of insulation core material.[172]

One of the products used was Arconic's Reynobond, which is available with different types of core material—polyethylene, as reportedly used in Grenfell Tower (Reynobond PE), or a more fire-resistant material (Reynobond FR).[33][177] The Reynobond cladding reportedly cost £24 per square metre for the fire-retardant version, and £22 for the combustible version.[177]

According to Arconic's website and brochure for the mainland European market at the time of the fire, the Reynobond PE cladding used was suitable only for buildings 10 metres or less tall; the fire-retardant Reynobond FR was suitable for buildings up to 30 metres tall; and above the latter height, such as the upper parts of Grenfell Tower, the non-combustible A2 version was supposed to be used ("As soon as the building is higher than the firefighters' ladders, it has to be conceived with an incombustible material").[178][179][180] After the fire, Arconic stopped sales of Reynobond PE worldwide for tower blocks.[181]

Similar cladding containing highly flammable insulation material is believed to have been installed on thousands of other high-rise buildings in countries including Britain, France, the UAE and Australia.[174][182] Advice published by the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology is that where such materials are used in buildings over 18m, the fire performance of the cladding system as a whole must be proven by testing.[183]^(p5)

In September 2014, a building regulations notice for the re-cladding work was submitted to the authority and marked with a status of "Completed—not approved".[184] The use of a "Building Notice" building control application is used to remove the need to submit detailed plans and proposals to a building control inspector in advance, where the works performed will be approved by the inspector during the course of their construction. Building inspector Geoff Wilkinson remarked that this type of application is "wholly inappropriate for large complex buildings and should only be used on small, simple domestic buildings".[185]

On 18 June, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond stated that the cladding used on Grenfell Tower was banned in the United Kingdom.[186] Grenfell Tower was inspected 16 times while the cladding was being put on but none of these inspections noticed that materials effectively banned in tall buildings were being used. Judith Blakeman, local Labour councillor questioned the competence of the inspectors. Blakeman, representing the Grenfell residents, said, "This raises the question of whether the building regulations officers were sufficiently competent and did they know what they were looking at. It also begs a question about what they were actually shown. Was anything concealed from them?"[187]

The Department for Communities and Local Government stated that cladding with a polyethylene core "would be non-compliant with current Building Regulations guidance. This material should not be used as cladding on buildings over 18 metres (59 ft) in height."[188] On 31 July 2017, the Department released results of fire safety testing on the cladding panels used at Grenfell Tower, which were carried out by the Building Research Establishment and assigned the polyethylene filling a category three rating, designating a total lack of flame retardant properties.[189]

According to US-based Arconic, the polyethylene version of the material is banned in the United States for use in buildings exceeding 40 feet (12 m) in height, because of the risk of spreading fire and smoke.[190] NPR subsequently stated that nearly all jurisdictions in the US (except three states and the District of Columbia) have enacted the International Building Code (IBC) requirement that external wall assemblies (cladding, insulation, and wall) on high-rise buildings with combustible components must pass a rigorous real-world simulation test promulgated by the National Fire Protection Association under the name NFPA 285.[191][192][193]

To perform the test, the entire planned assembly is constructed on a standardised test rig two storeys tall, with a window opening in the middle, and is continuously ignited with gas burners from two different angles for 30 minutes.[194] The assembly must satisfy numerous performance criteria to pass, including a requirement that flames cannot spread more than 10 ft (3.0 m) vertically from the top of the window opening or 5 ft (1.5 m) horizontally.[192][194]

A single NFPA 285 test can cost over US$30,000, and it certifies only a particular assembly, meaning that any change to any part used requires a new test.[191][195] As of mid-2017 ACM cladding with a polyethylene core had not been able to pass the NFPA 285 test, and thus had been effectively banned on US high-rise buildings for decades.[192][196] The UK does not mandate the use of such simulations.[192][196]

Fire safety experts said the tests the government is doing on cladding only are insufficient, as the whole unit of cladding and insulation should be tested including fire stops. Fire safety experts maintain further that the testing lacks transparency, as the government has not described what tests are being carried out.[197]

The top floors of Grenfell Tower after the fire, showing the burned insulation, with portions of the original structure revealed underneath. The cladding had melted.

The refurbishment also used an insulation foam product named Celotex RS5000, installed behind the cladding.[198] Police said this insulation proved "more flammable than the cladding".[199]

According to its datasheet, the polyisocyanurate (PIR) product—charred pieces of which littered the area around Grenfell Tower after the fire—"will burn if exposed to a fire of sufficient heat and intensity".[33][200] PIR insulation foams "will, when ignited, burn rapidly and produce intense heat, dense smoke and gases which are irritating, flammable and/or toxic", among them carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.[201] The fire toxicity of polyisocyanurate foams has been well understood for some time.[202]

At least three survivors were treated for cyanide poisoning.[203] Simultaneous exposure to carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide is more lethal than exposure to the gases separately.[204]

Celotex's Rainscreen Compliance Guide, when specifying Celotex RS5000 in buildings above 18 metres (59 ft),[205] sets out the conditions under which the product was tested and for which it has been certified as meeting the required fire safety standards. These include the use of (non-combustible) 12 mm fibre cement rainscreen panels, ventilated horizontal fire breaks at each floor slab edge and vertical non-ventilated fire breaks. It states that any changes from the tested configuration "will need to be considered by the building designer".

It has been asserted that cavity barriers intended to prevent the spread of fire in the gap between the facade and the building (the chimney effect) were of insufficient size and, in some cases, incorrectly installed, facilitating the spread of fire.[206]

It has been asserted that windows and their surrounds installed as part of the refurbishment were less fire resistant than those they replaced due to the materials used and that the windows were of insufficient size necessitating larger surrounds. This would facilitate the spread of fire between the interior and exterior of the building.[206]

External image
Public Fire Notice from nearby KCTMO tower indicating "Stay Put" policy[207]

The fire safety policy for Grenfell Tower was that residents were advised to stay in their flats ("stay put") if a fire broke out in the building,[60] unless it was affecting their flat.[13] This is the standard policy for a high-rise building in the United Kingdom. It relies on the assumption that construction standards such as concrete and fire-resistant doors will allow firefighters to contain a fire within one flat and more importantly, that buildings meet safety regulations. This was not possible at Grenfell Tower, as the fire spread rapidly via the exterior.[12] Due to this policy, the building was not designed to be fully evacuated. There was only a single narrow staircase, and no centrally activated system of fire alarms that could alert residents.[14]

In a July 2014 Grenfell Tower regeneration newsletter, the KCTMO instructed residents to stay in their flat in case of a fire ("Our longstanding 'stay put' policy stays in force until you are told otherwise") and stated that the front doors for each unit could survive a fire for up to 30 minutes.[208] The May 2016 newsletter had a similar message, adding that it was on the advice of the Fire Brigade:

The smoke detection systems have been upgraded and extended. The Fire Brigade has asked us to reinforce the message that, if there is a fire which is not inside your own home, you are generally safest to stay put in your home to begin with; the Fire Brigade will arrive very quickly if a fire is reported.[209]

The advice was repeated to residents who called the fire service.[60] The policy was withdrawn at 02:47, when control room staff were instead told to advise residents to evacuate if possible.[210][211] At 04:14, the police told onlookers to contact anyone still trapped in the building and tell them to attempt to evacuate immediately.[84]

Many survivors argued that they would have died had they followed the "stay put" advice.[12][60] Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, also criticised the policy: "Thankfully residents didn't take that advice but fled". He added, "These are some of the questions that have to be answered. We have lots of people in London living in tower blocks ... We can't have people's lives being put at risk because of bad advice or lack of maintenance."[212][213] In her report, Barbara Lane concluded that the principles required for the "stay put" policy to work failed once the fire started spreading across the exterior.[214]

Dany Cotton said Grenfell was unique in terms of volume and behaviour of fire. She said it was a matter for the inquiry, but defended the general "stay put" policy for most high-rise buildings by reasoning that if residents all evacuate at once, they could block firefighters from entering. Furthermore, smoke and fire could be spread within a building by residents opening doors.[82] In her later witness statement to the Inquiry, she said that as the building did not have a central fire alarm system, evacuating the building "would physically require someone to go and knock on every single door and tell people to come out."[215] Since the Grenfell Tower fire, LFB's policy of high-rise buildings with flammable cladding has been changed so that until the cladding is removed, landlords should install alarm systems or have patrols in place so that the building can be evacuated.[215][216]

The initial incident commander Watch Manager Michael Dowden told the Inquiry that he was preoccupied and uncomfortable dealing with "a very, very dynamic situation" that he was not prepared to deal with, and that he did not consider evacuating the building. He added that in hindsight, he did not believe it would have been possible, as there were not enough firefighters present to evacuate 20 floors. Station Manager Andrew Walton, who was incident commander for a short period after, said that as smoke was spreading to the stairwell and many lobbies, residents could not have escaped and he believed they were safer staying in unaffected flats.[217] Watch Manager Brien O'Keeffe suggested it could have been a "catastrophe" to tell residents to evacuate unaided once the stairwell was filled with smoke.[218] On the other hand, Assistant Commissioner Andrew Roe said that due to the complete failure of the building, he made a decision to change the policy soon after taking over as incident commander.[219]

The Inquiry later concluded that lives had been lost because the policy had not been lifted while the stairs were still passable. It found that the fire officers had not been trained to deal with a situation where they might have to evacuate a tower block.[58]

Research by John Sweeney for BBC Newsnight described several issues that hampered the response of the London Fire Brigade (LFB). There was insufficient mains water pressure for the hoses the fire service used and Thames Water had to be called to increase it.[66][220] Also, a high ladder did not arrive for 32 minutes, by which time the fire was out of control. Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union said, "... having that on the first attendance might have made a difference because it allows you to operate a very powerful water tower from outside the building onto the building." Before the Grenfell fire, 70% of fire brigades would have automatically sent a high ladder to tower fires.[221]

An independent fire expert told the BBC having the ladder earlier could have stopped the fire getting out of control.[222] The LFB told Newsnight the first attendance procedure for tower fires has now been changed from four engines to five engines plus a high ladder unit. Firefighters said inside the building they lacked sufficient 'extended duration' breathing apparatus. They had difficulty getting vital radio messages through due to 'overuse of the system' and from the need to get the signal through layers of concrete. At the inquiry one firefighter described the radios as "useless."[223]

Another issue raised was the height of the aerial appliances. LFB's aerial appliances could reach 32 m (105 ft) high, whereas the tower was 67 m (220 ft) high. A 42 m (138 ft) firefighting platform was borrowed from Surrey, arriving only after the fire had been burning for several hours. Commissioner Dany Cotton said that the LFB had already been planning to buy higher ladders, and that the size of LFB's appliances has been limited by their need to fit on narrow London streets.[224] London mayor, Sadiq Khan promised to supply new equipment that the London Fire Brigade needed promptly and stated he would not wait for the public inquiry.[225]

Dany Cotton later said having more firefighters may not have helped as there would not have physically been enough room for them in the building. The single stairwell also restricted access.[82]

One of the major obstacles to the firefighters was that the tower's only stairwell filled with smoke within an hour of the fire breaking out.[57] This made it very difficult for residents to escape unaided; Barbara Lane's report noted that the rate of evacuations slowed after 01:38, and again after 01:58.[57] Furthermore, firefighters were hindered by the near-zero visibility on the stairwell.[60] Crew Manager Aldo Diana said he was "surprised" by the amount of smoke in the stairwell, describing conditions as:

Basically you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. It was just thick black smoke. You didn't see anybody else. You literally had to bump into them.[47]

In section 19 of her report, Barbara Lane notes that smoke was reported in the lobbies of four floors as early as 01:18. By 01:58, the stairwell and seven lobbies were filled with smoke. She suggested that possible causes for this included inadequate fire doors, fire doors being propped open by hoses and problems with the ventilation system.[62]

In October 2018 the London Fire Brigade announced that it is to use specialist hoods to protect people from smoke and toxic fumes for up to 15 minutes. They were purchased from German company Drager with £90,000 for 650 hoods.[226]

Kensington and Chelsea Council was warned in 2010 that building a new secondary school very near Grenfell Tower could block access by emergency vehicles. A 2013 blog post by Grenfell Action Group stated, "There is barely adequate room to manoeuvre for fire engines responding to emergency calls, and any obstruction of this emergency access zone could have lethal consequences in the event of a serious fire or similar emergency in Grenfell Tower or the adjacent blocks." The council demolished a multi-storey car park to build the school. This added to congestion and parked cars in streets around Grenfell Tower that were already narrow and made it hard for fire engines to get to the fire.[227]

Like the vast majority of high-rise buildings in the UK, Grenfell Tower did not have sprinklers.[45] A BBC Breakfast investigation focusing on half of the UK's council- and housing association-owned tower blocks found that 2% of them had full sprinkler systems. Deaths were 87% lower when buildings with sprinklers caught fire. England, Wales and Scotland now require sprinklers to be installed in newly built tall buildings, since 2007, but there is no requirement to fit them in existing buildings.[228] Dany Cotton has called for sprinklers to be retrofitted in all social housing blocks.[229] David Siber, an advisor to the Fire Brigades Union, said that sprinklers could have prevented the fire from ever spreading beyond the kitchen where it started.[230] Geoff Wilkinson, the building regulations columnist for the Architects' Journal, said that once the fire starting spreading through cladding, sprinklers would have had little effect.[231]

A few days after the fire, the Conservative leader of the council Nicholas Paget-Brown was asked why sprinklers had not been installed in the tower during the recent renovation. Paget-Brown said that the Grenfell Tower residents did not have a collective view in favour of installing sprinklers during the recent renovations. He also said that if they had been installed, it would have delayed the refurbishment and been more disruptive.[232] ITV business editor Joel Hills stated that he had been told that the installation of sprinklers had not even been discussed.[30]

After the fatal Lakanal House fire in 2009, the coroner made a series of safety recommendations for the government to consider in order to improve safety in tower blocks. The report highlighted the flammable panels that covered part of the exterior, the lack of sprinklers, a lack of safety inspections, and that the stay put policy did not suit a building where compartmentalisation had failed.[51]

The Department for Communities and Local Government agreed to hold a review in 2013. Over subsequent years, four ministers were warned about tower block fire risks that had been highlighted by the Lakanal House fire.[235] Ronnie King, a former chief fire officer and secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety, said that ministers had stonewalled requests for meetings and discussions about tightening rules. King described his attempts to arrange meetings with housing minister Gavin Barwell: "We have had replies, but the replies were to the effect that you have met my predecessor [earlier housing minister James Wharton] and there were a number of matters that we are looking at and we are still looking at it."[236] In March 2014, the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group sent a letter to then Minister for Communities Stephen Williams, warning that similar fires to the one at Lakanal House were possible, especially due to the lack of sprinklers in tower blocks.[237] After further correspondence, Williams replied: "I have neither seen nor heard anything that would suggest that consideration of these specific potential changes is urgent and I am not willing to disrupt the work of this department by asking that these matters are brought forward."[235] In March 2015, at the request of the Department for Communities and Local Government, fire experts at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) studies produced reports assessing the level of fire risk at tower blocks. The experts warned of fatalities unless the danger of flames passing through concealed cavities was addressed.[238]

The government response was to eventually setup dedicated benefits line and a fund to support the survivors. [244]

On the day after the fire, May made a private visit to Grenfell Tower to speak with members of the emergency services, but did not meet with any of the survivors.[245] Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood stated this was due to security concerns. BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg commented that May's decision not to meet those who lived in the tower might be interpreted as indicative of a lack of empathy.[246] An editorial in The Guardian called it May's "Hurricane Katrina moment".[247] Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo described her meeting with members of the emergency services as "a good thing" but felt she "should have been there with the residents. She wanted an entirely controlled situation in which she didn't use her humanity".[248]

The following day, she visited survivors in hospital and a church that was serving as a relief centre; during the latter visit she was heckled by some of those present.[249][250] An article written by former Conservative MP Matthew Parris in The Times described her as "a good and moral person, who wants the best for her country, and is not privately unfeeling, ... in public is crippled by personal reserve".[251] Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the House of Commons subsequently visited a relief centre at the Rugby Portobello Trust, where she was confronted by residents angered by May's response, and described the prime minister as being "absolutely heartbroken" over events at Grenfell Tower.[252]

In an article for the London Evening Standard on 11 June 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May wrote of her regret for the handling of the fire and its public perception.[253]

The local council's response to the Grenfell Tower fire has been subject to widespread criticism. Council member Emma Dent Coad, also the newly elected Labour MP for the area (Kensington constituency) and a former board member of KCTMO,[254] accused the council of having failed and betrayed its residents; characterising the fire as "entirely preventable", she added that "I can't help thinking that poor quality materials and construction standards may have played a part in this hideous and unforgivable event".[254][255] Sadiq Khan called on the government to appoint commissioners to run Kensington and Chelsea council until the May 2018 council elections.[256]

Edward Daffam of the Grenfell Action Group said, "They didn't give a stuff about us. We were the carcass and they were the vultures. North Kensington was like a goldmine, only they didn't have to dig for the gold. All they had to do was to marginalise the people who were living here, and that's what they were doing."[257]

In December 2020, it emerged that the building in which the council had re-housed Grenfell survivors was itself a severe fire hazard, requiring round-the-clock fire safety patrols.[258]

Grenfell Tower is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, one of the wealthiest local authorities in the country, containing some of the most expensive houses in the world, and with the highest gap between rich and poor anywhere in the country.[259] Grenfell Tower was populated by poorer, mainly ethnic-minority residents. The Conservative-run council[260] was criticised for neglecting the borough's poorer residents, and some have blamed their neglect as a cause of the fire.[261]

In 2016, the council took £55 million in rent but only invested less than £40 million in council housing.[262] One journalist described the incident as an example of Britain's inequality.[263] Data released in June 2017 by Trust for London and New Policy Institute shows large divides between rich and poor in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The analysis found that it is a borough with some very high incomes, as well as the highest average incomes in London, but there are pockets of deprivation, particularly in the north end of the borough, including the ward in which Grenfell Tower is located.[264]

The philosophical difference of providing a high standard of public housing and providing the bare minimum to house only those most in need first occurred as the Lancaster West Estate was being built.[265] Grenfell and the finger blocks were built to Parker Morris standards;[265] the tower provided one- and two-bedroom flats for single occupiers or families without children. The incoming Conservative government revised the standards down, using the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 to replace the mandatory Space in the Home document.[266]

After the fire, volunteer people and groups worked to help those made homeless and without possessions.[267] The volunteers criticised council officials for doing little to coordinate these efforts.[267] There were calls to jail those responsible for the fire.[268] Deborah Orr wrote, "We know that fire-safe cladding was available. The idea of being energy efficient and safe was not impossible, or even undesirable in theory. But fire-resistant cladding would have raised the cost for the whole building by an estimated £5,000. That sum may be what people died for."[269]

On 17 June 2017, MPs asked the council to describe why it had amassed £274 million of reserves, after years of underspending, and had not used any of its budget surplus to increase fire safety, given that residents had issued repeated warnings about the Grenfell Tower fire risk. The council actually used the surplus to pay top-rate council taxpayers a £100 rebate shortly before local elections which returned a Conservative council.[270][262] After the fire, some former residents of Grenfell Tower still had rent payment taken out of their bank account for the burnt-out property by the council.[271]

Residents approved initial plans for fire resistant zinc cladding but this was later changed to cheaper aluminium cladding with combustible polyethylene core which residents did not approve, saving nearly £300,000.[272]

The council received further criticism for their lack of support on 18 June 2017.[273] Some families were reported to be sleeping on the floor in local centres four days after the event.[274] A leading volunteer in the relief effort said: "Kensington and Chelsea are giving £10 to the survivors when they go to the hotels – a tenner – there is money pouring in from all these amazing volunteers. We can't get access to this money."[274]

London mayor Sadiq Khan said "years of neglect" by the council and successive governments were responsible for what had been a "preventable accident".[275] There are calls for the council leader and some others to resign.[276]

Dawn Foster, contributing editor on housing for The Guardian, said that this was an "atrocity" that "was explicitly political" and "a symbol of the United Kingdom's deep inequality".[277]

Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn brought this to the attention of the House; he said these "terrible consequences of deregulation and cutting corners" stemmed from a "disregard for working-class communities".[278]

Sadiq Khan, London Mayor said:[236] "Those who mock health and safety, regulations and red tape need to take a hard look at the consequences of cutting these and ask themselves whether Grenfell Tower is a price worth paying." Patrick Cockburn of The Independent criticised deregulation of the building industry by the government, which he described as "cutting red tape". This was contrasted with the increasing complexity of processes faced by prospective benefits claimants including those with mental health issues. Cockburn said long inquiries were not necessary to establish what went wrong. Cockburn said that "The Government is clearly frightened that the burned bodies in Grenfell Towers will be seen as martyrs who died because of austerity, deregulation and outsourcing."[279] Writing in The Guardian, Alan Travis argued that fire safety had been compromised since the early 2000s by moving the responsibility for fire safety checks from the fire brigade to building owners and creating mandatory competition between Local Authority Building Control and private approved inspectors.[278]

In his column on the disaster, Aditya Chakrabortty of The Guardian drew comparisons to the often lethal living and working conditions faced by the working classes and poor in Victorian Manchester, which Friedrich Engels characterised as social murder in his 1845 study The Condition of the Working Class in England. Chakrabortty stated that "those dozens of Grenfell residents didn't die: they were killed. What happened last week wasn't a 'terrible tragedy' or some other studio-sofa platitude: it was social murder . . . Over 170 years later, Britain remains a country that murders its poor."[280] The Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell also said that the fire amounted to social murder and that political decisions in recent decades led to it, and that those responsible should be held to account.[281]

On 29 June 2017, Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council held its first full meeting since the fire. The council had tried to exclude the press and public from the meeting, citing safety concerns. Journalists sought an injunction to force the council to let them attend, which was granted. The meeting was adjourned shortly after it began, with members of the council's cabinet saying that to proceed would be prejudicial to the forthcoming public inquiry. Sadiq Khan and Robert Atkinson, Labour group leader on the council, both called for the council's entire cabinet to resign. Atkinson described the situation as "an absolute fiasco". Khan said that it beggared belief that the council was trying to hold meetings in secret when the meeting was the first chance the council had to provide some answers and show transparency. He said that some people were asking whether or not the council was involved in a cover up.[282][283] Conservative council leader Nicholas Paget-Brown resigned on 30 June 2017.[284]

Jon Snow, a veteran television journalist, used the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival to complain that the media was "comfortably with the elite, with little awareness, contact or connection with those not of the elite" and this lack of connection was "dangerous". He demanded "Why didn't any of us see the Grenfell action blog?"[285]

In November 2017, a branch of the Kensington Conservative Party caused anger by sending out a survey to local residents asking them to rate how important the Grenfell Tower fire was, alongside issues such as parking and recycling.[286][287][288]

In the days after the fire, UK local authorities undertook reviews of fire safety in their residential tower blocks, including Brighton and Hove,[289] Manchester, Plymouth, Portsmouth,[290] and Swindon.[291] Around 200 National Health Service trusts across the country were urged by NHS Improvement to check the cladding on their buildings, with particular attention being paid to those buildings housing in-patients.[292]

In London, councils affected included Brent,[290] Camden, Hounslow,[293] Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council,[294] Newham,[293] and Wandsworth.[295]

There are estimated to be about 600 high-rise blocks of flats in the UK that have similar cladding[296] and unspecified fire safety tests have been carried out on panels sent in by councils at the Building Research Establishment in Watford, on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government.[297] By 28 June 2017, 120 high-rise buildings in 37 different local authority areas were reported to have failed fire safety tests, a 100% failure rate of samples tested.[298] Councils had been instructed to begin with those buildings that caused the most concern, and every single one of those had failed the test.[299][300]

The government's fire safety tests were criticised for looking only at the cladding and not the insulation behind it, which had burned rapidly in the Grenfell Tower fire; testing the insulation is left to councils and landlords.[197][301] By 6 July 2017, only one of 191 samples tested had passed. It was announced that large-scale tests were to be done on a 9-metre (30 ft) high wall, simulating a fire breaking out of a window.[302]

In August 2017, it was announced that the 52-bed trauma unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford was to close for up to twelve months due to concerns over flammable cladding on the building and other "serious and embedded" fire safety issues.[303]

On 20 September 2017, it was revealed that combustible cladding had been identified on 57 buildings across Glasgow. It was also revealed that neither residents nor the fire service had been informed of this by Glasgow City Council. Scottish Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said that he expected Glasgow City Council to inform all relevant parties. MSP Bob Doris described the development as "deeply concerning".[304]

In October 2017, it was revealed that Slough Borough Council was hiring a fire appliance to be on standby at Nova House, a tower block which was deemed to have unsafe cladding and was privately owned. The council was negotiating with the building's owners to take possession as it was in a better position to deal with the issues affecting the safety of the building.[305]

Of 173 buildings tested, 165 have failed combustion tests conducted since the Grenfell fire.[306] There are calls for the government to give financial assistance to councils that have to carry out expensive building renovations. Councillor Simon Blackburn, chair of the LGA's Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said:[307]

The tragedy at Grenfell Tower has clearly exposed a systemic failure of the current system of building regulation. The government must commit to meet the full cost to councils of removing and replacing cladding and insulation systems. It is also imperative that this testing process moves quickly to identify what landlords should be replacing these systems with as soon as possible. With these latest test-fails affecting buildings owned by a range of different landlords across the country, the government also needs to make sure there is capacity within the housebuilding industry to take quick action to carry out the scale of remedial work that looks likely to be needed.

Leaseholders living in a tower block in Croydon have been told by a tribunal they must pay to remove Grenfell type cladding. This could lead some to financial ruin. The decision may be subject to appeal and could affect other properties where cladding failed fire tests. Steve Reed maintains faulty safety regulations were responsible for dangerous cladding being put up on many buildings and maintains the government should pay for replacement.[308]

On 29 June 2018, the government revealed that there were still 470 high rise apartment blocks with inflammable cladding. This is a rise of 156 on the previous total as private sector properties have been included; it is expected to rise by a further 170 when they have all been accounted for.[309]

In March 2019, it emerged that central government provisions for local councils to take charge of privately owned buildings to ensure safe cladding were failing in approximately 90% of cases, leaving tens of thousands of households stuck in buildings with unsafe cladding.[310]

In April 2019, the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government published figures indicating that 40,000 people in the UK, including those in 16,600 homes across 163 private residential buildings, were currently living in tower blocks wrapped in the same kind of flammable cladding as Grenfell Tower.[311] A survey performed by the UK Cladding Action Group (UKCAG) found: many of these residents still face high bills to replace the cladding due to government funds being withheld; in some cases residents are running 24-hour fire watches; and residents' mental health in many cases has suffered.[312]

On 9 May 2019, James Brokenshire said £200m would be paid by the Government to replace cladding on privately owned blocks.[152]

On 7 July 2018, BBC News reported that new cladding previously thought to be safe, which was to replace known flammable cladding similar to that used on Grenfell Tower, has itself failed fire safety tests in Dubai, Australia and the UK. The new cladding is composed of separate material components which individually are considered to be of "limited combustibility." As such, the cladding as a complete system had been presumed under BS8414 standards to not be a fire risk. The discovery that this new cladding has failed fire tests undermines existing testing policy.[313]

In 2019 a fire developed at Bolton University and eyewitnesses maintained the cladding helped spread the fire. 'Grenfell United', a group of survivors and bereaved people stated, “It brings back memories of Grenfell and we can’t believe that over two and a half years later this is happening. Our hearts go out to all the students affected. Hundreds of people go to bed scared every night in buildings covered with dangerous materials. When will this be treated as a national emergency? This cannot go on.”[314]

In February 2020 a survey of leaseholders from 117 housing developments by the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, a charity that supports leaseholders, 90 per cent of respondents said the government’s response to the ‘cladding crisis’ had been “no help at all.” [315]

Hanover House, a residential tower block in Sheffield, with its cladding partially removed after failing fire safety tests following the Grenfell fire

Building regulations are currently under review in the light of the fire due to concerns with the rules and their enforcement.[316] There is concern over fire safety issues with many other buildings.[317]

On 30 August 2017, the Department for Communities and Local Government published the terms of reference for the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety. This independent review was led by Dame Judith Hackitt, who is a senior engineer and civil servant with experience as the Chair of the Health and Safety Executive. The review reported to both DCLG head, James Brokenshire (Sajid Javid at the time the report was commissioned) and Home Secretary, Sajid Javid (Amber Rudd at the time the report was commissioned). The two main aims of the review are firstly to develop improved building regulations for the future, with a focus on residential high-rise blocks, and secondly to provide reassurance to residents that their homes are safe.[318][319]

On 18 December 2017, Hackitt published her initial report. She described the entire building regulatory system as "not fit for purpose" and made interim recommendations for significant change.[316] The final report was published on 17 May 2018, outlining a number of key failings and recommendations.[320][321] The report did not recommend a ban on the use of combustible cladding on high rise buildings and Hackitt did say that she would support the government if it was to attempt to legislate a ban.[322][323] Recommendations will be reconsidered after the conclusion of the public inquiry. The government is consulting on a possible ban on combustible materials. It is unclear if this applies only to cladding or to insulation as well.[324]

In October 2018, the government announced plans to ban flammable cladding on newly built buildings that were over the height, as well as for those of certain types such as schools, care homes and student housing. The Fire Brigades Union have argued that it should be entirely banned, and that a ban should also apply to existing buildings.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) commissioned "whole system" tests, which are designed to see how different cladding systems reacted in a fire. Seven combinations were tested, and six deemed dangerous. It reported in August 2017 that there were 228 buildings in the United Kingdom cladded using these methods. The seventh, a combination of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding with a limited flammability filling and stone-wool insulation, was deemed safe. There are no existing buildings in the UK using this combination, but it could be used to reclad all the buildings that are currently using the other combinations. These findings will be used to help revise the Building Regulations.[325]

In August 2017, four 13-storey tower blocks, containing 242 flats, on the Ledbury estate in Peckham had their gas supplies cut off as a precaution. In the event of a gas explosion, they could be at risk of collapse. The four tower blocks, built between 1968 and 1970 using the same "large panel system" as Ronan Point; which partly collapsed in May 1968 after a small gas explosion in a flat knocked out a load-bearing exterior wall, causing a progressive collapse of one corner of the tower. There are fears that more tower blocks built using the same technique across the country may also be at risk.[326]

On 15 June 2017, Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy announced that a criminal investigation had been opened to establish if there was any case for charges to be brought.[343] On 27 July 2017 Police issued a public notice to residents saying that they had "reasonable grounds" to suspect that both the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation "may have committed" corporate manslaughter. Senior representatives of both organisations are likely to face police interviews under caution. More than sixty companies and organisations are associated with Grenfell Tower, and police are keeping open all options for a range of possible charges.[344][345] These include manslaughter, corporate manslaughter, misconduct in public office and fire safety offences.[346]

In an interview with the London Evening Standard on 7 August 2017, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, said investigations are at an early stage and nothing is ruled out. Mrs Saunders said it was more important to build strong cases than to rush to court, and that the DPP had yet to see the evidence. Health and safety legislation and other criminal laws will be considered. If proven, the offence of Gross Negligence Manslaughter carries a maximum life sentence, with a guideline minimum of twelve years.[347][348] For such a charge the prosecution must show sufficient evidence to pass a four stage "Adomako Test" proving a reprehensible breach of duty of care which caused or contributed to the victims' death.[349]

On 7 June 2018, BBC News reported that the Met Police are investigating the London Fire Brigade for using the "Stay Put" policy. Possible criminal offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act are under consideration.[350]

As of 7 June 2019, thirteen interviews had been held under caution with more expected, and 7,100 statements had been taken from witnesses, family members, emergency service personnel and others.[351] In March 2019, it was revealed that no criminal charges are due to be brought before late 2021. The Metropolitan Police explained that all evidence had to be considered before a case could be put before the Crown Prosecution Service. Phase 2 of the public enquiry is unlikely to start before 2020, and no case can be brought until after the report has been published.[352]

On 19 September 2017, Commander Stuart Cundy briefed that eight people were being investigated for allegedly making false claims to financial support in the name of fictitious victims.[110][111] By 1 June 2018, five people had been convicted for fraud offences after stating they were victims of the fire to claim financial support.[114][113]

New arrests were made in London on 7 June 2018 of a further nine people suspected of fraud.[353] Four were charged a day later. Three people were charged with fraud while one additional suspect was initially charged with drug and theft offences but was eventually charged with fraud on 19 July.[354][355] The other five were released under investigation.

By March 2020, twenty one people had been charged with fraud offences relating to the fire, with all of them being found guilty after twenty investigations by the Metropolitan Police and one investigation by the City of London Police Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department. They were given prison sentences totaling almost 90 years in total after fraudulently claiming around £1 million in pre-paid credit cards, hotel accommodation costs and other funds intended for the victims of the fire.

All of those convicted of fraud stated that they lived in the tower block and that their homes had been destroyed, and many said that members of their family had been killed. They spent their money on lavish holidays, expensive cars and gambling, and some even asked for more money after complaining about the food and WiFi in the hotels they were being housed in. Three of those convicted were also found to have been illegal immigrants living in the UK, and one man was caught with quantities of illegal drugs in his hotel room. Another man was also found to have committed a burglary. A woman who pretended to be a Grenfell victim was found to have made more than fifty false claims to insurers and to have also said she was present at the Manchester Arena bombing and the London Bridge attack just weeks earlier.[356][357][358][359][360][361][362][363][364][365]

View of the lift and hoist system installed on the east face of the tower to remove debris from the tower

Detailed investigations into the causes and possible criminal charges of manslaughter or breach of regulations are in progress. Search dogs, fingertip searches, DNA matching, fingerprinting, forensic dentistry and forensic anthropologists have been used. An external lift was fitted to the building to improve access.[1]

The scale of the search and recovery operation was challenging. Human remains were mixed within an estimated 15.5 tonnes (17.1 tons) of debris on every floor.[366] Time and care was taken to maintain a judicial standard and avoid mistaken identity, which could have caused further distress to surviving relatives. Disaster Victim Identification was expected by police to continue to 2018.[1]

Following the Newsnight report of 7 July 2017, the LFB said issues encountered in its response to the fire would also form part of the police investigation.[66] LFB Commissioner Dany Cotton said in a Channel 4 News interview on 11 July 2017 that she expected reasonable criticism of the LFB response in the investigation and public inquiry.[82] Following criticism by surivors and victims families, Cotton retired early at the end of December 2019.[367] Her replacement from 1 January 2020 is Deputy Commissioner Andrew Roe.[368]

BBC Radio 4 reported on 16 August 2017 that the Fire Brigade was advised by KCTMO during the refurbishment and fire officers had been shown "fire safety features". Council opposition leader Robert Atkinson, structural engineer Paul Follows and building inspector Geoff Wilkinson all expressed shock that the fire had happened given prior consultation with LFB.[369]

London Fire Brigade said it had not given approval for the work, saying its legal powers are limited. It said firefighters regularly visit buildings to gain familiarity with the layout and equipment, but that this was not the same as a detailed inspection.[370]

Public hearings opened 14 September 2017

One day after the fire broke out, Prime Minister Theresa May announced a public inquiry into the causes of the fire. Two weeks later, Sir Martin Moore-Bick was appointed to lead it. He pledged that the inquiry would be "open, transparent and fair". The inquiry will run alongside the criminal investigations.

On 15 August 2017, Theresa May announced the terms of reference, accepting in full Moore-Bick's proposals. The inquiry plans to examine the cause and spread of the fire, the adequacy and enforcement of building regulations and fire protection measures, the actions of the council and KCTMO prior to the fire, and the responses of the London Fire Brigade, council and national government.[371] Labour Party politicians and some survivors called for the inquiry to include a broader examination of national social housing policy, which was not included in the terms of reference.[372][373][374] The Inquiry's public hearings started on 14 September 2017.[375]

The first report (Phase 1) from the inquiry was officially published on 30 October 2019, but had been leaked and publicised during the press embargo.[376] Originally due in spring 2019, the date was pushed back to October. Moore-Bick told survivors the timing disappointed him.[377]

Moore-Bick's report affirmed the exterior cladding was the primary reason the fire spread out of control, and that it did not comply with the building regulations. He praised the "courage and devotion to duty" of the firefighters but argued LFB suffered from "significant systemic failings" and that incident commanders were not trained to deal with a failure of compartmentalisation of this scale. The report was welcomed by survivors.[58] On 6 December, Dany Cotton announced she would retire earlier than planned. This followed calls from bereaved families and survivors of the disaster for her to quit.[378]

The inquiry resumed with Phase 2 on 28 January 2020.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission examined the response to the fire and found that authorities failed to put children’s best interests at the heart of their efforts, in breach of international obligations. It identified a lack of co-ordination among services, both in the immediate aftermath and a year later.

The Following Grenfell report (March 2019) observes that children who witnessed the fire, or who have lost a friend or part of their family, don't know where or how to access help because the services are not available. There are issues about the adequacy of training needed for public sector and other service providers to carry out their duties under the Equalities Act.[379]

The EHRC report expressed particular concern around the placing of disabled people, including wheelchair users, on upper storeys of tower blocks without any consideration about how they could escape in a fire or other emergency. The report considered disabled people had faced discriminatory treatment amounting to breaches of the right to life, the right to safe, adequate housing; and the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, further noting that degrading treatment continued after the fire with disabled people being housed in inaccessible premises.[380]

On 11 June 2019, survivors and families of the victims of the fire filed a civil action complaint in the Court of Common Pleas of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia against Arconic and Celotex (both of which are headquartered in Pennsylvania), seeking an unspecified amount of money damages for various product liability claims.[381][382] The 420-page complaint alleges that the cladding and insulation were defective because they lacked fire retardant and were therefore combustible.[381][382] Whirlpool, the Michigan-based manufacturer of the Hotpoint refrigerator believed to have caused the fire, was also named as a defendant in the suit on the grounds that the refrigerator contained materials liable to catch fire.[381][382] Litigation is expected to take at least two and a half years due to the long process of discovery.[381]

By August, the defendants had exercised their right to remove the case to the appropriate federal court: the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.[383] In November 2019, Arconic resisted production of documents (already in the possession of its American lawyers at DLA Piper) on the basis that the cladding at issue had been manufactured by a French subsidiary, Arconic Architectural Products SAS, and that French law prohibits the production of commercial information in foreign legal proceedings without authorization by a French court.[384] According to its US corporate filings, as of November 2019, Arconic had already spent approximately £30 million on lawyers and advisers to respond to all the criminal and civil investigations, inquiries, and litigation arising out of the fire.[385]

The 2005 Harrow Court fire in Stevenage caused three deaths

• 1973 Summerland disaster – leisure centre fire in Douglas, Isle of Man, worsened by the ignition of flammable acrylic sheeting covering the building, led to at least 50 deaths.[49][48]
• 1991 Knowsley Heights fire – a fire in a tower block in Liverpool that had recently been fitted with rain screen cladding spread from the bottom to the top of the building via the 90 mm air gap behind the cladding.[388][389]
• 1999 Garnock Court fire – the fire in a tower block in Irvine, North Ayrshire, spread rapidly up combustible cladding,[175] resulting in one death and four injured.[390] The incident led to a parliamentary inquiry into the fire risk of external cladding and a change of the law in Scotland in 2005 requiring any cladding to inhibit the spread of fire.[391]
• 2005 Harrow Court fire – in a tower block in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, led to three deaths, 2 of them firefighters.[392]
• 2009 Lakanal House fire – in a tower block in Camberwell, South London, led to six deaths and at least twenty injured; an inquest "found the fire spread unexpectedly fast, both laterally and vertically, trapping people in their homes, with the exterior cladding panels burning through in just four and a half minutes."[393]
• 2010 Shirley Towers fire – two firefighters died after tower block fire rapidly escalated.[394]
• 2016 Shepherd's Court fire – in a tower block in Shepherd's Bush, West London, a faulty tumble-dryer caught fire on the seventh floor, 19 August 2016. The fire spread up six floors on the outside of the building, which is owned by Hammersmith and Fulham Council. There were no fatalities but some suffered smoke inhalation.[54][55][56][53]
• 2019 De Pass Gardens fire – a fire in a six-storey tower block in Barking, East London spread through all six floors.[395]
• 2019 The Cube fire – a fire in a six-storey student residence in Bolton, re-clad in 2018 with high-pressure laminate. The fire spread "extremely rapidly" through the top three floors of the building.[314][396]

South Korean firefighters in the 2010 Wooshin Golden Suites fire used a helicopter as part of their operations to put out a cladding fire that rose within minutes from the 4th to the 38th floor.[397][398]

• 2007 fire at The Water Club (Atlantic City, New Jersey, US) – a fire that occurred as the building was nearing completion spread rapidly up aluminium composite panel cladding with a polyethylene core, from the 3rd floor to the top of the 41-floor building.[175][388]
• 2009 Beijing Television Cultural Center fire (China) – believed to have spread via insulating foam panels on the building's facade.[399][400]
• 2010 Wooshin Golden Suites fire (Marine City, South Korea) – spread within 20 minutes from the 4th floor to the top of the 38-storey building, which featured flammable aluminium composite cladding with a polyethylene core, along with insulation made of glass wool or polystyrene.[175][397][398][388]
• 2010 Shanghai fire (China) – destroyed a 28-storey high-rise apartment building, killing at least 58 people; flammable polyurethane insulation applied to the outside of the building was reported to have been a possible contributory factor.[401][402]
• 2012 Al Tayer Tower fire (Sharjah, United Arab Emirates) – the rapid spread of the fire, which started in a first-floor balcony and spread to the top of the 40-storey (34 residential, six parking floors) tower, was attributed to aluminium sandwich panels featuring a thermo-plastic core.[175][403]
• 2012 Mermoz Tower fire (Roubaix, France) – saw fire spread rapidly up flammable cladding, resulting in one death and six injured.[233][404]
• 2012 Tamweel Tower fire (Dubai, United Arab Emirates) – spread across dozens of floors via flammable aluminium cladding.[52][405][403]
• 2014 Lacrosse Tower fire (Melbourne, Australia) – a fire started on an eighth-floor balcony took just 11 minutes to travel up 13 floors to the building's roof, spreading via the same type of aluminium composite cladding as was used in Grenfell Tower.[406]
• 2015 fire at The Marina Torch (Dubai, United Arab Emirates) – fire spreading up the cladding of several dozen storeys from the 50th floor to the top of the building.[52][407] A second fire occurred on 4 August 2017, again spreading rapidly up the exterior of the building.[408]
• 2015 fire at The Address Downtown Dubai (United Arab Emirates) – cladding fire in a supertall hotel and residential skyscraper.[174]
• 2016 Ramat Gan high-rise fire (Ramat Gan, Israel) – a small fire in a flat quickly spread to the top of a 13-storey tower block via combustible external insulation panelling.[409]
• 2016 Neo Soho fire (Jakarta, Indonesia) – the fire occurred while the building was still under construction and spread rapidly up dozens of floors via flammable cladding.[410][411][412][413]
• 2018 Employees Provident Fund building fire (Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia) – the fire occurred due to sparks from maintenance works on the building ignited the outer cladding of the building. This is the first fire involving cladding in Malaysia. No one was reported hurt. The fund stated that "there has been no compromise to the data integrity or members' savings in any manner".[414][415]
• 2018 Edifício Wilton Paes de Almeida in São Paulo, Brazil was devastated by fire and collapsed. Neighbouring buildings also caught fire.[416] The fire caused at least four deaths, with a further 40 people missing as of May 2018.[417]
• 2019 Neo200 apartment building fire – a fire ignited on the 22nd floor of the apartment building located at 200 Spencer Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and rapidly spread to the 29th floor. It was the second fire at the building; the first happened on 31 December 2015.[418] The tower was known to have the same type of cladding as the Grenfell Tower and the fire was found by a council inspection to have affected sprinkler systems and alarm systems. It was also reported that extra smoke alarms were installed just two weeks before the fire and that some residents had put plastic covers over their smoke alarms. Other residents refused to leave, complicating the evacuation process.[419][420][421]

• O'Hagan, Andrew (7 June 2018). "The Tower". London Review of Books.
• Hilton, Matthew. What colour was the smoke? A tragedy of Errors.