NEWS Grenfell inquiry continues with new revelations


ARUP’S DR Barbara Lane told the inquiry that combustible materials added to the cladding ‘were not in the design’ of the refurbishment, while features to stop fire spread ‘were missing or installed upside down’. Styrofoam core panels had


been installed between new windows and around kitchen vents, while ethylene propylene diene terpolymer was used around new window frames. Polyurethane expanding foam had been used to fill insulation joints and gaps between new windows and walls. Combustible polymeric foam was found above some windows ‘even though there was no evidence of it being specified’, and polyisocyanurate foam used was ‘not in the design’. Horizontal intumescent cavity


barriers ‘had wrongly been installed vertically’ or facing into concrete ‘rendering them useless’, while others had ‘simply not been installed around windows’. She also explained how the stay put strategy failed 32 minutes after the first 999 call, as it did not ‘consider relevant’ the extent of the fire, but this was a ‘design condition and … not a fire brigade policy’. Around 106 of 120 flat doors


were replaced in 2011 with Manse Mastador fire doors giving 30 minutes’ fire protection, but 48 featured glazing that had not been tested for fire resilience, while the 14 not replaced (owned by leaseholders) would only have offered 20 minutes’ resistance. Doors on landings to stairs and refuse chutes were also not replaced, Dr Lane stating that ‘faulty fire doors mean faulty compartmentation and compartmentation is the primary basis of the stay-put strategy’. An LFB report found that


cladding was ‘spitting and sparking’ less than 15 minutes after firefighters arrived and catching fire ‘at a rapid rate’, with the official log stating that 140 appliances and 720 firefighters were on site until 8pm


6


due to combustible panel cladding ‘presented a generic health and safety issue’. He agreed his knowledge


was ‘as good as the person in the street’, adding that evacuation was ‘impossible owing to lack of resources’, and stay put could not have been reversed due to low appliance numbers and limited breathing apparatus kits: ‘I just don’t know how that could be done with the resources we had in attendance at that moment in time.’ Mr Dowden reflected he was


the day after. LFB deputy assistant commissioner Andrew Bell said that the operation was ‘probably the largest [UK] deployment of breathing apparatuses’ . Official stay put advice was


not reversed until 2.47am, and key staff ‘were left unsure when to drop’ it. The ‘quality and scope’ of training was said to be ‘under scrutiny’ as senior firefighters were ‘ill-prepared’ despite 2014 guidance on switching from stay put to evacuation. The decision was made in the control room by a commander watching on television, and the first LFB incident commander on scene – Michael Dowdon – was questioned. He admitted he had ‘failed to


make safety checks’ in the months leading up to the fire, and had ‘no idea that fires could spread through cladding’; had received no training in what to look for when undertaking familiarisation checks; and did not inspect cladding when visiting Grenfell in 2016. He did not inspect the condition of fire doors, ‘could not remember’ if he went up the tower, and was unable to note if it had one escape route or sprinklers. Mr Dowden’s information


about Grenfell was from 2009, and he had ‘never heard of’ Approved Document B of the Building Regulations, nor a letter LFB had sent to councils warning that ‘external fire spread on high-rise residential buildings’


JULY/AUGUST 2018 www.frmjournal.com


‘too junior’ to be in charge, felt out of his depth and ‘consumed by sensory overload [...] I wouldn’t generally be in charge of a six-pump fire or an eight pump fire if a more senior officer was in attendance … The way that fire developed meant I was in charge for longer than usual. I started to become very consumed in terms of what was happening in front of me. ‘I did feel uncomfortable, out of


my comfort zone because I didn’t have any previous experience to fall back on in terms of ... the way it was behaving and reacting’. The smoke ventilation system


‘failed days before’ the fire, but a proposal to fix it for £1,800 ‘was ignored’. It was designed to ‘extract smoke from lobbies outside flats in the event of a fire’, and was identified by inquiry experts as a ‘factor in the escape routes from the building filling with black smoke that may have prevented evacuation and rescue’, though it was ‘not designed to clear smoke from multiple floors at once’. A request for help with a failure on 6 June 2017 came from aftercare administrator JS Wright, which installed the system from PSB.


Managing director Martin


Booth told the inquiry PSB received the request after Grenfell’s main refurbishment contractor Rydon ‘was alerted to automatic opening vents not working’. It responded on 12 June with a quote, but ‘no response was received’


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