Grenfell Inquiry day 42: residents only told to leave if they called fire brigade back, inquiry told

News13.09.185.30 PM by Rhiannon Curry

Residents trapped in Grenfell Tower were only told that the advice to stay put in their flats had changed to encourage them to evacuate if they called the fire brigade back, the inquiry into the disaster has heard.

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Grenfell Inquiry day 42: residents only told to leave if they called fire brigade back, inquiry told #ukhousing

Key Points

Call handlers struggled to contact residents as calls poured in
Senior team member had never encountered a change of advice before
Control centre was unaware of the extent of the fire until much later

This was because the call centre was so overwhelmed by calls for help that it did not have the capacity to contact residents previously advised to stay put once the policy changed at around 2.45am.

Alexandra Norman, who was the most senior member of staff in the London Fire Brigade control room on the night of the fire, told the inquiry that staff had received such a high volume of calls that it was difficult to identify individuals’ telephone numbers in order to contact them to update them.

She said the centre had received more calls for fire survival guidance (FSG), which helps people stay safe in their homes, that night than in the whole of the previous 10 years as the fire escalated.

When asked why her team had not called people back, she said: “With the amount of calls we had on that night still coming in and the amount of calls we had already received, we would not be able to continue taking 999 calls.

“The hope would be that those callers would be calling us back to say conditions had worsened so we could give them that advice.”

She said she had never encountered a situation where advice about staying put or leaving a building had changed before.

Ms Norman said she wondered “what the hell was happening” as the fire grew from needing 10 fire pumps to 25 in around seven minutes, at around 1.30am on 14 June 2017.

The inquiry was told the control room did not initially realise how catastrophically the fire had spread because their temporary base at Stratford did not have access to live helicopter footage. Ms Norman said she chose not to turn on a television in the control centre for fear of causing distress to the members of staff taking calls from residents.

Later, Peter Duddy, who was receiving calls in the control room, told the inquiry that he had never dealt with multiple FSG calls before Grenfell.

He also said that he was surprised when the guidance to residents changed. “We use a stay put policy because high rises are supposed to be self-contained units with a minimum safety time. To suddenly be telling people that they need to get out and get down the stairs was totally alien to us and we were suddenly in an unprecedented place,” he said.

He understood that the command had come from deputy assistant commissioner Adrian Fenton and assistant commissioner Andy Roe, he said.

He told the inquiry that he would not expect to have plans of a building to assess whether someone was able to leave their home in the event of a fire or not, relying on what the caller said about their potential escape routes.

If the caller could not leave, the operator would give them information about how to keep safe until fire crews could rescue them, he explained.