Grenfell Inquiry day 17: firefighters describe problems with lifts and access to building

The morning saw more evidence from crew manager Christopher Secrett regarding the consequences of the tower’s fire lift failure discussed yesterday, one of which was a near fatal, failed attempt at rescuing a 12-year-old girl from floor 20.

He said he and two other firefighters tried to use the civilian lift to get there, but it stopped and opened “unexpectedly” en route, immediately filling with thick black smoke.

Someone must have called it, he said – impossible with a functioning fire lift. Subsequently, the firefighters had to use the stairwell for the rest of their fruitless mission, described in detail by firefighter David Badillo last week.

Mr Secrett then recalled thinking he was going to die in the stairwell returning down from floor 20. He was dangerously low on air and the temperature had risen to a level which was “nothing I’ve ever experienced before”.

In his statement, he described crawling into a corner because he “did not want to be in anyone else’s way” if he died. “I tried to get my phone out of my pocket to text my mum but I couldn’t get the phone out,” he wrote.

“I was very doubtful that I was going to get out at all,” he told the inquiry. Fortunately, colleague Chris Dorgu caught up with him and helped him down to safety.

“There was no way myself or anyone else could have come down that staircase and survived without breathing apparatus at that time,” he said.

Mr Secrett also told the inquiry of his confusion earlier that night when he received contradictory messages from colleagues inside and outside the tower. Between 1am and 1.30am, a team of firefighters inside said they had put out the fire in flat 16, from which the blaze originated.

But shortly after, he received a message from his watch manager outside, Mike Dowden, that he “was going to make pumps eight”, or call extra fire crews to the scene until there were eight fire engines, because the flames were “going up the building pretty bad now,” he said.

“I was questioning Mike because in my mind it was really confusing about what was going on,” he said. “It was a bit of a surreal situation.”

In the afternoon, Brien O’Keefe, the second watch manager at the scene after Mike Dowden, spoke about two previous visits to the tower, when firefighters could not easily enter the building because of a key fob entry system.

On one occasion firefighters could only enter “when a resident let them in”.

It is not unusual for the fire brigade to be called to a building which they can’t enter easily, he said. It does hold firefighters up and “it can be a problem, yes,” he admitted, but usually they would just break the door open.

It was established in previous testimonies that there was a small delay gaining access to the tower on the night of the fire because of the key fob entry system.

Mr O’Keefe also said the road to Grenfell Tower was a narrow winding space and they had difficulty getting the fire engines down there. He said: “I would say it was poor access.”