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Lead Grenfell firefighter questioned on previous tower block fire that spread up building
The first incident commander on the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire has been questioned about a previous tower block fire in which flames spread up the outside of the building.
Michael Dowden, a watch manager at the London Fire Brigade, was repeatedly asked by the inquiry’s lead counsel Richard Millett whether the Shepherd’s Court fire came to mind when he was assessing the fire spread at Grenfell Tower.
The Shepherd’s Court fire broke out in 2016, starting in a kitchen and quickly spreading up the side of the building.
Inside Housing exclusively revealed in April last year that the external window panels were the probable cause of the spread of the fire.
Mr Dowden said he did not recall the Shepherd’s Court fire on the night of the Grenfell Tower fire and that the rate at which the fire spread up the building was “unprecedented” in his experience.
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The lawyer’s questioning also revealed that Mr Dowden should have been relieved by a more senior colleague once the number of pumps being used to fight the fire started to increase.
At the point where 10 pumps were being used, Mr Dowden said it was not normal procedure for a watch manager to be incident commander. He also expected an assistant commissioner to be monitoring the situation.
Mr Dowden told the inquiry: “I was reacting in the way that I thought was best in something I’d never witnessed before.”
He added that he was “very much out of my comfort zone”.
Mr Millett also repeatedly asked Mr Dowden if he considered changing the ‘stay put’ policy once the fire started to spread. Mr Dowden said no, but this would have been “impossible” anyway because of a lack of resources. There were only six fire engines fighting the fire when it started to rapidly spread and only one staircase for resident to use to escape.
