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LFB chief: ‘We’ve completely changed the way we tackle high-rise fires since Grenfell’
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has fundamentally changed the way it tackles large-scale fires in high-rise buildings since the Grenfell Tower disaster, fire commissioner Andy Roe has said.
The brigade has accepted every recommendation made to it by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and has already implemented 26 of the 29 directed specifically at it.
Mr Roe, who was appointed commissioner in January 2020, said that the LFB had introduced new equipment to tackle fires, especially in high-rise buildings, and developed an internal app to co-ordinate fire survival guidance calls between controls and the incident on the ground in real time.
This records fire survival guidance call information in the control room and displays it simultaneously at a safe working space at least two floors below the fire concerned and in command units.
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More fire survival guidance calls were received from residents in Grenfell Tower on the night of the fire than from across the whole of London in the previous 10 years, the brigade noted.
Dedicated fire survival guidance officers and resources will also now be in place at incidents and in control rooms to prioritise calls and ensure that action responds to changing circumstances.
In addition to changes in approach, the LFB has invested in new equipment aimed at improving how it can respond to high-rise fires.
This includes the acquisition of three 64-metre ladders, the tallest in Europe, along with eight new 32-metre ladders. These new aerial appliances have three main purposes: to act as a water tower, a rescue tower and an observational tower.
The LFB has also invested in more escape hoods, which are now used by firefighters to help bring people out through smoke-filled environments safely.
They are carried on all fire engines and provide a person with 15 minutes of clean, filtered air in a smoke-filled environment.
Mr Roe said: “Since the Grenfell Tower fire we have made huge changes to policies, procedures and equipment especially in how we tackle fires in high-rise buildings.
“We owe it to the bereaved families, the survivors and the residents – whose lives have been torn apart by what happened that night – to learn, change our service, and improve.
“We want to earn the trust of Londoners to serve and protect them. As part of our ongoing transformation, from next week we will be asking London’s communities to have their say on the future of the fire service in the capital.”
The brigade is due on 31 May to launch a public consultation on its Community Risk Management Plan, which sets out how it will change and improve to better serve all its communities.
Despite the LFB’s progress, London mayor Sadiq Khan said that nearly five years after the fire, he remains “extremely concerned the government has failed to complete a single recommendation directed at them from the first phase of the inquiry and too many Londoners are still at risk”.
He said: “It is vital that the government and the housing and building industries act now to prevent small fires turning into major, life-threatening blazes.”
Mr Khan previously made similar comments about the government’s post-Grenfell actions in March.
At the time, the government called the mayor’s comments “unfounded”, with a Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson saying that the government was “introducing the biggest improvements in building safety for a generation”, including through the introduction of a new Building Safety Regulator.
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