Freshwater Road Dagenham Fire

[Steve]

You've probably been asleep for a couple of days if you aren't aware of the fire in the early hours of BH Monday in a medium rise former office converted to residential building in Dagenham, East London, LFB's first critical test since Grenfell. Although there have been a number of newsworthy high rise fires in London since Grenfell, none have been in the middle of the night in a defective building with a hundred plus sleeping resident at risk as fire rapidly spread up the outside of the building.

Operationally, LFB passed the test well. I have been on site today doing media interviews, but got 5 minutes with the Commissioner. Not going to get into the rights and wrongs of the status of the building and the assumed fire protection systems, but it did have a simultaneous evacuation in place, but seemingly no common fire alarm which is key to a sim-evac. Control were aware of the building (as no doubt the crews from local stations, especially Dagenham were), and this information was passed by radio en-route. Because of the unsafe cladding the usual 'multiple call' high rise PDA was made up to 10 within a minute of so of the first call as the two subsequent calls came in that quickly. (PDA for high rise is 5 plus an aerial and Rescue unit, full 8 pump attendance with officers and support for multiple calls and increased to 10 for multiple calls involving a clad building). The initial IC made it up to a 20 around about 18 minutes after the first call and the simultaneous evacuation of 80 people with 20 actually requiring rescue (some with smoke hoods) was started immediately. According to the Commissioner, a Lff in the initial crew just started shouting through a loud hailer at the front and back of the building.

My concern though is, on a national basis, realistically I think only LFB, GM and West Mids and possibly Southern Scotland could resource such an incident so quickly, even the other Mets like Merseyside T&W and West Yorks would likely struggle. It appears the success was the vast amount of personnel available for deployment within such a short space of time. Only 1300 of the 4000 plus building that require remediation are in London, and I daresay the next one could be in a City where ten and certainly twenty pumps would not realistically arrive within a useful time frame. There has been bold words of support by DPM Angela Rayner today, but in reality, a multi-fatal fire in one of our Towns and Cities could be what the UK fire service has to deal with next and as her boss said today, the cupboard is bare and the NHS is the top priority with increased funding an resources for the fire service no more than a pipe dream. 

The 40 Pumps were just under a third of LFB's 142 pumps, a lot, but when I joined there were in excess of 210 pumps and 'normal crewing' (the expectation) was 5 & 5 at a two pump station. My memory recalls we were usually riding 5 & 4 in those days, occasionally 4 & 4 especially during summer and very occasionally we might get 'left alone' and have 6 & 5 with the odd 6 & 6. I cannot remember the last time I saw or heard of that.

 

[Keith]

Would agree with you Steve, not a chance of us getting that number of pumps. Other thing I noticed in one of the news clips, it looked like there were at least 5 aerial appliances in use. Must have been good water source(s) available.

Guessing the cladding being removed was the main cause of the rapid spread?

[Messyshaw]

It's SEVEN YEARS after Grenfell and after Theresa May promised rapid action, yet so many buildings still have this shite wrapped around them.

The  Public Inquiry has yet to publish their report, but regardless of its findings , it's clear the non compliant cladding will have to be removed.

Grenfell was a scandal, but other than a handful of crooks, very few knew about the problems of ACM cladding 

Freshwater Road - despite no fatalities- is a much greater scandal as we all knew the problem.

Meanwhile the Govt have sat on their hands for 7 years and seemingly putting the interests of their chums in the construction industry and associated businesses before the safety of the public 

There needs to be emergency legislation now to get this stuff off all sleeping accommodation within 12 months.......... surely that's possible?😡😡😡😡

[Steve]

21 hours ago, Keith said:

Would agree with you Steve, not a chance of us getting that number of pumps. Other thing I noticed in one of the news clips, it looked like there were at least 5 aerial appliances in use. Must have been good water source(s) available.

Guessing the cladding being removed was the main cause of the rapid spread?

It's my opinion Keith, having seen the damage from a distance, that a fire started in the builders compound at the rear of the block (a failure of the fire risk assessment under HSG 168) with too much material stored under the building, opposed to against the far fence, if that was possible. That had the thermal release to sustain a fire in the scaffolding which burned through the windows, like the cladding fire did at Grenfell. And then it reached the two storey extension at the top. This was timber framed and clad... they say HPL, but from my view around 200m away, it looked like ACM with fire resisting Rockwall underneath it. The cladding damage is actually quite limited. But the now raging fire made mincemeat of the top two floors. The original concrete ground to fourth held up well structurally but of course the contents and linings are completed destroyed.

As for aerials, my life's work is complete. Apart from in London's West End, they remained largely unused and misunderstood by the generation before me (Sorry Messy). I've bored you all on here many times over the years how many a Stn O, silhouetted by flames would wave us away when I was riding the aerial at Poplar and Plaistow. Since Grenfell and the acquisition of the new 32 and 64 TL's it's as if they are the favourite toy, many jobs are now 3, 4 or more aerials. Back in the day, when we had more aerials, a blazing warehouse would have an aerial at each end with large parts of the middle left to burn. My annoyance is the press releases that (fair enough) make a big deal of the 64's, but they also talk of the 32's like they are something new. Andy Roe has told me... he often gets a moaning text from me and too his credit always, ALWAYS responds, he said he has to take what publicity he can post Grenfell and although he acknowledges many things that have 'come about' since Grenfell were already there, the press are more interested if its 'shiny and new' and seemingly as a result of Grenfell base improvements. 🤷‍♂️

[C_Iain]

Incredible insight, as always, @Steve, thank you.

Out of curiosity as someone taking their first steps in to the world of incident command, do you know if the initial OIC’s make-up was a straight “MP20” or did that build up over the course of the 18 mins, ie MP12, MP15, etc?

[Steve]

I haven't see the incident report to confirm, but was told and I quote "He made it 20 after about 18 minutes". I can't say whether he might have gone 12 or 15 before it as it was just someone I was discussing it with. It does seem like it went from the 10 PDA straight to 20. That said, it is the exception and not the rule, and one of my frustrations in the latter part of my career would be junior officers going through the process of 4,6 8, 10 etc, even though it was seemingly going from "Ar**hole to breakfast" as they arrived. 

[Messyshaw]

If this video is genuine, then someone needs to be bought to account here as Sky News are showing video they say is people trapped by a locked gate - possibly to to do with the building works

We already know from Steve's account that there are potential failings to be investigated, but this - if true - must be the worst of them

[Steve]

It does seem that way Messy, assuming they took known and posted escape routes. However, as we know, we are funny things us humans and if they made an escape by irregular means, i.e out of their window and down the scaffold, then as we both know, if the locked compound is not part of an escape route, they may well have found themselves locked in. As the days go on, I am thinking more along the lines of a failure of the fire safety measures related to the building site and less so the building itself. I have already commented on the cladding, but the front of the building on the lower floors seems largely undamaged and it appears although the fire spread from the outside to inside the flats at the rear it didn't burn out of them into the common corridor and across into the front facing flats. This will, I guess all remain a mystery unless we could walk around it for ourselves or wait until the results are published.