Huge fire rips through flats in London

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Hope everyone gets out safely.

Huge fire engulfs west London tower block

BBCE5IK.img


BBCEjko.img
 
Just seen this on breakfast news.

BBC reporter mentioned that residents had complained to landlords last year that the block was a fire risk

KCTMO – Playing with fire!
It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.

...The Grenfell Action Group believe that the KCTMO narrowly averted a major fire disaster at Grenfell Tower in 2013 when residents experienced a period of terrifying power surges that were subsequently found to have been caused by faulty wiring.
 
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people all over social media are already touting it as a terrorist attack, and all down to "muzzies" by the looks of it, without waiting for facts, and not taking note of the building's problematic past.

many of them seem to be misinformed americans likening it to 911
 
This is my day to day area, so i'm off to there in a minute. Hope everyone is out of there.
 
Saw this when I woke up. Very sad. Amazed at just how much of the building has gone up. Unfortunately I think it would take an absolute miracle for everyone to have got out ok. People were reported to have been flashing mobile phone lights etc in the top floors and just can't see how they would have been able to get out.

Sky were reporting that an eye witness said he was told to get out by his neighbour who thought that the fire started in his flat with an electrical item catching fire. Also that no fire alarms went off. Obviously all speculation but I imagine the landlords are going to be under very heavy scrutiny
 
Saw this when I woke up. Very sad. Amazed at just how much of the building has gone up. Unfortunately I think it would take an absolute miracle for everyone to have got out ok. People were reported to have been flashing mobile phone lights etc in the top floors and just can't see how they would have been able to get out.

Sky were reporting that an eye witness said he was told to get out by his neighbour who thought that the fire started in his flat with an electrical item catching fire. Also that no fire alarms went off. Obviously all speculation but I imagine the landlords are going to be under very heavy scrutiny
It sounds as though no fire alarms or sprinklers and that the advice given to residents was in case of a fire stay put.

That all combined seems to have cost a huge number of lives
 
Fatalities confirmed sadly
 
Sadly I would have expected that to be the case as the fire broke out during the night when everyone was in bed for the night :(
 
Video (I dunno how to embed twitter vids on AVF) with one of the lucky ones explaining how he escaped just in time.

AssedBaig on Twitter
This man managed to escape from the 17th floor with his 68-year-old aunt. He told me how he got out #LatimerRoad
 
The footage is shocking.

That cladding is flammable- what the hell?
 
Had a few residents being interviewed on BCC this morning, horrific accounts, probably going to be a lot of people dead sadly.

Woman just been on saying that theres a housebound wheelchair user lives on the 18th floor that hasn't got out.

Many reports of missing children and children being thrown from windows by their parents trying to say them.

edit: now someones just produced a charred sheet from a childs maths homework live on air. Damn. :(
 
The footage is shocking.

That cladding is flammable- what the hell?

It should be fire resistant up to a point depending on what was used. Should also be fixed to a fireproof membrane .
 
There was a blog by resisdents showing concerns of health and safety during building work on a recent refurb.
 
Terrible news, very upsetting :(

The guy being interviewed earlier mentioned blue flames, which made him wonder if it was gas.
I guess it all depends on the materials used in the cladding.

The guy recounting the family waving a towel from a window for an hour while a helicopter was hovering 400m or so from their window was heartbreaking.
 
£10,000,000 spent recently on external cladding to pretty the building up but no alarm system and sprinklers installed!
 
Guy earlier said there was a fire alarm but it was so quiet that he only heard it in the lobby when he was getting his family out.
 
Every firefighters' nightmare, well developed fire with multiple persons reported in a high rise building. So many questions to be answered. Only one I can answer for sure. Every firefighter will do their duty.
 
imagine being in the situation some of those people found themselves in.

wait to be burned alive or jump from windows knowing that you are more than likely going to die upon impact. and if you had a family and children with you - what the hell are you meant to do?

fudgeing horrific.
 
Fire seems to be taking hold again, won't be shocked if it comes down to be honest.
 
6 confirmed fatalities so far with officials saying the number will most likely rise
 
There's a neighbour talking now on BBC news who lives in a house not far from the tower who seems to know what he's talking about. He is saying that the new cladding that was bolted to the side of the concrete tower had a gap between them on the edges of each corner of the building, acting like a chimney, allowing the fire to spread vertically very rapidly. Also he is saying that this cladding just combusted like paper, spreading the fire latterally.

EDIT...
Just watching the live helicopter feed and you can see box like cladding that rises vertically on each corner of the building and with 3 in the center of each face of it. The corner of the unburnt section of the tower looks suspiciously like it has a void between the cladding and the original concrete exterior of the building, see attached photo of Grenfell Tower below. Consider this and look at the totally burnt out vertical corner opposite and you can see where this box cladding has been burnt away vertically the whole height of the tower. I'm no expert but this to me confirms what this guy was saying. If true then there are poss hundreds of towers all over the country that have been retro fitted with this cladding (I know of several locally to me) that will have to be corrected. Also if true the supplied materials would not have passed fire safety regs and should not have been used. Heads should roll because of this.

grenfell tower.jpg


Taking into account the above, now look at this photo from this morning's fire.

Grenfell T FIRE.jpg
 
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I sincerely doubt that helicopter would have had any chance of getting close enough to rescue anyone

Despite that, still sick to be filming their plight
 

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