to ask if Grenfell residents could have been evacuated

[why100000]

had the fire brigade not blindly followed the “stay put” policy.

Am watching the documentary on Channel 4 at the moment.

Unbearable .

I saw that Why. So sad wasn't it? 😔

I think the view is that everyone could have been evacuated within 7 minutes if the firefighters hadn’t been bound by policy which wasn’t appropriate for the situation.

With all due respect, I saw adverts for this show and it really pissed me off.

If the building had been clad and built in the way it was supposed to, the stay put technique would have worked and been fine.

Instead a cheaper, flammable cladding was put on the building and people died as a result. The fire service had no way of knowing this.

This is just another case of the people at the heart of this trying to shirk the responsibility. Absolutely fucking disgusting. My heart breaks for all who died but the right people need to accept blame here.

Was the policy because they expected firedoors to be in place and for the fire to be contained in one flat as is usual in non cladded blocks?

I don’t know too much about it really, was there no update to the policy when the cladding was put on so that firefighters can advise properly? In other properties like this, how do they know what to advise if they don’t know what’s on the building?

Also if the government had better legislation RE sprinklers, that could have also prevented the spread. At present only high risers of 30m and above built after 2007 are legally required to have sprinklers. Utterly ridiculous.

How could disabled residents be evacuated in 7 minutes? It makes me mad when I see the fire service criticised for sticking to the stay put advice. The stay put advice was based on the assumption that the building was compliant with the law. How were they to know the building had been covered in super flammable materials?

From what I heard fire fighters on the ground wanted to go in alot sooner coz they realised it wasn't a normal fire but those higher up said no.

I still don't blame the fire fighters. I blame whoever let those flats become unsafe the contractors the council etc every single one of them is to blame.

The fire service are NOT at fault.

The building isn't meant to burn like that if proper regulation is followed. They say stay out so firefighters can get to the scene without fighting through people running down the stairs etc.

Some rich knobs however used innapropiate cladding and failed to maintain the site which caused the rapid spread of a fire that should have been contained.
By the time the fire service realised, the passageways would have been become near impassible and it would have been just as dangerous to then change their minds and tell people to run through burning corridors.

Stay put not out

Judging by this one documentary, the F S wasn’t being criticised really - it concluded that the system in place was not appropriate for this particular case. The firefighters were Duty bound to follow the system. And apparently there are similar buildings up and down the country and nothing has changed re: the F S training.

I absolutely agree that the people were also failed by the council but the building wasn't evacuated even when it was obvious that the measures that were/should have been in place weren't working. There was a documentary on BBC last year about similar fires on a smaller scale and people were not told to evacuate even when it was obvious that it was absolutely necessary. It seems that little has been learned.

The stay put advice was based on the assumption that the building was compliant with the law. How were they to know the building had been covered in super flammable materials?

When the fire started behaving in a way which indicated the compartmentalising was breached?

Fire service has some serious policy issues. Lack of presence at the Manchester bomb, lack of action at changing stay out advice st grenfall. Two major incidents where the fire service didn’t perform effectively.

The reaosn it hasn't changed is because there may be many like grenfell but theres hundreds not like it. And to change the policy would be mean encouraging hundreds of people rushing down the stairs as firefighters carrying heavy equipment have to rush up them

The stay put advice was given based on the best knowledge available at the time, and according to the training those responsible had received. The fault does not lie with the individuals in the fire service, but rather those that allowed the flammable cladding to be installed, causing a failure to compartmentalise the fire.

No, the building could not have been evacuated in seven minutes. This figure is based on two false assumptions:

1. that everyone in the building is physically fit. Clearly this was not the case.
2. that the stairwell could contain everyone leaving the building at the same time without becoming congested and slowing exit. It's well documented that the stairwell was narrow.

Having watched the programme it seems like this is a case where hindsight is a wonderful thing. The firefighters were dealing with the situation as it happened - they didn't know how it was going to develop.

It seems ridiculous that vulnerable people are housed on the 22nd floor - how can they be evacuated safely when they can't use the lifts and can't manage the stairs? Fundamentally buildings that high feel very unsafe.

If cheap fucks hadn't clad a high rise residential building with fucking highly flammable material, then the advice would have been correct. 7 minutes? I very much doubt it. There would have been disabled people who couldn't evacuate themselves, parents with more small children than they could carry, smoke on the stairs impeding visibility, the chaos of trying to get everyone down one set of stairs, people refusing to leave, people carrying their belongings dropping stuff and blocking the stairwell... Though I do agree that more people would probably have got out than did.

Stay put works when a building is properly and safely constructed. I won’t watch Dispatches because I am absolutely disgusted that such a programme has been made when the inquiry is still ongoing. To blame those that did what they did that night is downright disgraceful. Every single one of the firefighters and 999 call takers will relive that night for as long as they live. It could never have been trained for because it should never have happened. I am glad that most of the general public (that I have read) support the Fire Service.

I refused to watch this program because it angered me so much.

There is a post doing the rounds on FB from a firefighter who was there that night. Very easy for people to sit and nudge from their armchair though isn’t it.

I'm not blaming the individual fire fighters btw, but the training obviously needs to be altered to take into account that fires and buildings do not always obey the 'rules, and plans and procedures may need to change at any minute. Perhaps that's happening now. I have no idea.

judge*

That’s what I mean, when they arrive at a building on fire, how can they possibly know wtf is on it and so how to respond, with out a policy for illegal buildings and another for standard buildings. They are damned either way.

And I don’t think I could walk down 24 flights of stairs in 7 minutes with my children on a normal day, let alone in the dead of night when they’d just woken up, with smoke, heat and all the other people trying to escape.

The thing is I would expect the fire service to inspect these blocks yearly for safety and to check fire doors,,etc., and to have up to date reports on materials used. I don’t blame the fire service but I do think the Council was negligent. I think you should always leave and take your chances.

Couldn't bear to watch so am speaking from ignorance but I feel that to blame the fire service is simply blame shifting. As far as I know they arrived at what should have been a manageable situation with a plan in place. How could the fire service know about the abysmal shoddy management and renovation standards that applied there? I cant imagine what it must feel like to be confronted with such an impossible situation, know you're pretty much defeated before you start, yet to try your best anyway. I have every sympathy for the dead and injured. I have every sympathy for the emergency services. The blame lies with the Council and its ALMO.

I agree with above posters, it was not in any way, shape, or form the fault of the fire fighters. The building was designed with fire compartmentation and a stay put policy was put in place as part of the building fire strategy.

The building was clad with material which caused fire to spread rapidly and overwhealmed the fire service. Evacuation of residents who are elderly, disabled, or just scared and doing it for the first time (no drills) in a building with no smoke extract would have taken a lot longer than 7 mins and would have been extreamly risky.

As for sprinklers, again if the building had been built properly they would not have been needed.