https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50216606" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has been condemned for "serious shortcomings" and systemic failures in its response to the Grenfell Tower fire, in a report after the first phase of an inquiry.

an example of "a good day to bury bad news" with the election on everyone's mind. I am at a loss how the London Fire Brigade can be judged in this way. What exactly has happened to the people who stuck flammable material to the side of a tower block...?

Totally agree with you Rick,nothing about the negligence of the people who built the thing in the first place.

Don't think our front line services are infallible.
But they're all we have.
By and large, they do learn with experience, though not sure Cotton did them too many favours with her stance.

But they are also a useful scapegoat these days.
Not only about who built these places, what about those who allowed them to be built. Those who allowed them to be lived in... Etc.

The report that looks at the materials and building is due next year. They have produced this report earlier as it could have an impact immediately on how similar fires would be managed.

Rick_Muller wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50216606



an example of "a good day to bury bad news" with the election on everyone's mind. I am at a loss how the London Fire Brigade can be judged in this way. What exactly has happened to the people who stuck flammable material to the side of a tower block...?

Nothing will happen to them, they are powerful people with influential friends, the firefighters aren't. What a disgrace this report is, but sadly, not unexpected.

Dammed if they do and dammed if they don't!! With hindsight it should have been.... Get the F..ck outta there Now!! Very sad.

As stated, the rest of the report will highlight the real culprits.
This particular report doesn't blame the fire brigade for the tragedy. But just because it wasn't their fault, doesn't mean they should not be criticized for any mistakes they have made.
One good thing today was Doreen Lawrence's appology for blaming their shortcomings on racism

Damo wrote: One good thing today was Doreen Lawrence's appology for blaming their shortcomings on racism

She should be locked up for a short while, as should some of the dicks on here who throw that ism about willy nilly.

It was obvious from the start who was going to take the kicking.
They won’t say that the Fire Service has been cut dramatically and that Fire Prevention is nowhere near the standard it once was. Primarily down to self certification. Another dodgy dealers charter.

Bin Ont Turf wrote:She should be locked up for a short while, as should some of the dicks on here who throw that ism about willy nilly.

Are they allowed to take their venomous sandals to prison with them?

IMO it's absolutely disgusting that the report and all the details have been made public. These are brave men and women who risk their lives to save others. All it's done is make the fire brigade a scapegoat and give the members of the families someone to vent off at.

A statement saying that the incident has been studied and a report written to try and improve the response of the emergency services is all that was needed IMO.

Bin Ont Turf wrote:She should be locked up for a short while, as should some of the dicks on here who throw that ism about willy nilly.

Lots of sandal wearing snowflakes around aren't they?

Serious point btw is the point made by Buxton

Lessons have to be learnt by everyone here, including the fire service.

Course, the paper that leaked the report was the Daily Telegraph, who have a big interest in people not concentrating on the previous London Mayors decisions regarding fire stations and firemen in general.........

The thing that frustrates me is the willingness of people to ignore that the Fire Service were working to a policy of "stay put" and that policy was in place because it was deemed least risk for the building, but that was only on the understanding that the cladding was safe too, which we now know is not true.

Add to that the fact that BoJo cut the fire service massively it isn't any wonder that they had issues. Yes, there were lessons to learn, but the Fire Service are not responsible for the deaths in my opinion. Those who cut their resources are partly culpable, but the actual blame lies at the feet of those who decided to break the law and install unsafe cladding.

Rick_Muller wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50216606



an example of "a good day to bury bad news" with the election on everyone's mind. I am at a loss how the London Fire Brigade can be judged in this way. What exactly has happened to the people who stuck flammable material to the side of a tower block...?

My first thought on reading this too. Guys who risk their lives to save others and do marvelous work are being criticised but has anyone been named and shamed yet with regard to construction and refurb? This is a typical case of people with an agenda pointing the finger in the wrong direction methinks.

Totally agree RM. We have that policy in place where I work as all our properties have high standard fire protection. The fire service are happy for us to stay with the stay put as they are very happy that residents would be safe in their homes due to the protection in place, they also don't want slow moving, or elderly people blocking stairwells when they are potentially trying to move men and equipment to a fire. The people who have allowed this cladding are totally responsible for this disaster in my eyes. This fire spread at unprecedented speeds, safe cladding would have allowed ample time for people to have been rescued..

I get that people are wanting to defend the very brave fire fighters, but the top brass in the Fire service have been found wanting in both this tragedy and the Manchester Arena bombing.

They need to improve the policies they work to.

Andreshotboots wrote:Totally agree RM. We have that policy in place where I work as all our properties have high standard fire protection. The fire service are happy for us to stay with the stay put as they are very happy that residents would be safe in their homes due to the protection in place, they also don't want slow moving, or elderly people blocking stairwells when they are potentially trying to move men and equipment to a fire. The people who have allowed this cladding are totally responsible for this disaster in my eyes. This fire spread at unprecedented speeds, safe cladding would have allowed ample time for people to have been rescued..

It was mentioned in the news that fire crews weren’t trained to deal with cladding...

...If the cladding was installed and manufactured with the correct fire rating. There would have been much less of an issue getting these people out.

It seems that the cladding that was installed had what I’d basically an Assigned Rating. The full fat and correct specimen was tested and proved to be adequate, and then someone took the decision to install a cheaper alternative in that it was basically the same.

Whoever signed off on that decision needs to be hauled up in front a judge.

Why do people get so protective of things like this? Take it for what it is “a report on the failings of LONDON FIRE BRIGADE” on that night not of the individual firemen and women. I think it’s clear that there are lessons for the Fire Brigade Country wide to learn from this report some of them are in hindsight plenty though could and should have been resolved on that night. I suspect something similar will have been done within the Brigade already so the report would not come as a shock for certainly the higher echelons.

JarrowClaret wrote:Why do people get so protective of things like this? Take it for what it is “a report on the failings of LONDON FIRE BRIGADE” on that night not of the individual firemen and women. I think it’s clear that there are lessons for the Fire Brigade Country wide to learn from this report some of them are in hindsight plenty though could and should have been resolved on that night. I suspect something similar will have been done within the Brigade already so the report would not come as a shock for certainly the higher echelons.

Agree with this but I think the issue is that it appears no-one has as yet been pulled up for all the other failings. The fire brigade, whatever they may be guilty of or not, were only the last line of defence in a situation that should really never have happened (or at least not in such a bad way). Sadly I believe personally that if it had been one of the more 'affluent' apartments in that area a little more would have been done by now. Or maybe I'm just being a cynic.

But as mentioned above this is the first of a series of reports on this and the one that is the easiest to fix I guess. The next reports will no doubt include the other failings which would have definately hindered the fire service on the night.

Anyway none of this should distract from the amazing bravery shown on the night by the firemen and women.

claret wizard wrote:The report that looks at the materials and building is due next year. They have produced this report earlier as it could have an impact immediately on how similar fires would be managed.

What about the dozens of similar tower blocks with exactly the same flammable cladding still on there? It’s a disgrace this still hasn’t been rectified over two years later!

Firthy wrote:IMO it's absolutely disgusting that the report and all the details have been made public. These are brave men and women who risk their lives to save others. All it's done is make the fire brigade a scapegoat and give the members of the families someone to vent off at.

A statement saying that the incident has been studied and a report written to try and improve the response of the emergency services is all that was needed IMO.

You won't get away with such a strategy today. Grenfell United and loads of others wanted a public enquiry and rightly so. We all need to understand the dangers of fire. It might seem less likely to happen these days but we should still be alert.

The fire brigade were faced with a fire that developed in a way that they couldn't control and clearly had no training or experience in dealing with. It's right that errors made should be pointed out although I don't like the naming of individuals (although my guess is if they weren't named the media would soon do so).

The purpose of these reports is to learn lessons and improve things for the future.

Of course I realise the fire wouldn't have spread but for the defective cladding and frankly I would have thought the reports should have been issued the other way round - what caused the fire, and then what was done to deal with it. Perhaps there was pressure to get a report out, after all it is over two years ago now.

When and by whom was it decided which parts of the report would be released? Seems a little convenient that the next part which will look at the failings of the cladding firm, council and government won’t be released until January after the upcoming election.

Steve-Harpers-perm wrote:When and by whom was it decided which parts of the report would be released? Seems a little convenient that the next part which will look at the failings of the cladding firm, council and government won’t be released until January after the upcoming election.

It's an independent public inquiry. I would have thought the timetable was set ages ago. I think the hearing for the next phase starts in the New Year not the publishing of the findings.

Quickenthetempo wrote:I get that people are wanting to defend the very brave fire fighters, but the top brass in the Fire service have been found wanting in both this tragedy and the Manchester Arena bombing.

They need to improve the policies they work to.

But the policy in place for a building who's structure was non-conbustable. Then someone unbeknownst to everyone strapped flammable cladding to the sides of the building.

These building aren't designed to be evacuated.
A single 4 foot wide stairwell (which firefighters are already using with hoses running up), no fire alarm , no PA system, residents including mothers with children & the elderly many floors up.

I don't see what the fire service could have done, given the hand they were dealt.

I know Combat, it’s almost like people fail to understand cause and effect these days

The blame primarily lies with the source, cost cutting on cheap dangerous flammable cladding whoever knowingly sanctioned this, a catalogue of mistakes did develop afterwards so to a certain degree they need to be accountable as well.

CombatClaret wrote:But the policy in place for a building who's structure was non-conbustable. Then someone unbeknownst to everyone strapped flammable cladding to the sides of the building.

These building aren't designed to be evacuated.
A single 4 foot wide stairwell (which firefighters are already using with hoses running up), no fire alarm , no PA system, residents including mothers with children & the elderly many floors up.

I don't see what the fire service could have done, given the hand they were dealt.

But when you see the building going up in flames very quickly because of the Cladding, you would expect them to change tactics.

When we got flooded in 2015, I was frantically baling water out for 20 minutes. We realised it wasn't having any effect as more just came in. We soon changed tactics to saving furniture etc.

You can soon see if things are working or not.

CombatClaret wrote:I don't see what the fire service could have done, given the hand they were dealt.

The fire service should be adaptable to a changing situation. By 'fire service' I mean not just the fire fighters on the ground but the ones in the call centres too.

The Fire Brigade's job is firstly to save lives, then put the fire out. Obviously they thought putting the initial fire out in the flat would cover both directives but when it became clear that they'd lost control of the fire they should have looked to saving lives.

What the report is pointing out is that once they realised they'd lost control, someone on the ground should have decided to change the strategy of residents remaining in their flats and begun evacuations. As the reports said, 'within half an hour of fire fighters' arrival, there was evidence that Grenfell's compartmentation was failing'. This compartmentation is the key to the 'remain' strategy. The people in the call centres should also have realised this. Half an hour is the typical fire door specification for survival time.

Overall it seems the Fire Brigade had only one strategy for fires in a high rise block - the stay put strategy - and evacuation was never considered.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50237732" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Definitely accountable, how often in a typical training exercise would they encounter a situation like that, I think it boils down to not being prepared enough & lacking nous & experience.

It's like any big tragedy, politicians will announce a big inquiry, drag it out as long as they possibly can before burying it a few years down the line when the majority of the public have forgotten about it.

Quickenthetempo wrote:But when you see the building going up in flames very quickly because of the Cladding, you would expect them to change tactics.

It would take a very courageous firefighter to say "lets ignore all of what we know about getting people out of a tower block based upon years of experience and lets go against our stay put policy because it looks bad" Ultimately that's what happened, but the Fire service train for scenarios based upon what they know, and they thought they knew that this building was compartmentalised when in effect it wasn't - and that's the issue.

People will argue that with hindsight they could have acted sooner; but like I said that would go against everything they have trained for and the policies they had in place. Imagine if a firefighter made that decision earlier and people died on the way out which blocked access (which was likely anyway), they would be in the courts for manslaughter because of a decision they made that went against policy and training.

Rick_Muller wrote:It would take a very courageous firefighter to say "lets ignore all of what we know about getting people out of a tower block based upon years of experience and lets go against our stay put policy because it looks bad" Ultimately that's what happened, but the Fire service train for scenarios based upon what they know, and they thought they knew that this building was compartmentalised when in effect it wasn't - and that's the issue.

People will argue that with hindsight they could have acted sooner; but like I said that would go against everything they have trained for and the policies they had in place. Imagine if a firefighter made that decision earlier and people died on the way out which blocked access (which was likely anyway), they would be in the courts for manslaughter because of a decision they made that went against policy and training.

This is what the enquiry is for, the chief firelady for London stated they would do things very different now.

I don't blame the fire fighters as they do as they're told to training methods. But the top brass were on the scene and failed in my opinion and the reports opinion.

I entirely missed Rees-Mogg suggesting that those who died lacked common sense until he was forced to apologise for it.

aggi wrote:I entirely missed Rees-Mogg suggesting that those who died lacked common sense until he was forced to apologise for it.

There's so much about this Tory party that is sc*m it's sometimes hard to keep up.

Also, it appears that the report was actually more wide-ranging than the LFB comments that got the headlines with some of the issues around the building being highlighted.

https://twitter.com/PeteApps/status/1189491919631634433" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

aggi wrote:I entirely missed Rees-Mogg suggesting that those who died lacked common sense until he was forced to apologise for it.

That’s because he didn’t say that did he? What he said to Nick Ferrari was

“The tragedy came about because of the cladding leading to the fire racing up the building and then was compounded by the stay put policy and it seems to me that is the tragedy of it. That the more one’s read over the weekend about the report and about the chances of people surviving, if you just ignore what you’re told and leave, you are so much safer.

“I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do and it’s such a tragedy that that didn’t happen but I don’t think it’s anything to do with race or class.”

If we can agree that “common sense” is a basic ability to perceive, understand and judge that is shared by all people and that the essence of “stay put” is that in buildings purpose built flats residents not in an area directly impacted by the fire should stay inside their flat (containment)

At what point does common sense override a generic policy that Danny Cotton admitted was not suitable for Grenfell as the containment had been broken or as the Judge said “Stay put has become an article of faith and to depart from it was unthinkable”. There were recommendations made after the Lankal House inquiry in 2014 about suitability of stay put and contingency plans if stay put failed.,

At Grenfell compartmentation failed at 1.15am but the stay put advice was maintained until 2.47am. So back to the original comment - at what point does common sense take over and you think perhaps the fire brigade might have got it wrong and you should get out or do you just sit there thinking the fire brigade are infallible and their orders must be obeyed?

Whilst Grenfell victims have taken the mantle from Liverpool fans in that their views are unquestionable is this furore more an opportunity to score political points against posh Tory boy than an opportunity to actually look at what he said and discuss at what point does individual responsibility supersede corporate orders?

Burnley Ace wrote:That’s because he didn’t say that did he? What he said to Nick Ferrari was

“The tragedy came about because of the cladding leading to the fire racing up the building and then was compounded by the stay put policy and it seems to me that is the tragedy of it. That the more one’s read over the weekend about the report and about the chances of people surviving, if you just ignore what you’re told and leave, you are so much safer.

“I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do and it’s such a tragedy that that didn’t happen but I don’t think it’s anything to do with race or class.”

If we can agree that “common sense” is a basic ability to perceive, understand and judge that is shared by all people and that the essence of “stay put” is that in buildings purpose built flats residents not in an area directly impacted by the fire should stay inside their flat (containment)

At what point does common sense override a generic policy that Danny Cotton admitted was not suitable for Grenfell as the containment had been broken or as the Judge said “Stay put has become an article of faith and to depart from it was unthinkable”. There were recommendations made after the Lankal House inquiry in 2014 about suitability of stay put and contingency plans if stay put failed.,

At Grenfell compartmentation failed at 1.15am but the stay put advice was maintained until 2.47am. So back to the original comment - at what point does common sense take over and you think perhaps the fire brigade might have got it wrong and you should get out or do you just sit there thinking the fire brigade are infallible and their orders must be obeyed?

Whilst Grenfell victims have taken the mantle from Liverpool fans in that their views are unquestionable is this furore more an opportunity to score political points against posh Tory boy than an opportunity to actually look at what he said and discuss at what point does individual responsibility supersede corporate orders?

Has anybody consulted Jakubclaret? He's the go-to man for common sense.

Maybe a politician of Rees Moggs standing shouldn't comment publically as he has done at this time, as it will get twisted to death before an election.

But I reckon 90% of people would of had the conversation about would they stay in a burning building with their families.

I wouldn't.

Would you?

Quickenthetempo wrote:Maybe a politician of Rees Moggs standing shouldn't comment publically as he has done at this time, as it will get twisted to death before an election.

But I reckon 90% of people would of had the conversation about would they stay in a burning building with their families.

I wouldn't.

Would you?

Even when the stairways were full of poisonous fumes/smoke and you couldn’t see where you were going

Whilst Grenfell victims have taken the mantle from Liverpool fans
Can you explain exactly what you mean by this ?

joey13 wrote:Whilst Grenfell victims have taken the mantle from Liverpool fans
Can you explain exactly what you mean by this ?

Their position as victims is sacrosanct and there can be absolutely no criticism of any of their actions.

joey13 wrote:Even when the stairways were full of poisonous fumes/smoke and you couldn’t see where you were going

But the stairway (there was only one) wasn’t always full of smoke and the fumes/smoke went upward not down.

Would you stay in a burning building just because the fire brigade had a generic policy saying you should or would you take responsibility for your own behaviour?

Burnley Ace wrote:Their position as victims is sacrosanct and there can be absolutely no criticism of any of their actions.

Well, they are victims. Literally. It's not "sacrosanct" it's the ******* truth. And all they did wrong, apparently, is follow the instructions of trained ******* professionals. Apparently this makes them stupid though.

Burnley Ace wrote:But the stairway (there was only one) wasn’t always full of smoke and the fumes/smoke went upward not down.

Would you stay in a burning building just because the fire brigade had a generic policy saying you should or would you take responsibility for your own behaviour?

How did they know it was a "generic policy"? If the firefighters told you to do something to maximise the likelihood that you would survive, are you really going to either ignore that, or get into a discussion with them as to why that specific instruction is the best instruction for the specific situation you are in?

Or, as a non-stupid person would do, would you rather they get on with their job of saving your life rather than explain to some resident who is slowing them down with questions and debate?

Andrew Bridgen with a “hold my beer” moment.

I’m loving how all these “clever” Tories with “common sense” are explaining how they would have got out by going against professional advice... is it because they probably knew about the cladding f#ck up... being Tories and all that - Tw@ts

Burnley Ace wrote:Their position as victims is sacrosanct and there can be absolutely no criticism of any of their actions.

Crass comment. Are you a member of the Tory Party? If not you should be.

https://www.facebook.com/871020093/post ... =n&sfns=mo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great post here on Facebook sums up a lot of what I feel about it