Part 8: The London Fire Brigade

Chapter 69: Introduction to Part 8

¶69.1 In chapter 7 of his Phase 1 report the chairman described the statutory responsibilities, structure and organisation of the London Fire Brigade (LFB). In particular, he described in some detail the operation and management of the control room, the systems and procedures employed in it and the method of handling emergency calls. Later in the same chapter he described operations at the incident ground, with particular emphasis on the role and responsibility of the incident commander and support available from monitoring officers and command units. It is not necessary for us to repeat any of that in this report.

¶69.2 In that report the chairman expressed the view that there had been significant shortcomings in the way the LFB had responded to the fire at Grenfell Tower, both in the control room and on the incident ground, many of which were the result of a failure to provide its control room officers and firefighters at all levels with the skills, preparation and training needed to enable them to respond effectively to the situation they faced. He therefore considered it necessary in this second phase of the Inquiry to examine the organisation and training of the LFB in the years preceding the fire with a view to understanding how that situation had come about and how it might be avoided in the future.

¶69.3 We begin this Part of our report with a brief description of the way in which the management of the LFB is organised to enable the reader to understand the complicated structure that existed in the years immediately before the Grenfell Tower fire. That structure is of importance only because it sheds light on the way in which the organisation functioned during that period. We follow that with a description of the way in which training was organised and training packages obtained from the LFB's provider, Babcock. It was essential to train officers at all levels in order to meet the challenges of incident command and to ensure that operations were conducted effectively. In view of the criticisms of the LFB made by the chairman in his Phase 1 report we considered it appropriate to pay particular attention to that aspect of the brigade's management, particularly since it had been the subject of a specific recommendation by the coroner who conducted the inquests following the Lakanal House fire.

¶69.4 Although the fire at Lakanal House in 2009 emphasised the dangers posed by the use, especially in high-rise buildings, of certain kinds of materials and methods of construction, the sources of that knowledge had been available for some years. We therefore decided that we should investigate the extent to which the LFB had been aware of those dangers and, if so, how widely the information had been shared within the organisation. We have also considered other sources of information that were available to it in order to understand why the dangers of a loss of compartmentation and the rapid spread of fire were not understood or recognised by operational station crews.

¶69.5 One important aspect of preparation is gathering information about buildings that may present particular challenges. The LFB is unusual in having a large number of high-rise buildings in the area for which it is responsible, many of which pose particular challenges. We have therefore examined and report on the steps taken by the LFB to collect information about buildings, particularly those that may present particular challenges in the event of a fire.

¶69.6 The response of the control room to the huge volume of information it received as a result of the fire made it necessary for us to examine the quality of the training delivered to control room staff during the years leading up to it. That in turn required us to examine the way in which the control room had been managed and the importance attached to the delivery of regular training, particularly in handling calls from or about people trapped in high-rise buildings. In this Part, therefore, we set out our findings on those matters.

¶69.7 There are other aspects of the response to the fire that in our view called for examination. One significant obstacle encountered by the firefighters who entered the tower was the difficulty of maintaining effective radio communication. We have therefore considered the nature of the equipment then in use, the source of the difficulties in maintaining communication with the bridgehead and the steps that might be taken to overcome them in future.

¶69.8 Maintaining an adequate supply of water also presented difficulties. We have therefore examined the means by which water is made available for firefighting and the steps that were taken by the water undertaker, Thames Water, to improve the supply while the fire was being fought. We have also considered the equipment available to firefighters to deliver water at the fireground and the way in which it was used during the course of the fire.