I awoke this morning to the news that there had been an appalling fire at a 24 storey tower block in London’s White City area. The block, built in 1974 was recently refurbished by the owners the local authority and appears from various news reports to be mostly occupied by social housing tenants.

At the time that the fire broke out in the early hours of the morning, the building would have been occupied by hundreds of people including many families. There are unconfirmed reports of people jumping from the windows of the building and the London Fire Brigade is describing this as an ‘unprecedented incident’. It is certainly much worse than the Ronan Point gas explosion and tower block collapse that occurred in 1968 and the Grenfell Tower was built after the better building regulations that came in following the Ronan Point disaster.

The LFB said that the first call came in at about 1:00am and that dealing with the fire was ‘challenging’ and that there have been a number of fatalities. There have also been at least 50 people sent to local hospitals. They added that they cannot comment on the exact number of fatalities as at this time they do not know. News reports are saying that the fire started on the second floor and blazed upwards. There are unconfirmed and vague reports that the fire may have begun in a fridge in one of the flats. A local tenants action group has previously made complaints about fire safety in the building and made complaints about the safety of the new insulating materials that the building has recently clad in, but the cause of the fire has not yet been officially confirmed. There has of course been a large amount of speculation as to the cause of the fire. This has ranged from the more reasonable suggestions, such a faulty fridge or poor quality building materials right through to the sort of more wild and mischievous speculation, such as terrorism or third worlders trying too cook on charcoal stoves inside the flats themselves. Whatever the reason for the fire, what is plain now is that we are looking at a fire disaster of unprecedented proportions in modern London.

There are harrowing stories coming out of people desperately searching for their families and friends and due to the nature of the fire things do not look good for those who were living on the upper floors. The building has not yet been properly checked for survivors or casualties as it is not yet safe for the fire brigade to enter. Also there are reports that some of the stairwells may have collapsed preventing people from getting down from the upper floors. Public order police have turned up with battering rams to gain entry to nearby buildings to get people out so if the Grenfell Tower collapses it will not take lives in neighbouring areas. The building is now so unsafe for LFB staff to enter that they are having to check the building with drones and remotely operated vehicles.

Sadly, I would guess that we may be looking at a very large number of deaths and injuries from this incident. I pray for the souls who have died and for those who are bereaved or injured or homeless.

Sky News is carrying live reports of this incident which can be found via the link below:

http://news.sky.com/story/west-london-fire-live-fire-service-chief-confirms-there-have-been-fatalities-10915010