Major incident declared by mayor Khan, feared for dozens of fatalities. Flat was refurnished over one year ago, new cladding and curtain walling may have caused fire to spread like an inferno. From video it appears the fire spread rapidly from 2nd floor to the top. Many young families were trapped inside their homes without any chance of being rescued.
Latimer Road: Huge fire breaks out in west London flats | BBC News – video |
○ London fire: fears of people trapped as major blaze engulfs tower block – latest | The Guardian |
- Jody Martin said he got to the scene as the first fire engine was arriving at Grenfell Tower. He told the BBC: “I grabbed an axe from the fire truck, it looked like there was a bit of confusion about what to do.
“I ran around the building looking for a fire escape and couldn’t see any noticeable fire escapes around the building. A lot of debris falling down. I eventually gained entry onto the second floor, and once I got to the corridor I realised there was so much smoke there.”
He added that given the thickness of the smoke, he would be surprised if anyone could have left the building without assistance.
“I watched one person falling out, I watched another woman holding her baby out the window … hearing screams, I was yelling everyone to get down and they were saying, ‘We can’t leave our apartments, the smoke is too bad on the corridors’,” he said.
○ [Update-1] London fire: ‘number of fatalities’ as blaze engulfs tower block – latest