‘They Covered the Building in Fuel’: The Preventable Tragedy of the Grenfell Tower Fire

Ten days after the Grenfell Tower fire disaster, Blueprint for Free Speech sent me to London to find out what officials knew about fire safety conditions in the building. They knew plenty, but they chose to do nothing.

Here is my account.

Mariem Elgwahry was standing at her window one day when, like countless times before, she stamped out her cigarette on the outside wall of the building. This time, though, the insulation that had just been installed at Grenfell Tower began to melt. She reported the problem to her local government office – the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in inner London. Staffers at Town Hall ignored her concerns.

Today, Elgwahry is dead.

Elgwahry, 27, is one of the 72 people who died when Grenfell Tower went up in flames shortly after midnight on June 14, 2017. Also among the victims was 6-month-old Leena Belkadi, who died in her mother’s arms in a stairwell between the 19th and 20th floors.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people remain unaccounted for more than a month after the blaze, which charred nearly the entire building through and through.

Elgwahry was not the only resident of Grenfell Tower who presented concerns about fire safety to – and were ignored by – Borough officials. Far from it.

Dozens of people who lived in the 24-story public housing development banded together to form the Grenfell Action Group. At least since 2013, the Group had warned Borough officials about fire hazards in the 40-year-old high-rise, whose 600 residents included many modest-income families and immigrants.

“Only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord,” reads a entry posted on the Group’s website six months before the disaster. “It won’t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt [Grenfell] management… They can’t say that they haven’t been warned!”

Grenfell residents reported problems with fire extinguishers, fire alarms and other emergency systems. They warned that “a single staircase with no natural light” was the only emergency exit route. They questioned official instructions to “stay put” in their apartments and wait for help to arrive, rather than flee the building in case of fire. They published a leaked fire assessment of Grenfell Tower that raised various problems in 2012.

Rather than investigate and fix the problems discovered by residents, the Borough government turned on its own people. One Action Group member who lived at Grenfell Tower, and perhaps several more, received a letter from Borough attorneys accusing him of harassment and defamation and ordering him to remove critical blog-posts. Borough officials also sought to besmirch him in a character assassination campaign.

It was revealed within days of the fire, which consumed Grenfell within minutes, that the insulation recently installed around the building’s entire surface was highly flammable. A cheaper, less fire-retardant type of insulation reportedly was installed in order to save ￡293,000.

“They covered the building in fuel,” journalist and neighborhood activist Daniel Renwick said of the material, which since has been discovered in dozens of towers and other buildings throughout the UK.

Coupled with slow aid responses by local officials and half-hearted condolences by Prime Minister Theresa May, the fire has scandalized all levels of government and become a rallying point for opposition politicians and the working class.

Police have opened a manslaughter investigation into a tragedy that UK Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has called “social murder” caused by political decisions.

It is not yet known whether the cause of the fire and its rapid spread can be traced directly to any of the concerns raised by residents, fire experts and others. Still, the fact that so many documented problems at Grenfell were ignored by Borough officials forms an image of a government that did not place the needs of residents first.

Regardless of the specific cause, a review of the events leading up to the disaster expose a persistent culture of apathy among local officials.

Cheaper Cladding: The Cost of Saving ￡293,000

The insulation that enveloped Grenfell Tower was a major element of a ￡10 million redevelopment project carried out in 2014-16 by Rydon Maintenance, a construction and management company based south of London. The “rain screen cladding” was installed to “improve thermal insulation and modernize the building’s exterior,” according to a Rydon webpage taken down shortly after the fire.

However, an official Borough document suggests that aesthetics, not keeping residents comfortable during winter and summer, was the main purpose of the cladding. It material was to be installed to “ensure that the character and appearance of the area are preserved and living conditions of those living near the development suitably protected.”

Housing activists cite this January 2014 document as evidence that the project’s main beneficiaries were not Grenfell’s tenants, but rather wealthy residents in surrounding neighborhoods who long had viewed the low-income high-rise as an eyesore. Indeed, the documents says residents living “near” Grenfell, not actually in the building, were to benefit from the ￡10 million project.

Borough Council Leader Nicholas Paget-Brown said as much as the project neared completion in May 2016, “It is remarkable to see first-hand how the cladding has lifted the external appearance of the tower.”

Further upsetting to survivors and housing activists is the post-disaster revelation that the cladding installed at Grenfell was not the type that originally was intended to be used.

A 2012 planning document by London-based engineering contractor Max Fordham said the insulation would be “FR,” or “fire retardant.” The document went on to say that one of the project’s goals was “providing fire and carbon monoxide detection.”

After the fire, UK media learned that a subcontractor had been asked to supply based “Reynobond PE” cladding, which is ￡2 per square meter cheaper and less fire resistant than “Reynobond FR.” This less expensive, plastic-based material has been banned for use in high-rises in Germany since the 1980s.

The decision saved ￡293,000 for the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which managed Grenfell for the Borough, according to e-mails obtained by The Times.

An investigation by the Grenfell Action Group after the fire found that the cladding included a polyurethane-like insulation foam that burns when exposed even to fire of moderate heat and intensity.

“Once ignited it burns rapidly and produces intense heat, dense smoke and poisonous gases including carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide,” the Group wrote on June 29. “The burning insulation is believed to have released enough poisonous hydrogen cyanide gas to potentially fill every dwelling in the building. The simultaneous release of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide is more lethal than if they are released separately.”

Arnold Tarling of the Association of Specialist Fire Protection, said the insulation foam “went up like matchsticks.” He said, ironically, that the waterproof zinc coating made it more difficult for firefighters to put out the fire. “The cladding looks lovely, it’s cheap,” he said. “But it’s a silent killer.”

In a further irony, the cladding created a cavity between itself and the building that fountain of flame seeking oxygen.

Borough officials inspected the renovation project times from August 2014 to July 2016, but the checks failed to detect, or raise concerns, about the flammable insulation foam.

“All our warnings fell on deaf ears”

The morning after its worst fears had come true, the Grenfell Action Group wrote on its website, “All our warnings fell on deaf ears and we predicted that a catastrophe like this was inevitable and just matter of time.”

These warnings were summarized in a post from November 2016, six months before the fire:

It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.

The Group said residents has received “proper fire safety instructions” from the KCTMO. The only known guidance, the Group said, was a “temporary notice” posted in an elevator and a newsletter announcement advising residents to remain in their apartments in case of a fire.

Among the Group’s most important revelations was its publication of a leaked fire safety assessment of Grenfell conducted by an independent fire engineer for the KCTMO in 2012. The 32-page report, which the KCTMO had not released to residents or the public, classified the overall fire hazard at Grenfell to be “medium.”

The report cites numerous shortcomings with fire safety, including a lack of:

·     fire-rated apartment doors

·     suitable rubbish doors and chutes

·     wall and ceiling linings (which regulations require to inhibit the spread of fire within buildings)

·     regular testing or servicing of fire detectors, extinguishers, alarms and emergency escape lighting, with records kept

·     regular inspections of escape staircases and gangways, with records kept

·     test certificates for testing and maintaining of firefighter lifts and fire hoses

The Group’s scrutiny intensified after several power surges in 2013 made appliances in dozens of apartments to malfunction, overheat and emit smoke. One surge, caused by faulty wiring, hit 45 apartments on May 29, 2013. The problems reportedly continued up until months before the June 2017 fire, which began with a fire in a refrigerator.

The Group’s worried were also driven by a July 2000 fire in the 14-story Lakanal House in Southwark in southeast London that killed six people. Just as when the Grenfell fire broke out, Lakanal residents were told by “999” emergence operators to stay in their apartments until help arrived. The Southwark Council pleaded guilty to four counts of violating fire safety regulations in February 2017.

Following a review of the Lakanal blaze, London fire officials recommended that all contractors and subcontractors hired to work on public buildings have “contemporary training and competence in the importance of fire stopping.” The All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety & Rescue Group wrote to the UK government in 2014, “Can we really afford to wait for another tragedy to occur before we amend this weakness?”

The response from Borough officials to these and other concerns raised by the Grenfell Action Group was not an invitation to meet with residents or a pledge to look into the problems. Rather, the Borough threatened one of the Group’s leaders with legal action.

On July 25, 2013 a government lawyer sent a letter to Grenfell tenant Francis O’Connor accusing him of “harassment” and making “defamatory” statements. The letter, from Senior Solicitor Vimal Sarna, ordered O’Connor to remove one of his blog-posts within four days.

Other warnings about the safety of high-rises had been issued by the UK Fire Brigades Union and Fire Protection Association. One month before the Grenfell fire, the Association of British Insurers specifically warned the UK government about the dangers of flammable cladding on buildings. “External cladding made from combustible material can often cause significant fire to spread upwards,” the organization said. Large quantities of these materials, it said, increased “the probability of fire and potential scale of loss.”

The Fallout

The fire, the slow government response and scenes such as Prime Minister May being escorted into her car without acknowledging grieving residents standing nearby led to large-scale protests under the banner “Justice for Grenfell.”

The Borough government itself is aware of the public’s lack of faith in its efforts. A staffer working in the Town Hall’s donation office was overheard saying on June 26, “The community doesn’t trust what we do with the donations.”

Council Leader Nicholas Paget-Brown resigned four days later after becoming angered that journalists gained access to what was intended to be a closed Council meeting. Deputy Leader Rock Feilding-Mellen and Borough Chief Executive Nicholas Holgate also resigned.

The fire set off a search of flammable cladding materials in buildings nationwide. As of early July, all 181 cladding samples taken from high-rise towers had failed fire safety tests. Thousands of residents have been evacuated and moved into new homes.

The Grenfell Action Group continues to expose safety problems that may have contributed to the fire’s spread and difficulties in extinguishing it. The Group also is participating in aid and housing efforts for survivors of the fire and residents in neighboring buildings who have been affected.

The Group’s work in discovering safety problems, alerting residents and government officials, and holding the Borough to account after the fire have become a symbol of how citizens can self-organize informally to serve the public interest. Just weeks after the fire, it is clear that “Grenfell” has become synonymous with citizens’ struggles against uncaring government bureaucracies.

Collectively, the Group’s members – many of whom wrote for its website anonymously out of fear of reprisals – are whistleblowers in the true sense: working from within the system, they exposed a public health danger to the proper authorities while others remained silent. Rather than move out of Grenfell Tower, many remained to continue the effort to improve living conditions. Some paid for this dedication with their lives.