Thats a massive blaze, with hundres of people at risk, a couple of crews getting there under 10 minutes isn't good enough.
Had local fire stations not been shut down and sold off, had appliances (fire engines) not been cut back there would have been more staff and equipment to deal with this towering inferno, they could have been there under 5 minutes and got hold of a fire that started on the 4th floor, well below the reach of their hoses.
Supporting crews could then have arrived in under 10 minutes.
The cladding is clearly a material that is quick to burn so arrival times are 'absolutely critical'.
Just as losing 20,000 police hasn't helped the Police force to keep us safe, losing firemen and women and losing fire stations in a capital that contains many ageing tower blocks, is a
very poor show that deserves to be highlighted.
Fire crews are doing great work in spite of the cuts, but it doesn't help those who are dead, injured, or the families of victims.
The London fire service are critically understaffed for this kind of fire event.
This is a situation where they may not have had the opportunity to stop the blaze, but they could have held it back long enough to get people out before the staircases were engulfed in smoke and maybe get a fireman to the roof to engage the water tanks etc
Considering it was abalze within minuites and Fire crews got there in under 10 I don't think that was really a problem.
Is that something that you think you could say to the victims in critical care, or the children who's parents had to fling them from the upper windows because they were facing certain death if they stayed in the apartments. Children who now have no parents.
Is that something you could say to family and friends at the many funerals that are going to be coming in the next few weeks?
Or is that a glib statement that's easy to make from a distance?
Is it something that you would say to the brave firemen who have been reduced to tears because they weren't there quickly enough in numbers to hold back the blaze?
They witnessed the hopeless screams of those they couldn't save.
Fire moves at pace in the right conditions and reaction times are absolutely critical if lives are to be saved. Particularly where many many lives are to be saved. This kind of fire needs to be anticipated by careful planning so that tens of fire crews respond in under ten minutes.
Not just the first couple of engines.
There's bugger all on the roads around suburban areas of London at 1 am in the morning on Tuesday night.
Even doing the 30mph speed limit (never mind an emergency situation), I can travel three or four suburbs in under 10 minutes in London at the time of the morning.
This wasn't rush hour or regular day traffic, there was nothing on the roads and this is the quickest the crews can get there??
it's not the firefighters fault.
There simply isn't enough of them to serve an issue like this. Yet there are hundreds of tower blocks across London.
Boris Johnson hasn't heard the last of his lethal legacy as mayor.
The confirmed death toll is already 12 dead.
18 people are in critical care.
They still haven't got near areas on the upper floors where there may no longer be any trace of bodies that have been consumed in the conflagration.
Arrival times were definitely a big problem.
Now there may be other problems that contributed to the tragedy but cutting firemen numbers and selling off fire stations in an overpopulated city with many high rise tower apartments is not a clever idea at any time and the results have come home to roost pretty quickly.
Boris Johnson was all too keen to accept plaudits for his budget saving cuts at the time, but, when you cut essential life saving services like the firefighters, in a big over populated city, then those poor choices and poor management come home to roost.
Tell me this didn't make a difference...
http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/14/boris...told-rival-politician-to-get-stuffed-6708609/
