The London Fire Brigade (LFB) implemented only four of the 29 recommendations suggested by the first part of the Grenfell survey, a new report concluded.
Matt Parr, from Her Majesty’s Police and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), said the capital’s firefighters still have “a long way to go” to correct their flaws since the night of the fire.
The inspector told reporters that he and his colleagues “were slightly surprised” by the few changes adopted, saying that the HMICFRS was not convinced that the LFB would now respond better to a fire similar to Grenfell’s.
He added that it was unclear when all 25 pending recommendations, issued 16 months ago, would be dealt with by the LFB. The brigade said it planned to finish 17 of them by March.
One of the changes that the LFB still needs to make is to change its advice from “stay put” to “get out”.
The instruction “stay put” was given when the fire broke out in the apartment building in June 2017 and lasted almost two hours. That policy was criticized by Sir Martin Moore Bick, the chairman of the investigation, who said that fewer people would have died if it had been overturned earlier.
Seventy-two people died in the fire, which spread through the West London building thanks to the flammable outer shell.
Three and a half years later, Parr said that the LFB recognized “the scale of the necessary changes” and recognized that there was “much more work to do”, especially in fire training in high-rise residential buildings.
After saying that the pandemic caused “inevitable delays”, he encouraged the brigade to act quickly “not only to reassure victims, survivors and their families, but to ensure public security”.
The LFB confirmed that it was committed to acting in accordance with the October 2019 recommendations.
Richard Mills, the deputy commissioner of the fire department, said: “We know that there is more that we can and should do to keep Londoners safe and we will continue to work hard, not just to complete all the recommendations, but to continue our learning. we can adapt and reduce the number and impact of fires. “
The HMICFRS inspection was carried out between October and December last year.
Additional reports by PA