Grenfell: Building a Disaster - Ep 7: The Fire

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry Podcast

BBC

News

4.8 • 627 Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the early hours of the 14th June 2017, the bell in North Kensington’s fire station begins to ring. Firefighter David Badillo assumes it is a routine house fire. He expects that he and his colleagues will extinguish it quickly and head back to the station.

But when he ventures inside the tower, David Badillo realises that this fire is like nothing he’s seen before.

In this episode, Kate tells the story of the beginning of the night of the fire and asks whether the firefighters who risked their lives were adequately trained and prepared for an event which, for many, was foreseeable.

Presenter: Kate Lamble Producer: Josephine Casserly Production coordinator: Janet Staples Audio engineers: James Beard and Gareth Jones Story consultant: Simon Maybin Editor: Penny Murphy

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:06.4	To be honest, I don't remember that shift.
0:14.6	I don't remember coming to work that night
0:19.0	because of Grenfell was so huge.
0:22.2	The rest of it's sort of pretty insignificant.
0:28.2	So all I remember is we got the call at, what, five to one.
0:35.3	In the early hours of the 14th of June 2017, the bell in North Kensington's fire station began to ring.
0:42.8	And as firefighters rushed out the door, one picked up the slip of paper, which told them what they'd be walking into.
0:51.4	It just said fire in flat 16 at Grenfell Tower.
0:56.0	16 Greenfield Tower.
0:57.6	The fire brigade are on their way.
1:01.4	Are you outside?
1:02.9	The first fire engine arrived within five minutes.
1:08.2	I was in the middle of the fire engine.
1:10.2	I remember my colleague to my right who was facing the tower
1:16.1	saying he could see a bit of wispy smoke and an orange glow at the window, which you expect.
1:22.6	For firefighters, this seemed pretty normal.
1:25.6	There were around five fires a week in high-rise flats in London,
1:29.5	but the fire at Grenfell Tower would become something else, something the London Fire Brigade
1:34.9	were not prepared for. This is the story of a fire which killed 72 people.
1:47.1	A fire both foreseeable and preventable.
1:51.8	And what it tells us about the people and policies meant to protect us.
	...

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