What happened in the Grenfell Tower fire – a timeline of the tragedy

Published

7 months ago

September 4, 2024

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Today, the years-long Grenfell Inquiry releases its final report into the fire that cost 72 lives.

What started as a small kitchen fire in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower, which contained 129 flats and stands at just over 200ft, ended up being the deadliest domestic blaze since the Second World War.

The report into phase one, published in October 2019, concluded the North Kensington property’s cladding did not comply with building regulations and was the “principal” reason for the rapid and “profoundly shocking” spread of the blaze.

It also heavily criticised the London Fire Brigade (LFB) for “serious shortcomings” and “systemic” failures in its handling of the fire, specifically due to its controversial “stay put” strategy which meant residents were told to stay in their flats by firefighters and 999 operators for nearly two hours after the fire broke out.

The report published today relates to phase two, which looked into the critical circumstances and decisions leading up to the disaster – and it will name and shame those deemed responsible for devastation.

This is a minute-by-minute breakdown of exactly how the tragedy happened in the early hours of 14 June 2017, based on the statements of emergency workers and survivors.

12.54am: Behailu Kebede, 45 at the time, lives on the fourth floor in flat 16. He is asleep when his smoke alarm goes off and wakes to find white smoke billowing from behind his fridge-freezer. He dials 999 to report the fire.

12.59am: The first firefighters arrive on the scene. They are led by LFB watch manager Michael Dowden, a firefighter of around 13 years, who sees an “orange glow” coming from the window of flat 16.

1.06am: Mr Dowden notes the fire has “breached the window of flat 16”. He later tells the inquiry this isn’t uncommon in high-rise fires and therefore isn’t too concerned.

1.09am: The fire in flat 16 breaks out into the exterior cladding of the building and starts to climb the east facade rapidly.

1.14am: Firefighters enter the kitchen of flat 16 for the first time.

1.16am: Mr Dowden becomes “uncomfortable” about the way the fire is burning, later saying he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t being suppressed as a breathing apparatus team was inside.

1.19am: Mr Dowden notices the cladding is alight. He would later tell the inquiry he felt “out of my comfort zone” and “helpless” as the fire took hold.

1.21am: Dr Naomi-Yuan Li, who is in flat 195 on the 22nd floor with her cousin, Lydia, calls 999 after smelling something “like burning plastic” while lying in bed using her phone.

1.25am: 56-year-old Dennis Murphy, who died during the fire, makes the first 999 to report smoke coming into a flat. He is in number 111, on the 14th floor.

His son Peter told the inquiry he also called his family to tell them he was trapped and struggling to breathe.

1.26am: Met Police declares a major incident. Residents are still being told to stay in their flats.

The “stay put” strategy is standard guidance for high-rise blocks and assumes that a fire will be contained in one room or floor, allowing firefighters to tackle flames while residents remain in their homes.

1.27am: The fire reaches the roof and starts to spread horizontally. Fire chiefs believe only the cladding from the outside is burning but that it is still controllable internally.

1.29am: Mr Dowden increases the number of pumps being used to 20 – having escalated from four, to six, to eight, to 10 and to 15 between 1.13am and 1.28am. He says he is becoming “increasingly concerned”.

The amount of pumps is used by firefighters to measure the severity of a fire.

1.30am: Miriem Elgwahry, 27, is the first person to call 999 reporting that the fire is penetrating a flat. She was with her mum Eslah Elgwahry in flat 196 on the 22nd floor.

Miriem’s brother Ahmed Elgwahry said he was on the phone to them later that night and they were telling him they couldn’t breathe. Miriem and Eslah died later that night.

1.31am: After firefighter David Baddilo tells Mr Dowden they need more resources, the watch manager increases the pumps to 25.

By this time 110 out of 297 occupants have escaped, as the fire starts to spread to the north elevation of the tower.

1.42am: The London Ambulance Service declares a “significant incident”.

A report by fire protection expert Dr Barbara Lane states residents should have been told to evacuate by around this time at the latest, but the “stay put” policy remains in place.

1.45am: The first police helicopter arrives at the scene.

1.50am: Mr Dowden hands over incident command to station manager Andrew Walton, who had been listening to the incident on the radio while on a standby shift. By this time 168 of 297 occupants have escaped, though firefighters don’t know the numbers at this stage.

1.58am: Mr Walton is still trying to inform firefighters that he is in charge of the incident when he sees DAC Andrew O’Loughlin, who is two ranks above him, “making big steps” towards him.

Mr O’Loughlin, who has been a firefighter since 1989, had heard 25 pumps mentioned on his radio and knew it was an “exceptional” situation, and that “something very serious was going on”. He is surprised there aren’t more high-ranking officers at the scene already.

He asks Mr Dowden how many people were still in the building, but he doesn’t have a number. He says many people have already come out from the lower floors, and Mr O’Loughlin estimates there are between 100-200 people still in there.

“We didn’t know the condition, age, ambulatory or health issues of any of these people and so I knew that getting them down a smoke logged staircase was going to be a challenge,” he would later say, explaining why he felt the “stay put” advice would be best for some of the people in the building.

2am: Flames travel across the north and east elevations of the tower, and start to spread around the top of the building and diagonally across the face of the building, affecting flats in the southeast and northwest corners.

2.04am: Group manager Richard Welch declares himself incident commander and increases the number of pumps to 40, not knowing that Mr O’Loughlin has already assumed command.

2.06am: Mr Welch declares a major incident on behalf of the LFB.

2.11am: Mr Welch realises Mr O’Loughlin is on site, apologises for taking control and fills him in on what he has done. Mr O’Loughlin thanks him and says he is happy with the actions he took.

2.15am: Senior operations manager Joanne Smith, who has 23 years’ experience, arrives at LFB’s control room and receives a briefing.

2.20am: Flames start to spread to south elevation. Between now and 2.50am, the control room receives 35 emergency calls from or on behalf of trapped Grenfell residents.

One was from Marcio Gomes in flat 183 on floor 21, who was trapped with his wife, who was seven months pregnant, and his two daughters. Mr Gomes, his wife and daughters survived the blaze, but his son Logan was stillborn in hospital as a result of the smoke.

2.23am: A Met Police operator calls LFB’s control room to tell them a caller is trapped on the 23rd floor and their phone has cut out.

One of the LFB’s control room officers responds: “I think they’re trapped everywhere.”

2.26am: The London Ambulance Service (LAS) declares a major incident.

2.35am – ‘stay put’ advice is revoked

Ms Smith has been listening in to two long-running emergency calls, one of which is with the El-Wahabi family in flat 182 on floor 21.

The El-Wahabi family consisted of Abdul Aziz, 52, and his wife Fouzia, 42, and their three children – 21-year-old Yasin, 16-year-old Nur Huda and eight-year-old Mehdi. They all died on the 21st floor.

Ms Smith says listening to these calls is making it clear the situation is getting worse in terms of smoke and heat, and she becomes “increasingly uncomfortable with the ‘stay put’ policy”.

The LFB control room decides to revoke the “stay put” advice and tells all occupants calling 999 to leave the tower at all costs and that it is a matter of life and death.

Mr O’Loughlin, still in charge of the scene at Grenfell, later tells the inquiry he wasn’t informed of this change for some time and that he was “confused” by it once he was.

2.44am: LFB assistant commissioner (AC) Andy Roe takes over incident command from Mr O’Loughlin. He later tells the inquiry Mr O’Loughlin had not revoked the “stay put” advice at that time.

Mr Roe, who joined the LFB as a firefighter in 2002 and had been made AC in January 2017, says he knew as soon as he arrived on the scene that there had been a “complete building system failure” to contain the blaze.

He could see the whole tower from the third floor upwards was alight.

2.47am: Mr Roe officially revokes the “stay put” advice.

He says in his testimony he doesn’t recall being told that the control room had already stopped giving the “stay put” advice, and that he made the decision solely because he could see the fire had spread in all directions, resulting in a total failure of compartmentation – a safety feature designed to keep a fire in the region of origin.

Inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick later said more lives could have been saved had a “stay put” policy been abandoned sooner – but Mr Roe was individually praised for making the call.

2.50am: The fire spreads horizontally across the south elevation at the top of the building.

3am: The fire starts to spread across the west elevation of the tower, from north to south.

3.20am: Mr Roe chairs the first Tactical Co-ordination Group (TCG) meeting, attended by representatives of the Met Police, the LAS and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

At this stage, 100 people are believed to be trapped in the tower and it is understood three people have died.

4.02am: Fires on the south and west elevations start to converge at the top of the southern corner of the west face. Rescue efforts across the building continue for hours.

8.07am: Elpidio Bonifacio, a partially sighted retiree, becomes the last survivor to leave the tower when two firefighters rescue him from his flat on the 11th floor.

Mr Bonifacio, whose wife of 42 years was at work, later tells the inquiry he had “lost all hope” and was “ready to die” before the firefighters came and supported him down the staircase.

The aftermath

It wasn’t until November 2017 that the identities of all 72 deaths were confirmed by authorities. Among them were 53 adults, 18 children and a stillborn baby who died on the day of the blaze. One of the people who lost their lives was 10-weeks pregnant.

The first report from the Grenfell Inquiry found the LFB’s preparation for a tower block blaze such as Grenfell was “gravely inadequate” and its lack of an evacuation plan was a “major omission”.

Inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick did, however, praise the “extraordinary courage and selfless devotion to duty” of firefighters and said “those in the control room and those deployed on the incident ground responded with great courage and dedication in the most harrowing of circumstances”.

Sky News will have full coverage of the Grenfell report when it is published at 11am – watch a special programme on the disaster on Sky News at 8pm

UK

Michael Gove handed peerage – as Jeremy Hunt and cricketer James Anderson knighted

Published

1 hour ago

April 11, 2025

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Michael Gove handed peerage - as Jeremy Hunt and cricketer James Anderson knighted

Veteran cabinet minister Michael Gove has been awarded a peerage in Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list.

Mr Gove – now editor of The Spectator magazine – was first elected to parliament in 2005 and immediately joined then-Conservative leader David Cameron’s shadow cabinet.

He was appointed education secretary when the party entered government in 2010 and held multiple cabinet posts until the 2024 general election, when he stood down from parliament.

Mr Sunak elevated seven allies to the House of Lords, including former cabinet ministers Mark Harper, Victoria Prentis, Alister Jack, and Simon Hart. Former chief executive of the Conservative Party, Stephen Massey, also becomes a peer, as well as Eleanor Shawcross, former head of the No10 policy unit. He also awarded a number of honours.

It is traditional for prime ministers to award peerages and other gongs upon their resignation from office – with key political allies, donors and staff often rewarded.

An outgoing prime minister can request that the reigning monarch grants peerages, knighthoods, damehoods or other awards in the British honours system to any number of people.

In the case of peerages, the House of Lords Appointments Commission vets the list, and for other honours, the Cabinet Office conducts checks.

Resignation honours are separate from dissolution honours, which are awarded by the incumbent prime minister and opposition leaders after the dissolution of parliament preceding a general election.

Here are the biggest names given honours by Mr Sunak:

Michael Gove – peerage

From when the Conservatives returned to government in 2010, Michael Gove spent almost the whole time in a ministerial role.

After reforming the education system, he went on to hold roles like chief whip, environment secretary, justice secretary and housing secretary.

He led the pro-Brexit side of the 2016 referendum alongside Boris Johnson, and famously sunk the latter’s leadership bid with his own.

However, both failed at that juncture, and Mr Gove’s reputation never recovered to allow him another go at the top job.

The debt was repaid when Mr Johnson fired Mr Gove as his administration collapsed in 2022.

Mr Gove returned to government under Rishi Sunak, and ultimately retired from the Commons at the 2024 election.

James Anderson – knighthood

One of England’s most successful cricketers, Jimmy Anderson, has been awarded a knighthood in avid cricket fan Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list.

He is regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the sport, and holds the record for the most wickets taken by a fast bowler in Test cricket.

Jeremy Hunt – knighthood

A former chancellor and serial runner-up in Tory leadership competitions, Jeremy Hunt was ever present in Conservative cabinets while the party was in government.

He was both foreign secretary and defence secretary before failing to take over the party after Theresa May stood aside.

Following a stint on the backbenches, Mr Hunt returned as chancellor under Liz Truss in a bid to stabilise markets – retaining this position under Rishi Sunak.

Despite persistent speculation he was set to be ditched in favour of Claire Coutinho, Mr Hunt kept his job until the 2024 general election – where he won his seat and now sits as a backbencher.

James Cleverly – knighthood

A former leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, James Cleverly entered parliament at the 2015 general election as the MP for Braintree.

In 2018, he was appointed deputy chairman of the party, and in April 2019, was appointed a minister in the Brexit department.

Boris Johnson appointed him as party chairman after taking over the top job, and he took on a succession of junior ministerial posts before becoming education secretary following Mr Johnson’s resignation as prime minister.

Liz Truss appointed him as foreign secretary – a post he held until November 2023 when Rishi Sunak brought back David Cameron for the role, and he took over as home secretary – a post he held until the general election.

Mr Cleverly was one of the lucky cabinet ministers to survive the Labour landslide and retained his seat. But he was less successful in the Conservative Party leadership contest, losing out in the final round of MP voting.

Andrew Mitchell – knighthood

The former deputy foreign secretary has been a fixture in Westminster since 1987, when he was first elected as the MP for Gedling. He was appointed to the government in 1994, but lost his seat in the 1997 Tony Blair landslide.

He returned to parliament in 2001 as the MP for Sutton Coldfield, and took on a number of shadow cabinet and then cabinet roles, culminating in his appointment to the Foreign Office in 2022, before becoming deputy foreign secretary to David Cameron in 2024.

He rose to public prominence in September 2012 when he allegedly swore when a police officer told him to dismount his bicycle and leave Downing Street through the pedestrian gate rather than the main gate. The incident became known as “Plebgate”.

Mel Stride – knighthood

One of Rishi Sunak’s closest aides, he chaired his campaign to be Tory leader against Liz Truss and was rewarded with the Work and Pensions brief when his man finally entered Number 10.

He was also a prominent figure in the downfall of Ms Truss as chair of the Treasury select committee – regularly requesting information from the Treasury and Bank of England that highlighted damaging information.

A capable media performer, he was ever present during the general election as he tried unsuccessfully to get Mr Sunak back into office.

Mr Stride kept his seat after the vote, and was rewarded by Kemi Badenoch with a role as shadow chancellor of the exchequer.

Stephen Massey – peerage

Described as a “sensible man” by former chancellor George Osborne, Stephen Massey was appointed chief executive of the Conservative Party in November 2022 after Rishi Sunak took over as leader in the coronation leadership contest following the collapse of the Truss government.

Having spent his career as a financial adviser, Mr Sunak probably thought he was a safe pair of hands in which to entrust the leadership of the party machinery as they built their war chest ahead of the general election to come.

The personal donations of £343,000 to the party and £25,000 to Mr Sunak’s leadership campaign also likely made him an attractive candidate for the job.

Has Rishi Sunak previously awarded honours?

Mr Sunak previously granted peerages to former prime minister Theresa May, Sir Graham Brady, the former chairman of the influential Conservative backbench 1922 committee, as well as his right-hand man Liam Booth-Smith on 4 July 2024 – the day of the general election.

He lost the election by a landslide to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, and resigned as prime minister that day. He remains in parliament as the MP for Richmond and Northallerton.

UK

This is a remarkable step by the government – and Donald Trump, China and Reform UK have all played their part

Published

2 hours ago

April 11, 2025

admin

This is a remarkable step by the government - and Donald Trump, China and Reform UK have all played their part

When the sun sets on Scunthorpe this Saturday, the town’s steelworks will likely have a new boss – Jonathan Reynolds.

The law that parliament will almost certainly approve this weekend hands the business secretary the powers to direct staff at British Steel, order raw materials and, crucially, keep the blast furnaces at the plant open.

This is not full nationalisation.

But it is an extraordinary step.

The Chinese firm Jingye will – on paper – remain the owner of British Steel.

But the UK state will insert itself into the corporate set-up to legally override the wishes of the multinational company.

A form of martial law invoked and applied to private enterprise.

That will come at a cost to the taxpayer.

Follow latest: Live politics updates

No number has been specified, but there are wages to pay and orders to make at a site estimated to already be losing £700,000 a day.

There is also clear frustration in government at how the Chinese owners have engaged in negotiations around modernising the Scunthorpe site.

“Jingye have not been forthright throughout this process”, said the business secretary in his department’s official announcement about the new laws.

Time is so tight because of the nature of the steel-making process.

Once switched off, blast furnaces are very hard to turn back on.

If this had happened in Scunthorpe – as seemed likely in a matter of days – then it would have been game over.

This move keeps the show on the road and opens up more time for talks over the long-term future of the plant.

While the official line in Whitehall is that “all options are on the table”, nationalisation seems increasingly likely.

That would need more legislation, if it was done – as seems likely – without the approval of the current owner.

Finding an alternative commercial partner has not been ruled out, but one is not waiting in the wings either.

As for what that long-term future looks like, with just five years of life left in the Scunthorpe blast furnaces, modernisation is inevitable.

Port Talbot’s plant saw its blast furnaces closed last year amid a switch to the more environmentally friendly electric arc furnaces and a loss of thousands of jobs.

Political figures in Wales are now questioning why nationalisation wasn’t on the table for this site.

The response from government is that the deal was done by the previous Tory administration and the owners of the South Wales site agreed to the terms.

But there is also a sense that this decision over British Steel is being shaped by the domestic and international political context.

Labour came to power promising to revitalise left-behind communities and inject a sense of pride back into places still reeling from the loss of traditional industry.

With that in mind, it would be politically intolerable to see the UK’s last two blast furnaces closed and thousands of jobs lost in a relatively deprived part of the country.

Reform UK’s position of pushing for full and immediate nationalisation is also relevant, given the party is in electoral pursuit of Labour in many parts of the country where decline in manufacturing has been felt most acutely.

The geo-political situation is perhaps more pressing though.

Just look at the strength of the prime minister’s language in his Downing Street address – “our economic and national security are all on the line”.

The government’s reaction to the turmoil caused by President Donald Trump’s pronouncements on tariffs and security has been to emphasise the need to increase domestic resilience in both business and defence.

Becoming the only G7 nation unable to produce virgin steel at a time when globalisation appears to be in retreat hardly fits with that narrative.

It would also present serious practical questions about the ability of the UK to produce steel for defence and the broader switch to green energy production.

Then there is the intriguing subplot around US-China trade.

While this decision is separate from discussions with the White House on tariffs, one can imagine how a UK move to wrestle control of a site of national importance from its Chinese owner might go down with a US president currently engaged in a fierce trade war with Beijing.

This is a remarkable step from the government, but it is more a punctuation mark than a full answer.

The tension between manufacturing and decarbonisation remains, as do the challenges presented by a global economy appearing to fragment significantly.

But one thing is for sure.

As a political parable about changes to traditional industry and the challenges of globalisation, the saga of British Steel is hard to beat.

UK

Hundreds of barbers, car washes and American sweet shops raided in money laundering crackdown

Published

10 hours ago

April 11, 2025

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Hundreds of barbers, car washes and American sweet shops raided in money laundering crackdown

Hundreds of barber shops and other cash-heavy businesses have been targeted in a three-week money laundering blitz.

Police went to 265 premises, including vape shops, nail bars, American-themed sweet shops and car washes across England in a crackdown on high street crime.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said 35 arrests were made, 97 people suspected to be victims of modern slavery were placed under police protection, and bank accounts containing more than £1m were frozen.

More than £40,000 in cash, some 200,000 cigarettes, 7,000 packs of tobacco, and more than 8,000 illegal vapes were also seized during Operation Machinize, which involved 19 different police forces and regional organised crime units.

Officers also found two cannabis farms containing a total of 150 plants, while 10 shops have been shut down.

The NCA estimates that £12bn of criminal cash is generated in the UK each year with businesses such as barber shops, vape shops, nail bars, American-themed sweet shops and car washes often used by criminals.

Rachael Herbert, deputy director of the National Economic Crime Centre at the NCA, said: “Operation Machinize targeted barber shops and other high street businesses being used as cover for a whole range of criminality, all across the country.

“We have seen links to drug trafficking and distribution, organised immigration crime, modern slavery and human trafficking, firearms, and the sale of illicit tobacco and vapes.

“We know cash-intensive businesses are used as fronts for money laundering, facilitating some of the highest harm and highest impact offending in the UK.”

Security minister Dan Jarvis said the operation “highlights the scale and complexity of the criminality our towns and cities face”.

“High street crime undermines our security, our borders, and the confidence of our communities, and I am determined to take the decisive action necessary to bring those responsible to justice,” he said.