A warren of underground tunnels with no escape route. A fire chief warning again and again of the dangers yet no-one would listen. A wooden escalator and a match. This is the countdown to the worst fire in British transport history. James Nesbitt: Disasters that Changed Britain V: King’s Cross Fire, History 2018
7:45 pm on 15th November 1987: a vast fireball exploded into King’s Cross underground station turning the ticket hall into an inferno. It’s a story of wooden escalators, piles of rubbish, carelessly dropped matches, but also carelessness and a sense of complacency. ibid.
Three months earlier a fire had gutted Oxford Circus station. ibid.
Families trapped in an unimaginable nightmare from which for many there would be no escape. James Nesbitt: Disasters that Changed Britain VI: Grenfell Tower
The fire at Grenfell Tower: In the early hours of 14th June 2017 a fire ripped through Grenfell Tower in west London. 71 people lost their lives and an entire community was left devastated. ibid.
The problems began decades earlier. ibid.
It would be constructed using the latest building techniques: precast concrete blocks. ibid.
The Utopian dream of tower-block heaven began to fade. All over the country poor maintenance, vandalism and social deprivation turned the streets in the sky into slums in the sky. ibid.
It’s been almost a year since our worst fire in living memory. The people of Grenfell were failed but nobody has been held to account. One year on a community is still waiting for answers. We asked those involved how it could happen. We tried to find out who’s to blame. And we uncover a scandal – Grenfell was wrapped in a flammable product that should never have been there. Panorama: Grenfell: Who is to Blame? BBC 2018
During the twelve months to July, 104 wildfires broke out across the UK, with 9 across a 2-week period in May alone. Panorama: Britain’s Wild Weather, Justin Rowlatt reporting, BBC 2020
It’s been a year since fires spread across Australia, scorching and scarring at a speed never seen before. At least 33 people died, an area bigger than the size of England laid to waste. Panorama: Australia Burning, BBC 2020
In the early hours of 14th June 2017 the residents of Grenfell Tower woke up to this – Britain’s worst fire since the Blitz. Grenfell: The First 24 Hours, ITV 2018
Fires in tower blocks are usually contained to a room or a flat so the rapidly spreading flames had taken the Brigade by surprise. They called for back up. ibid.
On the street outside people are searching for relatives and friends. ibid.
The Grenfell fire claimed 72 lives. ibid.
This was our base, this was a fortress, it was a concrete castle. Grenfell, BBC 2018, resident
I was lying in bed when I heard my neighbour’s fire alarm – so no central fire alarm. ibid.
They wasn’t coming out. They were just inside. There was long periods of nothing. ibid.
What I loved was how quickly the community came together. ibid.
No-one should have lived there. It melted like a candle. ibid.
No-one from the council. No-one. ibid.
Shame on you! Shame on you! ibid. protest at Theresa May
I paid seven hundred pounds a month rent there.’ ibid. resident
More than half of the 230 households displaced by the fire remain in temporary accommodation. ibid. caption
On 14th June 2017 people across the country watched as Grenfell Tower burned. For some, this was history repeating itself. In the decades before Grenfell, five fires across the British Isles gave clear warnings of the tragedy. But key lessons were ignored. The Fires that Foretold Grenfell, BBC 2018
Failures that allowed the Tower to be wrapped in cladding that turned the building into an inferno. Failures that saw people told to stay put in their homes as the Tower burned. And failures to protect the building from the spread of fire creating a death-trap that took the lives of 72 people. ibid.
Douglas Isle of Man 1973 Summerland: the deadliest fire in the British Isles since the Blitz … One of the largest indoor holiday parks in Europe … Three boys smoking cigarettes had set fire to a crazy golf kiosk … ‘Floor to ceiling flames … a waterfall of flames’ … Fifty people died … The Inquiry found that the building had been wrapped in highly flammable materials causing the fires’ rapid spread and high death toll. The Inquiry also found the advice to people to stay put in Summerland seriously hindered the evacuation. ibid.
5th April 1991 Knowsley Heights: the newly installed cladding on a tower block in Liverpool caught fire … Britain’s first tower block cladding fire. ibid.
Cladding was not required to be fireproof. ibid.
1999 Irvine North Ayrshire: a cladding fire in western Scotland echoed what happened at Knowsley Heights but this time it proved fatal. ibid.
Stevenage 2005 Harrow Court … ‘The fire was started by some tea-lights’ … ‘The advice at the time was to stay put.’ ibid. firefighter
South London 2009: This time six people would die. At 4:15 on a hot July afternoon a faulty television started a fire on the ninth floor at Lankanal House. ibid.
72 people died in Grenfell Tower, the greatest loss of life in a fire in the UK since the Second World War … A different scandal has been emerging: while individual firefighters did everything they could to save lives … systemic failures within the London Fire Brigade may have led to many people dying who could have survived. Dispatches: Grenfell: Did the Fire Brigade Fail? Channel 4 2019
Up to 55 of those who died were subject to advice from the London Fire Brigade to stay in the burning building once the fire was out of control. ibid.
Around the world a bizarre ritual persists: man knowingly and willingly matches himself against the flames. Practised in diverse cultures, embodied in several religions, a mysterious and ancient custom of firewalking has intrigued observers for hundreds of years. Two puzzling question remain unanswered for centuries: How did the custom originate? And what protects the firewalkers from being burned? In Search of s2e3 … Firewalkers, History 1978
Firewalking is surprisingly widespread. ibid.
Underground fires can last for up to twenty years. And are almost impossible to put out. Secret World of Your Rubbish s1e1, Channel 5 2019
For over a decade suspicious fires burned businesses and homes in southern California, ultimately causing the deaths of four innocent people. The local community was rocked by the news that the arsonist was local fire chief and investigator John Orr. The Killer in My Family s2e6: Relatives of the Pillow Pyro John Orr, Quest Red 2020
John was the go-to person in LA for solving arson cases, but he was also the person starting many of the fires. ibid.
On 4th December 1991 John Orr was arrested. ibid.
Windsor Palace: only two works of art were lost in the fire. The blaze took 15 hours to bring under control … In total 115 rooms had been completely destroyed. Secrets of the Royal Palaces s1e6, Channel 5 2021
Derby 2012: A tragedy that stunned Britain. First their father was seen as a hero. Then suspicions grew. Faking It Special s1e12: Mick Philpott
Ten seconds in, the performance of fake sadness is on. ibid. Cliff
Having lost six or their children, they still can’t get a tear? And you can see Mick go red in the face and almost trying to force one out. So the emotion for their children isn’t there, for what ever reason. ibid. Kerry
We’re ten years on now and yet this case still shocks. How can someone play so fast and loose with their children’s lives? ibid. Kerry
He was claiming £50,000 in state benefits. And lapping up the notoriety. ibid.
‘Get a job! Get a job!’ ibid. Ann Widdecombe
Mick Philpott had a long history of abusive behaviour towards women. ibid.
Mick Philpott arranged a press conference but said no questions would be allowed. ibid.
But there’s no tears. ibid. Dawn
His children were possessions for him. ibid. Kerry
He said he lost his family in the Grenfell fire. But his story sparked suspicion. Faking It: Tears of a Crime s4e1: The Grenfell Conman
It was Britain’s worst residential fire since the Second World War. The fire broke out on the 4th floor when a faulty fridge-freezer sparked flames that set alight polythene-filled cladding that covered the Tower. ibid.
The public responded immediately moved by images and stories of families who had lost everything. More than £1 million was raised in the first 24 hours. In total £26 million was donated, and 10,000 people volunteered to help. ibid.
Anh Nhu Nguyen presented himself at the emergency health centre, telling his heartbreaking story of losing his wife and son in the blaze. He received £360 in cash, fresh food and clothing and temporary hotel accommodation … Now he was applying for a further £5,000 from the Grenfell fund. ibid.
He never lived there and nobody had ever heard of him. ibid. Kerry
On the 30th of October 2015 a fire breaks out during a concert in the Colectiv club in Bucharest. It instantly kills 27 youngsters and injures another 180. Outraged by the fact that the popular club was functioning without fire exits, people take to the streets against the corrupt authorities. Massive nationwide protests force the Social Democrat Government to resign. To calm the people’s fury a politically independent Government of technocrats is appointed. It receives a one-year mandate until the next general elections. 37 more burn victims die in hospitals during the four months after the Colectiv fire. Storyville: Collective: Unravelling a Scandal, captions, BBC 2021
‘The burn patients were kept in a known septic environment, and exposed to some of the most resistant hospital bacteria in Europe.’ ibid. journalist
1994: Here police investigating last night’s fire at a sex cinema in London have confirmed they are treating the case as murder. The Real Manhunter s1e8: The Dream City Cinema Club Fire, BBC evening news, Sky Crime 2021