Grenfell firefighter wanted to drop stay-put advice
Senior fire service officers wanted to abandon the policy of telling residents to 'stay put' as the deadly fire spread through Grenfell Tower, a public inquiry has heard.
Daniel Egan, a senior fire safety officer, described the "unbelievable" screaming. He said as soon as he arrived at 01:58 on 14 June, his first thoughts were "we needed to get everybody out". The stay-put advice to residents was not abandoned until 02:47 that night. In his written statement, Mr Egan said he arrived at the tower to find firefighters lined up waiting to go inside "like Roman centurions". Mr Egan wrote: "The reason LFB advice is to 'stay put' is because the building should have been compartmentalised. If this had worked, each flat should have been safe for at least an hour. "However, the control room giving the advice couldn't see the fire." Mr Egan said he was not in a position to overrule the stay-put advice but he told a more senior officer, group manager Tom Goodall, that he thought they should tell people on the phone to get out if they could. "I believe GM Tom Goodall agreed with me," he added. Mr Egan went on to say that he said the same thing to a station manager over the radio and spoke to an officer in the control room. "One of these conversations was with an officer from Stratford. He wanted to know if the stay-put policy was in place," he said. "I told him that I personally thought it should change but I said that I did not have the authority to change the advice." 'Get out' Mr Egan said his advice to those on the ground talking to people on the phone who were still in the tower was to "get out of the building". "I know that it was against what they should have been doing or what they were being told to do, but in that situation I told them to get out. "I was doing what I felt was right."