A Week of Fires In London

In the last week, London has seen several separate fire incidents requiring a vast amount of resources and firefighters from the LFB. The most prominently reported fire was of a tower block in Dagenham, East London where the first crew arrived in 5 minutes as a major incident was declared on the early hours of the 26th August. 100 people were evacuated from their homes leaving many terrified and 6 injuries occurred, 2 of which required hospitalisation. To tackle and extinguish the blaze, 225 firefighters and 45 engines were on the scene. It has also been reported by the BBC that the site had “a number of safety issues known to the LFB” according to the Assistant Commissioner. (BBC News, 2024)

The block of flats was having its unsafe cladding replaced at the time of the incident, but the works had yet to be completed. Since the Grenfell Tower tragedy, it was reported that in July there were still 4,630 buildings still had unsafe cladding, with 50% starting or completing works to fix this. On top of this more buildings are regularly identified with having unsafe cladding. In addition to the Dagenham fire there was also a fire in Blackwall near Canary Wharf in another residential tower. Around 70 officers and 10 engines were deployed to the scene.  With debris falling from the buildings 25th floor and being the second high rise fire in east London, many locals will be feeling incredibly anxious. Investigations into both incidents will follow.

Last week there was also a fire in South London which took hold on the rooftop of a Sainsbury’s in Sutton. The incident started as a solar panel converter caught fire, requiring 15 firefighters from nearby crews in Mitcham and Wimbledon to attend the scene. The incident continued over a matter of a few hours on the Tuesday morning and was successfully put out meaning the shop was able to reopen that day. Fortunately there were no injuries reported.