Notts Fire Service monitoring 23 ‘high risk’ buildings following Grenfell Tower disaster

A fire occurred at Grenfell Tower in London in June 2017 which killed 72 people and destroyed the 24-storey block of 129 residential flats.

A public inquiry to investigate the disaster and if any lessons could be learnt later made a series of recommendations for fire services, with NFRS completing all 47 by December 2021.

Now, at a community safety committee meeting, councillors will be updated on the progress of the Grenfell Tower action plan in Nottinghamshire.

Papers published ahead of the meeting explain community events have been carried out at the 23 high-risk buildings to reassure residents and educate them on evacuation strategies.

Papers stated: “NFRS has assessed 23, high-risk, tall buildings. These buildings are classified ‘high-risk’ due to factors such as external flammable cladding, poor compartmentation, fire safety defects, or complexity of layout.”

The service has also carried out dedicated training, with five “tall building exercises” carried out in the last year, as well as using a Grenfell Infrastructure grant of more than £100,000 to purchase specialist equipment.

They said: “New specialist equipment has been purchased to provide and support effective rescues and safe evacuation of people through smoke-filled environments, including smoke hoods, smoke curtains, dividing breaches, short lengths, additional radios, and loud hailers. The smoke hoods have already been used operationally and have supported the safe rescue of trapped persons.”

Firefighters are also starting a programme of ‘dry riser’ testing on the 23 buildings – a dry riser is a network of pipes running up inside tall buildings to enable firefighters to pump water to areas within the building when tackling fires high up.

“This is to ensure firefighters are familiarised with delivering water within tall buildings and to also check for defects”, the documents stated.

The papers said: “No-notice exercises have been carried out and will continue over the next six months.

“These are designed to test the service’s capability to co-ordinate the evacuation of large number of people, from different communities and with different accessibility and evacuation needs.”

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services has confirmed addressing the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendations will be an area of focus for the next inspection of the service.