An item of business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chairman of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered as a matter of urgency. Wherever possible, the Clerk should be given advance warning of any Member’s intention to raise a matter under this heading.
Minutes:
The Chief Fire Officer introduced Group Manager Tony Crook to inform Members on the Grenfell Tower Fire investigation process and the actions being undertaken to reassure the public in Lancashire.
GM Crook advised that NWFC was a buddy control for London and they had handled 18 direct calls. The incident was already subject to critical investigation and the Government had ordered a Public Inquiry. The Police were treating the investigation as a potential crime and the fire investigation would seek to find answers on how the fire was started, whether the construction and design of the building contributed, if the alerting and evacuation systems and policies were adequate and whether the fire risk management requirements were being met.
The stay put policy was an accepted standard for high rise premises intended to keep people safely compartmentalised for up to 2 hours while firefighters extinguished the fire. If all residents evacuated at once, the resulting congestion on the staircases in the building would dangerously hinder escape and would compromise access for firefighters.
The Local Housing Authority Act 2004 provided for Local Authorities to be responsible for housing conditions and standards with the Fire and Rescue Service only able to comment on the communal parts of the premises through the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
Across Lancashire there were 73 High Rise premises (residential and non-residential) listed as high rise (6 floors and above). Sixty-nine of those were residential, either students’ halls of residence or occupied by the general public. All have had a fire safety audit between 2010 and 2017.
The 69 were located as follows:-
· 7 in our Eastern/Pennine Area (1 students’ hall of residence)
· 18 in our Central/Southern Area (3 halls of residence)
· 12 in our Western Area (none of them halls of residence)
· 31 in our Northern Area (13 of them halls of residence)
In Lancashire there were 3 Local Authority owned high-rise premises all of which had been re-inspected the previous week.
Since 1 January 2017 there had been 18 primary fires in dwellings of 5 storeys or above. All fire spread had remained within the room of origin. The total number of casualties was 2 at one fire.
Fire crews were last trained in operational procedures in May 2017 as part of a scheduled 2-year frequency. Training was updated to incorporate lessons learnt from recent high rise fires of Harrow Court and Lakanal House.
Investment had been made in telemetry and facilities to prevent entanglement as a direct result of learning from previous national incidents in high rise premises.
Firefighters and community fire safety staff were out and about in all areas, reassuring the public, providing face-to-face guidance on key messages in respect of fire plans, the use of lifts, evacuation, smoke alarms and dialling 999.
Additionally, the Service had begun an immediate review of the high rise accommodation fire safety provision in Lancashire, regardless of how recently they were last audited.
In addition, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer would be arranging a Lancashire Resilience Forum meeting to agree the Lancashire county activities undertaken by partners and how these should be coordinated / captured.
What we tell anyone reporting a fire in high rise premises
If the Fire Plan for the building is not ‘Stay Put’
· Get Out Stay Out;
· Follow Evacuation Policy;
· Do not use the lift;
· If you find that you can’t get to a safe place, ring the fire service again on 999.
Or for ‘Stay Put’
· If there is a ‘Stay Put’ policy and the caller is safe and is not in the flat where the fire is, then stay put;
· If the situation changes, then inform the fire service immediately, dialling 999;
· If the caller wants to evacuate then we ask them to follow the building’s evacuation route;
· If they can’t get to a safe place, ring the fire service again on 999.
In response to a question from the Chairman as to whether there were any Service buildings that had cladding in Lancashire it was confirmed that Preston fire station was renovated 10 years ago and the building was being assessed that day; also Lancaster fire station had been clad which had already been inspected.
CC Wilkins had noticed that drones were used to survey Grenfell Tower and he queried whether Lancashire had this facility. The Deputy Chief Fire Officer was the National Lead for drones in the UK. Lancashire was leading the way as the only Service registered to use its drone across the country. The Deputy Chief Fire Officer would demonstrate the drone to Members at the next Strategy Group meeting the following week.
CC Holgate queried whether the Fire Service was kept informed of building renovations as these may compromise a ‘stay put’ policy. GM Crook confirmed that there was a procedure in place through local authority building control consultations to ensure that the Service could comment on alterations to buildings and the Service had a rolling risk-based inspection programme to inspect high risk premises.
CC O’Toole expressed concern that members of the public would obey a ‘stay put’ policy. The Chief Fire Officer agreed that it could be difficult for people to ‘stay put’ if this was required; and which depended on the building design. It was clear at Grenfell Tower that something had gone badly wrong and that there could be a need to adapt or adopt new policies in the future.
It was noted that support was available to assist businesses to comply with fire safety regulations; information was available from www.lancsbusinessplus.org.uk / www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk
RESOLVED: - That the report be noted.