On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, England, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. A total of 70 people died at the scene and two other people died later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Blitz of World War II. It also became the deadliest single residential building fire in modern European history.
The fire was declared a major incident, with more than 250 London Fire Brigade firefighters and 70 fire engines from stations across Greater London involved in efforts to control it and rescue residents. More than 100 London Ambulance Service crews on at least 20 ambulances attended, joined by specialist paramedics from the Hazardous Area Response Team. The Metropolitan Police and London's Air Ambulance also assisted.
The fire is the subject of multiple complex investigations by the police, a public inquiry, and coroner's inquests. Among the many issues investigated are the management of the building by the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council and Kensington and Chelsea TMO (the tenant management organisation, which was responsible for the borough's council housing), the responses of the Fire Brigade, other government agencies, deregulation policy, building inspections, adequate budgeting, fire safety systems, the materials used, companies installing, selling and manufacturing the cladding, and failures in communications, advice given or decisions made by office holders. Parliament commissioned an independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which published a report in May 2018. In the UK and internationally, governments have investigated tower blocks with similar cladding. Efforts to replace the cladding on these buildings are ongoing. A side effect of this has been hardship caused by the United Kingdom cladding crisis.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry began on 14 September 2017 to investigate the causes of the fire and other related issues. Findings from the first report of the inquiry were released in October 2019 and addressed the events of the night. It affirmed that the building's exterior did not comply with regulations and was the central reason why the fire spread, and that the fire service were too late in advising residents to evacuate. A second phase to investigate the broader causes began on 27 January 2020. After extensive hearings, Grenfell Tower Inquiry's final report was published 26 February 2025, as was the Government's response, which accepted the findings and outlined plans to act on all 58 recommendations.
In April 2023, a group of 22 organisations, including cladding company Arconic, Whirlpool and several government bodies, reached a civil settlement with 900 people affected by the fire. In September 2026 police passed files on 20 organisations and 54 individuals to the Crown Prosecution Service for a variety of possible offences, stated to include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, health and safety offences, fraud and fraud-related offences, and misconduct in public office. These include possible charges against the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and possible Crown censure of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which as a government department cannot be prosecuted. Decisions on charges are expected by June 2027. The police explained the delay as due to Grenfell being "one of the most complex investigations ever undertaken by any UK law enforcement agency", on a "truly enormous" scale.
The demolition of Grenfell Tower began in September 2025 and is expected to take two years.
On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, England, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. A total of 70 people died at the scene and two other people died later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Blitz of World War II. It also became the deadliest single residential building fire in modern European history.
The fire was declared a major incident, with more than 250 London Fire Brigade firefighters and 70 fire engines from stations across Greater London involved in efforts to control it and rescue residents. More than 100 London Ambulance Service crews on at least 20 ambulances attended, joined by specialist paramedics from the Hazardous Area Response Team. The Metropolitan Police and London's Air Ambulance also assisted.
The fire is the subject of multiple complex investigations by the police, a public inquiry, and coroner's inquests. Among the many issues investigated are the management of the building by the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council and Kensington and Chelsea TMO (the tenant management organisation, which was responsible for the borough's council housing), the responses of the Fire Brigade, other government agencies, deregulation policy, building inspections, adequate budgeting, fire safety systems, the materials used, companies installing, selling and manufacturing the cladding, and failures in communications, advice given or decisions made by office holders. Parliament commissioned an independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which published a report in May 2018. In the UK and internationally, governments have investigated tower blocks with similar cladding. Efforts to replace the cladding on these buildings are ongoing. A side effect of this has been hardship caused by the United Kingdom cladding crisis.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry began on 14 September 2017 to investigate the causes of the fire and other related issues. Findings from the first report of the inquiry were released in October 2019 and addressed the events of the night. It affirmed that the building's exterior did not comply with regulations and was the central reason why the fire spread, and that the fire service were too late in advising residents to evacuate. A second phase to investigate the broader causes began on 27 January 2020. After extensive hearings, Grenfell Tower Inquiry's final report was published 26 February 2025, as was the Government's response, which accepted the findings and outlined plans to act on all 58 recommendations.
In April 2023, a group of 22 organisations, including cladding company Arconic, Whirlpool and several government bodies, reached a civil settlement with 900 people affected by the fire. In September 2026 police passed files on 20 organisations and 54 individuals to the Crown Prosecution Service for a variety of possible offences, stated to include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, health and safety offences, fraud and fraud-related offences, and misconduct in public office. These include possible charges against the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and possible Crown censure of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which as a government department cannot be prosecuted. Decisions on charges are expected by June 2027. The police explained the delay as due to Grenfell being "one of the most complex investigations ever undertaken by any UK law enforcement agency", on a "truly enormous" scale.
The demolition of Grenfell Tower began in September 2025 and is expected to take two years.
The 220-foot-10-inch (67.30 m) tall building contained 120 one-bedroom and two-bedroom flats. The upper 20 (of 24) storeys were residential floors, with each having a communal lobby and six dwellings, with ten bedrooms among them. The lower four storeys were originally used for non-residential purposes. Later, two lower floors were converted to residential use, bringing the total to 129 apartments, housing up to 600 people. The original lead architect for the building, Nigel Whitbread, said in 2016 that the tower had been designed with attention to strength following the 1968 Ronan Point disaster and "from what I can see could last another hundred years".
Like many other tower blocks in the UK, Grenfell Tower was designed to be operated under a "stay put policy" in the event of fire. The idea was that if a fire broke out in one flat, thick walls and fire doors would contain the fire long enough for the fire service to bring it under control (compartmentation). Only those in the affected dwelling would be expected to evacuate. The building was designed under the assumption that a full evacuation would never be necessary. There was no centrally activated fire alarm and only a single central staircase. Unlike those in many other countries, UK regulations do not require a second. In 2010, a fire broke out in a lobby and was quickly extinguished.
Management
Until 1996, Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council managed its council housing directly. In 1996, the council created Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO), a tenant management organisation which would manage its council housing stock. KCTMO had a board comprising eight residents (tenants or leaseholders), four council-appointed members and three independent members. The tower was built as council housing, but fourteen of the flats had been bought under the Right to Buy policy. These were occupied by leaseholders, or were privately rented out by them on the open market.
Renovation
Grenfell Tower underwent a major renovation, announced in 2012 and conducted over 2015–2016. The tower received new windows, a water-based heating system for individual flats and new aluminium compositerain screencladding. According to the application, the purpose of the cladding was to improve heating and energy efficiency, and external appearance. Mark Harris, of Harley Facades, said, "from a selfish point of view", his company's preference was to use cheaper aluminium composite material.
Two types of cladding were used: Arconic's Reynobond PE, which consists of two coil-coated aluminium sheets that are fusion bonded to both sides of a polyethylene core; and Reynolux aluminium sheets. Beneath these, and fixed to the outside of the walls of the flats, was Celotex RS5000 PIRthermal insulation. An alternative cladding with better fire resistance was refused due to cost.
The original contractor, Leadbitter, had been dropped by KCTMO because their price of £11.278 million was £1.6 million higher than the proposed budget. The contract was put out to competitive tender and won by Rydon, whose bid was £2.5 million less than Leadbitter's. Rydon carried out the refurbishment for £8.7 million, with Artelia on contract administration and Max Fordham as specialist mechanical and electrical consultants. The cladding was fitted by Harley Facades of Crowborough, East Sussex, at a cost of £2.6 million.
Safety concerns
Residents had expressed significant safety concerns before the fire. Twelve years earlier, a report had criticised the tower's emergency lighting. The Grenfell Action Group (GAG) ran a blog in which it highlighted major safety problems, criticising the council and KCTMO for neglecting fire safety and building maintenance.
In 2013, the group published a 2012 fire risk assessment by a KCTMO Health and Safety Officer which recorded safety concerns. Firefighting equipment at the tower had not been checked for up to four years; on-site fire extinguishers had expired, and some had the word "condemned" written on them because they were so old. GAG documented its attempts to contact KCTMO management; they also alerted the council's cabinet member for Housing and Property but said they never received a reply. In 2013 the council threatened one of the bloggers with legal action, saying that their posts amounted to "defamation and harassment". Two women living in Grenfell Tower, Mariem Elgwahry and Nadia Choucair, were threatened with legal action by KCTMO after they campaigned for improved fire safety. They later died in the fire, at the ages of 27 and 34.
In January 2016, GAG warned that people might be trapped in the building if a fire broke out, pointing out that the building had only one entrance and exit, and corridors that had been allowed to fill with rubbish, such as old mattresses. GAG frequently cited other fires in tower blocks when it warned of the hazards at Grenfell. In November 2016, GAG characterised KCTMO as an "evil, unprincipled, mini-mafia" and accused the council of ignoring health and safety laws. GAG suggested that "only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of [KCTMO]", adding, "[We] predict that it won't be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the health and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can't say that they haven't been warned!" The Grenfell Tower Leaseholders' Association had also raised concerns about exposed gas pipes in the months before the fire. As with the majority of tower blocks in the UK, Grenfell Tower did not have fire sprinklers.
Meanwhile, in June 2016, an independent assessor had highlighted 40 serious issues with fire safety at Grenfell Tower and recommended action to be taken within weeks. In October, the assessor asked the KCTMO why there had been no action taken for more than 20 issues in the June report. In November 2016, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority served a fire deficiency notice, listing many fire safety issues at Grenfell Tower that required action from KCTMO by May 2017. Areas of concern identified included fire doors, the smoke venting system and the firefighters' lift controls.
Previous cladding fires and responses
One of the earliest fires that involved cladding materials was the 1973 Summerland disaster on the Isle of Man, which caused 50 deaths. Part of the reason why the fire spread rapidly through the leisure centre was the acrylic sheeting on the exterior of the building. In the 1991 Knowsley Heights fire, fire spread up the entire height of an 11-storey building due to its exterior cladding, though it did not enter the interior and nobody was injured. In 2009, external composite panels also played a role in the spread of the Lakanal House fire in Southwark. An article in The Guardian three days after the Grenfell Tower fire described it as a "tragedy foretold", highlighting that there had been previous cladding fires such as the 2015 fire at The Marina Torch in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. As a result of the Garnock Court fire in 1999 the Scottish government had ordered the removal of laminate panels and enacted legislation to prevent their installation.
In 2016, a non-fatal fire at a Shepherd's Bush tower block spread to six floors via flammable external cladding. In May 2017, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) warned all 33 London councils to review the use of panels and "take appropriate action to mitigate the fire risk".
Fire
Initial fire (00:50–01:15)
The fire started in the early hours of Wednesday 14 June 2017 at around 00:50 BST (UTC+1), when a fridge-freezer caught fire in flat 16, on the fourth floor. The flat's resident, Behailu Kebede, was awoken by a smoke alarm. After discovering smoke coming from the fridge freezer in his kitchen, Kebede alerted his lodgers and neighbours, before making a call to the LFB at 00:54. The first two fire engines ("pumps"), were mobilised from North Kensington Fire Station at 00:55:14 and arrived at 00:59:14 and 00:59:28. The initial incident commander Michael Dowden said that the fire was visible at this point as a "glow" in the window. A further two pumps were also dispatched. Any residents of the tower who called the fire service were told to remain in their flat unless it was affected, which is the standard policy for high-rise fires, as each flat should be fireproofed from its neighbours. Also due to this policy, the building had no central fire alarm.
After most of the firefighters entered the building, a bridgehead (internal base of operations) was set up on the second floor, connecting hoses to the dry riser. They first entered flat 16 at 01:07. It was a further seven minutes before they began tackling the kitchen blaze. At approximately 01:08, the fire began to penetrate the window frame. Within a few minutes, the surrounding cladding panels had also caught on fire. Observing this, the incident commander requested another two pumps and an aerial appliance at 01:13, which triggered the dispatch of more senior officers, a fire investigation unit and two command vehicles. Crew manager (CM) Christopher Secrett at the floor 4 bridgehead and watch manager (WM) Michael Dowden outside had conducted a planning conversation around 01:06. Dowden had noticed the fire breaching the window and offered to spray it with a covering water jet but Secrett was fearful that the resulting steam would scald the two firefighters about to enter the flat.
Rapid upward spread (01:15–01:30)
By the time the firefighters began extinguishing the kitchen fire, a column of flames was quickly advancing up the side of the building. At 01:15, a firefighter discovered smoke in flat 26 (directly above flat 16), another discovered residents who had fled smoke on the fifth and sixth floors, and outside large quantities of debris began falling from the burning façade. The flames spread up the side at a "terrifying rate". Attempts to fight the fire with an external jet were unsuccessful, as it was mostly burning behind the waterproof rainscreen. By 01:30, a rising column of flames had reached the roof and the fire grew out of control. The fire on the eastern exterior spread sideways and brought smoke and flames into multiple flats.
By 01:18, 34 of 293 residents had escaped. The busiest phase of evacuations was between 01:18 and 01:38, when 110 escaped, with many awoken by their smoke alarms when smoke entered their flat. Due to Ramadan, many observing Muslim residents were awake for the pre-dawn meal of suhur, which enabled them to alert neighbours.
LFB rapidly escalated its response during this time period. The number of pumps in attendance was raised from six to eight at 01:19, with a specialist fire rescue unit, bulk breathing apparatus carrier and damage control unit being sent too. Pumps were made up to ten at 01:24, then to fifteen at 01:27 along with a second aerial platform. Two minutes later, pumps were made 20 and two more fire rescue units were mobilised, and pumps were made up to 25 at 01:35, also triggering the dispatch of an assistant commissioner. Dany Cotton, the commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, was also called out and began driving to the scene from her home in Kent. The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) were called at 01:24 to manage the gathering crowd outside. Five minutes later, the London Ambulance Service were also called.