Sadiq Khan has launched an urgent review of London Fire Brigade’s equipment amid claims firefighters were left without vital kit during the Grenfell Tower blaze.

The mayor of London said he had asked Dany Cotton, the commissioner of the London fire service, to carry out the investigation following the claims that some supplies may not have been available.

A BBC Newsnight investigation reportedly uncovered a series of delays in getting life-saving firefighting equipment to the blaze. Anonymous sources were said to have revealed logs of the early hours of 14 June when the fire tore through the 24-storey building, killing at least 89 people.

An aerial ladder, which would have stretched to the 10th floor, was not sent until 1.19am, 24 minutes after the first crews were dispatched, according to the report.

The ladder did not arrive for another 13 minutes, at 1.32am, when flames had already spread up from the fourth floor, along the building’s outer cladding. Newsnight sources also said poor water pressure and radio problems added to the difficulty in tackling the flames.

As a result of the claims, London Fire Brigade (LFB) announced on Saturday that in future an aerial ladder will be dispatched to high-rise fires as a matter of routine. Before Grenfell, the protocol had always been for crews to tackle high-rise fires by going into the building and making their way up through the internal stairwell.

The fire brigade also pledged that from now on, five fire trucks will be dispatched to similar emergencies as a matter of course.



Khan said: “The key thing is not to detract from the great work of our fire service and the emergency services. I want to pay tribute to Newsnight for their report.

“There’s going to be a public inquiry and a police investigation. I’m not willing to wait for that, though, so I’ve asked Dany Cotton, the commissioner of the London fire service, to carry out an urgent review.

Firefighters dousing down after the tragedy; the aerial ladder was reportedly delayed by 37 minutes Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

“I’ve asked them to look into what more equipment they need, and I’ve given them the promise to make sure, once they let me know what they need, we’ll let them have what they need.”

Adding that the Grenfell tragedy was “unprecedented”, Khan said: “Clearly, there are lessons that can be learned.”

Responding to the accusation that poor water pressure slowed down the work of the 200 firefighters involved, a Thames Water spokesman said: “Any suggestion there was low pressure or that Thames Water did not supply enough water to fire services during this appalling tragedy is categorically false.”



An LFB spokeswoman said the investigation would examine the brigade’s response, including “all of the issues Newsnight have raised”.

Further fire testing will be carried out as a matter of urgency after it emerged all 203 cladding samples sent in from around the country failed the tests.

The new tests, recommended by an independent expert safety panel, will look at how different combinations of cladding panel and insulation types react in “severe” fire conditions.

It is suspected that aluminium composite material panels on the outside of Grenfell Tower fuelled the spread of the fatal blaze, acting as kindling once the flames took hold.