The incident commander during the early stages of the Grenfell Tower fire felt “helpless” as the blaze raged out of control and questioned why he was left in charge of an incident that should have been commanded by a more senior officer, the Grenfell inquiry has heard.



Michael Dowden, a firefighter for 14 years and a watch manager at North Kensington fire station, was in charge of the response at Grenfell for the first hour, during which time the full height of the building became engulfed in flames.

He questioned whether he was “the most experienced officer, the right and proper officer on that night”, adding that even as he saw people emerging with blackened faces and coughing and spluttering he did not consider discussing with the control room whether to change the “stay put” advice given to the tower’s occupants.

The fire was consuming the tower so rapidly that by 1.28am – 34 minutes after the first 999 call – Dowden had ordered 15 fire engines to the scene. Under London fire brigade rules, he should not have been incident commander in charge of a fire with more than four pumps. Ordering 10-15 pumps to a fire should be a decision made by a deputy assistant commissioner, a much more senior firefighter.

Recalling the moment he had to order eight pumps, he said: “I have never been an incident commander and had to make that rapid increase in resource before.”

Dowden became emotional and had to halt his testimony after Richard Millett QC, counsel to the inquiry, started to ask him about a victim named Jessica.

One of the counsel to the inquiry read out the rest of his statement, which detailed how he saw people banging at windows for help, watched children being carried out in breathing apparatus sets and how the smoke was so toxic inside the building that “two mouthfuls of that air would cause them to become unconscious, which unfortunately did occur”.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the inquiry chairman, praised Dowden for his three days of testimony, saying he had shown “courage and candour”. Later he said these remarks had caused concern, apparently among some inquiry participants, and he made clear they would not prejudice his view of Dowden’s evidence.

There was widespread support for Dowden online, with his sister, Jane Dowden, tweeting: “The bravest man I know and so very proud to call him my brother. #IAmMichaelDowden.” The hashtag was widely shared.

During his evidence Dowden was repeatedly asked about fire brigade policy. The Fire Brigades Union described the line of questioning as “at times absurd” given his relatively low rank.

“There clearly are important and difficult questions to ask but they should not be directed at those who do not have the power or authority to have altered policies, operational procedures or training,” said Matt Wrack, the FBU general secretary. “Let’s remember that Mike Dowden did not apply flammable cladding to Grenfell Tower. Nor did he make the other alterations which destroyed the fire safety within the building.”

An inquiry spokesman responded that some of the questions posed to witnesses were on behalf of core participants including survivors and the bereaved.

Dowden told the inquiry he felt out of his depth at the fire scene, and the inquiry heard that during the first hour of the response he was told by less senior firefighters that he was not ordering enough resources.

When he declared that it was a 10-pump fire, another firefighter, Chris Secrett, told him: “I would make it 15 to 20 because it looks like we’re losing it,” according to Secrett’s witness statement.

Dowden told the inquiry: “There probably was moments when I did feel helpless. It’s a very difficult place to be as an incident commander … it’s just relentless. This was like nothing else I have ever experienced before. The ferocity of the way that fire was developing was just relentless.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A CCTV still of the first firefighters entering Grenfell Tower. Photograph: Grenfell Tower inquiry/PA

He said there was a “pivotal change” when he saw residents leaving the building, including a father and son coming out suffering from smoke inhalation. But he said that even though he had seen people coming out blackened and coughing, he did not consider the possibility that the fire could have spread internally beyond its original compartment in flat 16.

He said evacuation was an “impossible situation” and he did not think about contacting the control centre to change the fire survival advice to residents from “stay put”.

He said he had never been in a position before to change the “stay put” advice. By 1.35am he had ordered that the fire needed 25 pumps, but he admitted to the inquiry that he had no plan of what to do with the additional resources.

At 1.35am a fire and rescue unit from Paddington arrived, equipped with extended breathing apparatus and specialist rescue equipment. Dowden detailed its commander to go up to roof level “to try and facilitate some drencher system utilising the fire brigade hose to try and extinguish the fire from the top of the building”. But that did not happen.

Dowden thought they could go up the internal staircase but had no information about the safety of the staircase. “I felt as the incident commander my professional but moral obligation to try and do something … try to think of something,” he said.

He was asked whether at any point he considered declaring it a major incident. He said he did not, because he was “totally consumed by everything that was going on” around him.

When an aerial appliance arrived from Paddington, Dowden decided it should be used to douse the building’s east elevation, which had flames all the way to the top, rather than rescue occupants. However, the ladder could only reach 10 storeys and apply water up to four or five further storeys.

Dowden was relieved of his command when senior officers arrived at 1.50am.