The fire which ravaged Grenfell Tower spread beyond the kitchen of the flat where it began just 15 minutes after the first 999 call and before the first two firefighters on the scene were able to enter to try to put it out, the public inquiry has heard.

Thermal camera footage taken by London fire brigade crew manager Daniel Brown and firefighter Charles Batterbee after they smashed down the door to flat 16 on the fourth floor was shown for the first time.



It showed that it took them three attempts to extinguish the fire around a fridge freezer using a hose, by which time flames had tracked through the kitchen window and burning debris was already cascading down from the facade of the high-rise. Inside the flat, footage showed that the window frame closest to the fridge was burning at 263C with molten material dripping from it. The windows were replaced as part of the £10m refurbishment of the 24-storey tower completed in 2016.

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Prof Niamh Nic Daied, a chemist and specialist in fire investigations appointed expert to the inquiry, set out how the first fire engines were dispatched just 45 seconds after the first 999 call from Behailu Kebede at 12.54am after he had been woken by a smoke alarm while sleeping on a mattress in the living room of flat 16. They arrived within five minutes and Brown and Batterbee were inside within 13 minutes of the alarm being raised. The footage showed the men moving room by room as the temperature rose from 50C to 61C to 70C and to 109C.

The speed with which the flames escaped the flat will increase concern about failures in the fire strategy based on telling residents to stay put because the building in west London was designed to keep fires compartmentalised. Seventy-two people died as a result of the fire on 14 June 2017.

Nic Daied said it was “more likely than not” that the origin of the fire was in or around the fridge freezer, but she stressed that that included a small area in which some fire-damaged items have yetto be identified. However, she said that because no in-depth analysis of the electrical system or combustibility analysis of the fridge freezer and its components have been undertaken “the cause of the fire remains undetermined”.

The thermal footage showed how at 1.07am the firefighters entered flat 16 and checked the entrance hallway, the two bedrooms and living room. When they opened the kitchen door their temperature monitor spiked to 109C and seeing the fire, they hosed it with a pulse of water. They closed the door and reopened it 15 seconds later to see the fire still going. They then discussed tactics, but simultaneous mobile phone footage of the outside of the building showed the cladding was already alight. They tried a second time but the fire in the kitchen was still going at 1.15am. At 1.20am they went in for a third time and managed to put it out. It was 11 minutes after the fire had spread beyond flat 16.

The inquiry has meanwhile refused calls from survivors and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to move the venue for hearings from London’s legal district in Holborn to one closer to Grenfell. In a statement, the inquiry said the current venue, seven miles away from the tower, was the closest one that met all the inquiry’s requirements and that “even if another suitable venue were now to become available, to move the inquiry’s main hearings in the near-term would be disruptive”. It said it was important that the momentum of the inquiry was maintained, adding: “Where the inquiry does not need the full facilities for our work, or the same degree of permanence, the local area will continue to be the preferred location.”

Khan had said the Holborn Bars location was making it difficult for survivors and the bereaved to attend and that this risked alienating them from the process.