In a scene the London Fire Commissioner called "unprecedented," more than 200 firefighters were called to the city's North Kensington section as a 24-story tower was engulfed in flames. Dozens were injured and an unknown number of people are dead.

The fire was reported just before 1 a.m. local time. Fire units were on scene with six minutes. "This is an unprecedented situation, with a major fire that has affected all floors of this 24 story building, from the second floor up," said Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton. "Based on the level of resource that were needed at this fire we declared it a major incident in the early hours of this morning.

"Crews wearing breathing apparatus have been working in extremely difficult conditions to rescue people and bring this major fire under control." Cotton said that there were a number of dead but he could not say how many.



"I cannot confirm the number at this time and as you will appreciate with a fire of this size, affecting such a large building it would be unhelpful of me to speculate further," he said. "The cause of the fire is not known at this stage, and clearly we will be here all day and will be in a providing further updates, working with the police and ambulance service."

Photo London Fire Brigade



The Assistant Director of Operations for the London Ambulance Service, Stuart Crichton, says they have transported more than 50 patients to five hospitals across the city. "Over 100 of our medics are working hard to respond to this incident, including ambulance crews, advanced paramedics, advanced trauma teams from London's Air Ambulance, and those staff managing the incident in our special operations center," he said.