LONDON — More lives could have been saved in the Grenfell Tower blaze in London, firefighters say, but a lack of equipment, particularly fire engines with ladders high enough to reach the top floors of the 24-story building, impeded the rescue effort.

“We just think it’s almost criminal that an international city like London, the 13th-richest in the world, and our highest ladder only goes up 30 meters, where some third-world countries have 90-meter ladders,” said Lucy Masoud, a London firefighter and an official with the Fire Brigades Union.

The London Fire Brigade’s 30-meter ladder (about 100 feet long) reached only to the building’s 10th floor, and it was not called to the scene until nearly half an hour after other units responded when the blaze broke out in June, Ms. Masoud said on Saturday.

The delay in sending a high-ladder truck, known as an aerial or aerial appliance in Britain, meant that firefighters could not get above the flames that were racing up Grenfell Tower in order to pour water down on them.