The Fire Brigades Union has said that a high-rise fire in Dagenham exposes the “national scandal” of flammable cladding and deregulation in the building industry.

A fire broke out in a tower block on Freshwater Road in Dagenham, east London, in the early hours of Monday morning.

Hundreds of firefighters attended, and the London Fire Brigade declared a major incident. Two people were taken to hospital.

According to the London Fire Brigade, the building had “non-compliant” cladding on it and had been the subject of a fire enforcement notice in 2023.

The incident comes just one week before the publication of the final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

Speaking on the day of the incident, Matt Wrack, Fire Brigades Union General Secretary, said:

“Hundreds of firefighters have responded to a high-rise fire in Dagenham today and have carried out rescues. The Fire Brigades Union applauds their dedication and professionalism. Our thoughts are with the residents of the tower, who have lost their homes and been left traumatised. Once again, a fire has erupted in a residential building wrapped in flammable cladding. There needs to be an urgent and swift investigation of how this has been allowed to happen. Hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in buildings like it, with various failings in fire safety. This is a national scandal.

“For decades, the FBU has warned of the risks of deregulation in the building sector. Politicians have put the interests of big business above human life. As we saw at Grenfell Tower, this can have horrific and tragic consequences. We have highlighted significant building safety failings before and since the Grenfell Tower fire. It was already known that the Dagenham tower block was dangerous. Time and time again, these warnings have been ignored by public authorities and by central government. This must change immediately. The FBU will continue to demand robust action on building safety, and justice for the victims of these entirely avoidable fires.”

The specific type of cladding used on Grenfell Tower is now banned, after its use contributed to the fire that claimed the lives of 72 people. The government has announced the cladding will no longer be allowed on buildings of any height in England, after years of calls for it to be banned by campaigners.

The metal composite material panels with unmodified polyethylene core, known as MCM PE, are the same type that were on London tower block when it caught fire in June 2017. Investigations later revealed that the make-up of the cladding, which was on the outside of the 24-storey tower block, contributed to the tragedy by acting as a chimney allowing the fire to spread.

As at the end of July 2024, there are 4,630 residential buildings 11 metres and over in height identified with unsafe cladding whose remediation progression is being reported, an increase of 17 since the end of June 2024.

The Building Safety Remediation: monthly data release - July 2024 – from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, reveals that, overall, 2,299 buildings (50%) have either started or completed remediation works. Of these, 1,350 buildings (29%) have completed remediation works.

Fire Safety Regulations 2022: new duties
Since they came into force on 23 January 2023, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 have introduced new duties under the Fire Safety Order for building owners or managers (known as ‘responsible persons’).

The Regulations are designed to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report.

Under the Regulations, responsible persons are required to provide to their local Fire and Rescue Service information about the design and materials of a high-rise building’s external wall system and to inform the Fire and Rescue Service of any material changes to these walls. They will also be required to provide information in relation to the level of risk that the design and materials of the external wall structure gives rise to, and any mitigating steps taken.

Other duties include the requirement to:

• Provide their local Fire and Rescue Service with up-to-date electronic building floor plans and to place a hard copy of these plans, alongside a single page building plan which identifies key firefighting equipment, in a secure information box on site.
• Undertake monthly checks on the operation of lifts intended for use by firefighters, and evacuation lifts in their building and check the functionality of other key pieces of firefighting equipment. They will also be required to report any defective lifts or equipment to their local Fire and Rescue Service as soon as possible after detection if the fault cannot be fixed within 24 hours, and to record the outcome of checks and make them available to residents.
• Install and maintain a secure information box in their building. This box must contain the name and contact details of the responsible person and hard copies of the building floor plans.
• Install wayfinding signage visible in low light or smoky conditions that identifies flat and floor numbers in the stairwells of relevant buildings.