Grenfell fire report demands action for hero firefighters who put out toxic smoke-filled blaze
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The Government “needs to seriously look at” the impact of toxic smoke on firefighters who responded to the Grenfell disaster, a minister has said. It comes as a report found more than a quarter of firefighters responding to the Grenfell Tower fire have suffered long-term health problems. Data on 524 firefighters who were exposed to smoke at the 2017 blaze showed 136 reported life changing conditions three years later. These included 11 cases of cancer, 64 respiratory diseases, 22 neurological disorders and 66 digestive illnesses.
Health minister Andrew Gwynne was asked on LBC about the Fire Brigade Union’s call for regular health checks for the firefighters and said he would speak to the fire minister Diana Johnson. He said: “Certainly that’s something that I’m more than happy to take away and look at seriously because we recognise that people who go above and beyond putting their own lives at risk in situations like Grenfell Tower may well end up with health issues as a consequence of their own work. I’m more than happy to speak to the fire minister in government as well to see how we can try and resolve that.”.
The fire at the 24-storey tower block in west London was the worst in a UK residential building since the second world war. Some 72 people died and more than 70 were injured. Combustible cladding spread the fire around the outside of the tower block to most of the flats and produced vast amounts of toxic gases.
Layla Moran, chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, told LBC News: “A similar thing happened during the pandemic didn't it. We had so many healthcare workers who lost their lives but actually many who are still suffering from long covid and it continues to be a battle to get them the compensation frankly that they deserve, because these are - as if we were in a war - these are our frontline fighters against a killer.
