The head of the London Fire Brigade (LFB) comforted firefighters before they climbed Grenfell Tower because she feared they would not escape the inferno, she told a public inquiry into the blaze.
Commissioner Dany Cotton offered reassurance and physically touched a number of firefighters because she wanted to give them a final good memory before they battled the flames, she said in a written statement.
Holborn Bars, where an inquiry into the blaze that killed 72 residents is being held, was filled with bereaved, survivors and residents of north Kensington on Thursday, with additional seating needed to accommodate everyone.
Ms Cotton told the inquiry nothing, including training on cladding fires, could have stopped the spread of the inferno.
The most senior firefighter in London also said she had an “overwhelming continuous feeling of anxiety” as crews were committed to the high rise on the night of the blaze on 14 June last year.
“People will quite rightly have questions, but for me I could not be more proud of the absolute commitment and dedication of the firefighters,” she continued.
“They were clearly terrified of going into Grenfell Tower.”
“I would defy anybody, going into that building and seeing the nature of what they were walking into, not to admit to the fact they were petrified of what they were doing,” she said. “The building was so hugely involved in fire; you cannot help but compare it to 9/11.”
“I recall I actually physically went and touched some firefighters when I spoke to them, because I was not 100 per cent convinced in my mind that everybody was going to come out of there alive.”
She added: “I wanted those firefighters to have a positive reinforced memory before they went into the building of somebody saying nice things to them, being supportive and demonstrating to them that somebody really cared.”
The fire brigade “should never have been put in that position to have responded to that incident in that way”, she said, adding: “It has truly damaged some people who witnessed some terrible things and who will never forget them. They will wear the scars for the rest of their life.“
Ms Cotton, who has served in the LFB for 30 years, revealed she was suffering from PTSD as a result of the fire and there were gaps in her memory of the incident.
“I think that the severe trauma for me of the responsibility of that night, the personal stress and pressure that caused me has caused my memory to be not as I would wish it to be,” she told the inquiry.
She was undergoing treatment designed to help her recall the events, she said, but it “has not been terribly successful”, she said in her written statement. “I’m still finding it very difficult to look at visual images and have conversations about Grenfell.”
Her responsibility for the day-to-day running of the LFB meant “it would be no good for me to fall apart,” she said. “Therefore, I have not spent huge amounts of time in my head looking and thinking about Grenfell Tower.”
A colleague told her on the night of the blaze, she narrowly avoided being crushed by a 6ft-long piece of burning debris raining down from the building.
“I have no recollection of this and assume that my brain is protecting me,” she said in her statement.
She said her colleague was “very traumatised by it because he thought I was going to die”.
When the inquiry’s lead lawyer, Richard Millett QC, asked about the so-called “stay put” policy – which instructs high-rise residents to stay in their flats unless their compartment was directly affected by fire – Ms Cotton said the strategy was the safest option if “a building behaves correctly”.
Previous evidence seen by the inquiry from fire safety expert Dr Barbara Lane indicated, in Grenfell’s case, the policy had failed by 1.26am. But residents were told to stay inside their flats until 2.47am, nearly two hours after the fire began. It is feared that decision may have contributed to the death toll.
Ms Cotton said the fire brigade could not assume that compartmentation will fail in every building “because that will be catastrophic”.
Evacuating every high-rise could result in crush injuries, firefighters being unable to enter the building and less mobile people being abandoned inside, she said.
Ms Cotton revealed she had not received training on fire-spread over the facade of a high rise residential block or on cladding.
But she said training would not have helped anyway. ”I truly don’t think it would have benefited anyone to have more detailed knowledge about cladding to respond to the fire at Grenfell because it wouldn’t have enabled them to extinguish the fire,” she said.
A scenario such as the Grenfell fire was deemed “unrealistic” before it took place, she said.
“I wouldn’t develop a training package for a space shuttle to land in front of the Shard,” she told the inquiry.
“We would respond to it and deal with it in the same manner we do an incident of that scale. I wouldn’t expect us to be developing training or a response to something that simply shouldn’t happen.”
However, the inquiry was shown a presentation from October 2016 prepared by LFB fire engineers that warned about the potential dangers of combustible cladding.
The presentation, which was shared among LFB safety officers, warned “new construction materials and methods of construction are being used in facades and with a limited understanding of their fire behaviour/ performance”.
It concluded: “There is a need to understand what products are being used in the facade system and their fire behaviour and if they are used appropriately and meet the relevant guidance. These could affect the way fires develop and spread in a building.”
Ms Cotton said she had not seen the presentation and did not know if frontline firefighters had seen it.
Mr Millet asked whether the document indicated “a structural or cultural failure” by the LFB to respond to new hazards, but the firefighter said it did not.
Questioned about why visits by firefighters to Grenfell Tower before the blaze had not revealed serious safety issues, Ms Cotton said: “Unfortunately firefighters are not fire engineers and therefore we would be unable to make an assessment whether a building was of poor quality and construction.”
A firefighter would not be able to tell if the cladding was dangerous or not, she said. “I couldn’t look at a building now and assess whether or not that was combustible because we don’t have the ability to be able to do that. It’s up to a flame and panel test to conclude that.”
The inquiry is hearing firefighter evidence at Holborn Bars, in central London, with the last firefighter expected to appear before the probe next week.
