LONDON — A damning report on a deadly London high-rise fire says decades of failures by government, regulators and industry turned Grenfell Tower into a “death trap” where 72 people lost their lives.
The final report may give survivors some of the answers they have long sought — though not prosecutions for those responsible. Criminal charges are on hold until after the inquiry concludes. The fire broke out in the early hours of June 14, 2017, in a fourth-floor apartment and spread up the 25-story building like a lit fuse, fueled by flammable cladding panels on the tower’s exterior walls.
The inquiry, announced by the government the morning after the blaze, has held more than 300 public hearings and examined around 1,600 witness statements. Grenfell Tower had been covered during a refurbishment with aluminum and polyethylene cladding — a layer of foam insulation topped by two sheets of aluminum sandwiched around a layer of polyethylene, a combustible plastic polymer that melts and drips on exposure to heat.
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