In the early hours of June 14, 2017, a fire that began in a fourth floor flat at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington spread up and around the 24 storey block through its cladding, killing 72 people. A public inquiry reported in two phases, in 2019 and 2024, finding that combustible cladding drove the spread and that the fire followed decades of failure by government and industry. Police files on 20 organisations and 54 individuals were passed to prosecutors in September 2026.
The Crown Prosecution Service is reviewing police files on 20 organisations and 54 individuals and has committed to charging decisions before June 2027, according to the Met. No charges had been announced in the sources reviewed. The tower is being taken down.
The Inquiry's Phase 1 report records that at 00:54 a resident called 999 to report a fire in Flat 16 on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower. It later found the fire was started by an electrical fault in a large fridge freezer, for which the resident bore no blame.
The first firefighters reached the tower at 00:59, according to the Phase 1 report.
At 01:09 the fire broke out of Flat 16 into the exterior cladding and began climbing the east facade rapidly, the Inquiry found. Firefighters entered the flat's kitchen for the first time at 01:14.
The Metropolitan Police Service declared a major incident at 01:26, the Phase 1 report records.
At 01:27 the fire reached the roof and began to spread horizontally, according to the Inquiry. By 01:31, when the incident commander made pumps 25, 110 of the 297 people in the tower had escaped.
At 01:50 the incident commander handed over to a more senior officer. The Inquiry said 168 of the 297 occupants had escaped by then. Flames spread across the north and east elevations and around the crown at about 02:00.
The London Fire Brigade control room decided at 02:35 to tell callers to leave the tower, and the incident commander revoked the stay put advice at 02:47, the Inquiry found. It concluded that the best part of an hour was lost and that an earlier decision would likely have resulted in fewer deaths.
The last survivor to leave the tower was evacuated at 08:07, according to the key events list in the Phase 1 report. The fire killed 72 people.
The Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation on the day of the fire, later known as Operation Northleigh, the government said.
The government took freehold ownership of the Grenfell Tower site, which became Crown land, with a legal restriction that it be used only for a purpose determined by the community, according to MHCLG.
Inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick found the principal reason the flames spread so rapidly was the aluminium composite material rainscreen panels with polyethylene cores, which acted as a source of fuel. The report also criticised the London Fire Brigade's reliance on stay put and its control room's handling of calls.
The government published its response, accepting in principle all Phase 1 recommendations made for central government, according to its later Phase 2 response.
The Building Safety Act 2022 became law, creating a new framework for building safety that includes a Building Safety Regulator.
The housing ministry was notified by the Metropolitan Police in 2023 that it was under investigation, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner disclosed on September 30, 2026.
The Inquiry concluded the fire was the culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in the construction industry. It found systematic dishonesty by companies that made and sold the cladding panels and insulation, and made 58 recommendations.
The Deputy Prime Minister told bereaved families and survivors that Grenfell Tower would be carefully taken down to the ground, after considering engineering advice that the tower was significantly damaged. The government said there was no consensus in the community on its future.
The government said it accepted all of the Inquiry's findings. It accepted 49 of the 58 recommendations in full, with other responsible bodies, and the remaining 9, all directed at government, in principle.
The Cabinet Office paused investigations under the Procurement Act 2023 into seven organisations criticised by the Inquiry, at the request of the Crown Prosecution Service and the Metropolitan Police, to avoid prejudicing the criminal investigation.
Works to take Grenfell Tower down to ground level from its original 24 storeys began in September 2025 under permitted development rights, the government said.
The government's Crown development application for the works was approved after a written representations procedure led by the Planning Inspectorate, which had accepted it for examination on May 27, 2026.
The Metropolitan Police said it had submitted files on 20 companies and organisations and 54 individuals to the Crown Prosecution Service, asking it to consider charges including corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, health and safety offences, fraud and fraud related offences and misconduct in public office. The Met said the CPS had committed to charging decisions before the tenth anniversary of the fire in June 2027.
Angela Rayner, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government since July 2026 according to GOV.UK, said the Met had referred a file relating to her department to the CPS to determine whether the evidential requirements for a potential breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 had been reached. She apologised on behalf of the British state.
MHCLG's October 2026 community update said the tower was being carefully taken down and that monitors at the site collected data on dust, vibration and noise, with the data published every month.
The government introduced the Remediation of Unsafe Cladding Bill, which it said would place a new legal duty on those responsible for buildings to identify, assess and fix unsafe cladding without delay, and would let the First tier Tribunal impose penalties of up to 500,000 pounds for failing to comply with a remediation order.
On June 12, 2025, Air India flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 bound for London Gatwick, crashed into buildings in Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff, killing 241 of the 242 people ...
On June 18, 2023, OceanGate's submersible Titan imploded during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic, killing all five people aboard. Debris was ...
Last updated 31 October 2026. Spotted an error? See corrections. Every event links to the record it comes from. Allegations are attributed to whoever made them.
