Grenfell fire: We had enough time to evacuate, says survivor and former volunteer firefighter

One of the first residents to discover the Grenfell Tower fire has criticised the fire brigade’s instructions to stay in the burning building, saying there would have been enough time to evacuate the high-rise block.

Manuel Miguel Alves, who lived on the 13th floor with his wife and two children, said it became clear early on that the fire could not be stopped.

The 50-year-old, who works as a chauffeur and formerly volunteered as a firefighter in Portugal, said he knew getting residents to leave the building was the “only choice”.

Mr Alves and his wife discovered the fire minutes after it began when their lift opened on the fourth floor, where he saw light smoke drifting near the ceiling of the corridor.

“Straight away” he thought about his children, Ines and Tiago, then aged 16 and 20, and how to get them out of the flat, he told a public inquiry into the blaze.

He climbed the stairs to the 13th floor, where he collected them and knocked on several other doors to alert people to the fire. He said it was his “duty” to help his neighbours evacuate and they were “like family”.

Mr Alves said he ignored emergency notices distributed around the tower instructing residents to stay inside their flats.

“If [there is] a fire on the 4th floor, I’m on the 13th floor, it’s like a trap,” he said. “Why should I be in the trap when I have the opportunity to come out?”

Watching from outside after escaping the tower, Mr Alves saw the building’s cladding had caught fire and was falling like “plastic rain”, but “the fire brigade looked as if they were not doing anything”.

“They didn’t put water or anything on the fire,” he added.

The fire brigade “finally” began to spray the side of the tower with a hose at about 1.16am, he said.

“But when they did this, they put water underneath the flames. I just could not understand why they did this.”

He watched in horror as flames spread from the bottom to the top of the 24-storey building “within about 15 minutes”.

Mr Alves said he had previously tackled wildfires in northeast Portugal.

“Looking at the fire on Grenfell Tower, it seemed clear that the fire brigade should have gone to the top of the tower, knocked on all the doors, and got people out,” he said.

“There was still enough time to evacuate the building and it was clear the fire could not be stopped and that this was the only choice.

“It was out of control within minutes and I could see the fire hoses could not reach high enough and could not stop it.”

He added: “The whole thing was terrifying. I could hear screams from the tower and people were gathering by now. The fire was dripping down and the noise was horrific.”

By about 1.30am flames had reached the top of the tower, he said, and police started pushing the crowd of onlookers back.

He continued: “They started to say ‘The building could fall down’.

“I remember thinking that if this is what they thought, then they should have entered the building, and moved people out.”

Mr Alves called a friend, Marcio Gomes, who was still inside the tower, telling him to leave the block along with his heavily pregnant wife and their two daughters.

Mr Gomes was reluctant to evacuate after being told to stay put by firefighters, the inquiry heard, but he and his family eventually made a desperate escape bid.

While they made it out alive, their unborn son, Logan, was later stillborn.

Including Logan and one person who died several months after the fire, 72 people died as a result of the blaze.

London mayor Sadiq Khan watched Mr Alves’s evidence and was seen talking to survivors.

In a statement submitted to the inquiry, Mr Alves’s daughter Ines recalled being woken by her father in the middle of the night and fleeing the building.

Anxious about a GCSE chemistry exam she had in the morning, she tried to revise while she watched the fire consume her home.

She sat the exam having only had a couple of hours’ sleep and achieved an A grade, but said she had lost her “passion” for studying since the inferno.

“Since the fire, I have struggled with my studies,” she explained. “I still enjoy them but find it so much more difficult to concentrate. I also tend to give up more easily.

“If don’t understand something, I will skip it, whereas before I would always search for the answer. I don’t seem to care as much as before and have lost the passion I used to have.

“I haven’t spoken to anyone about this. I am just trying to get on. I am not the type of person who shows stress.”

The inquiry is hearing evidence from survivors, relatives and friends of those who died and nearby residents, at Holborn Bars in central London.