According to Ronnie King OBE, Honorary Administrative Officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety & Rescue Group, it is a debate that needs to held in public.

He exclusively told FIRE: "I asked [Sky] to stop having people saying how sad and hopeless the Neasden fire tragedy was, as if nothing further could have been done to save those young lives.
 
"They should have been asking, 'Is there anything which can be done to prevent this happening again?' then clearly they would have got the debate out in the open."

A mother and five of her children were killed in the blaze at Sonia Gardens in Neasden, West London early Saturday morning, as reported on FIRE.

Yesterday the London Fire Brigade said that a fauty freezer was the likely cause of the fire as coroners opened an inquest into their deaths.

Following "the worst house fire in the capital in over a decade" LFB has launched a fire safety campaign on Facebook entitled Share It, Save a Life.

Assistant Commissioner, Steve Turek, said: "This tragic event should focus people's minds on how they can make their home safer."

But King, who is also vice-chair of the National Fire Sprinkler Network, believes more decisive action should have been taken.

"Yes something could have be done that would have saved those lives and it costs one percent of the build costs.

"A single fire death in a sprinklered building is an extremely rare event, a multiple fire death is almost unheard of.

"There has never been a multiple fire death in a building anywhere in the world, fitted with a working sprinkler system, designed to the appropriate standard for the purpose intended," he said.

Last week, as reported on FIRE, a tower block in Pontypool became the first building in the country to retrofit sprinklers and this is a system London councils may look to adopt in light of the Neasden tragedy.

 

Posted on September 28 2011 at 1745 by Richard. Comment by emailing: richard.hook@pavpub.com