Bolton Fire: Cladding A ‘Concern’, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham Confirms

Two people were injured on Friday after what is believed to have started as a small fire in a student flat quickly escalated into a huge blaze that was seen tearing through the upper floors of the building “within minutes”, according to firefighters. 

Dramatic videos published to social media show pieces of debris falling rapidly from the building as it burnt, with one eyewitness stating they had seen flames “crawling up the cladding”.

One student reportedly had to be rescued from the building using an aerial platform after she became trapped. 

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue have not yet confirmed the cause of the fire, and have launched an investigation after the flames spread “extremely rapidly”.

Concerns have also been raised about the safety of the fire alarms, with students who lived in the block claiming that they had heard so many false alarms that residents were unsure if there was a real incident until they smelt smoke, Manchester Evening News reported. 

Speaking to reporters, Burnham said he wanted to work with the government on a way forward to make buildings more safe.

He said: “We know that the prime minister is visiting later and we will be looking to work with him to understand what happened last night and see if we need to go further to remove cladding from these buildings and give families peace of mind.”

Speaking about the actions of the emergency services, he added: “I’m sure I speak for everybody when I say could not be more proud of our firefighters and emergency services.” 

Earlier on Saturday, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union described the way in which the fire appeared to travel as “deeply troubling”, and called for a “complete overhaul” of UK safety standards. 

“This is not how any building should react to a fire in the 21st century, let alone a building in which people live,” he said.

Burnham, who has faced anger during his time as mayor for cuts to the fire service in order to save millions of pounds, was subjected to further criticism by the FBU’s north west executive council member Les Skarratts, who called for an end to senseless cuts”. 

Skarratts said: “Firefighters on the ground have worked tirelessly to contain the fire and rescue residents. There will clearly be some hard lessons to learn as the circumstances become clearer in the coming days.

“Greater Manchester has lost more than 600 firefighters since 2010 alone and, alarmingly, Andy Burnham is trying to cut another six fire engines, including one in Bolton. 

“We need to stop the senseless cuts to our fire and rescue service before we see another awful incident like this.”

A spokesperson for the Mayor’s office responded by stating that Burnham had “significantly increased the number of firefighters since he took office.” 

In September, Burnham made a U-turn on a series of proposed cuts, including plans to cut the number of crew aboard a fire engine from five to four, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Six fire stations in the Greater Manchester area will be closed, whilst three new ones will be opened, after bosses were told to cut spending by £12.8m over three years. 

Bolton North and Bolton Central were two of the stations to be axed. 

More than 40 fire engines attended the scene in Bolton on Friday night, with several crews remaining on the scene tackling “hotspots” within the building on Saturday morning.

Greater Manchester deputy mayor for policing, crime, criminal justice and fire Beverley Hughes said some of the firefighters involved in battling the blaze in Bolton on Friday had been through Grenfell-inspired training just one day before.

She said: “The learning from Grenfell has paid dividends. Some of the firefighters had training the day before, particularly around evacuation.”

Hughes also praised the response from the emergency services and lauded two student ambassadors, named only as Kate and Jade, who knocked on doors in The Cube to alert students to evacuate.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the site of the fire on Saturday, meeting with some of the students who had been made homeless. After seeing the donations of supplies such as clothing and toiletries that had already started pouring in, he praised the response as “incredible” and “terrific”.