Executive Summary

24. As with all emergency incidents, the importance of extracting any 27. learning is paramount to allow the cyclical approach of review and improvement. Following an internal SIR of The Cube incident, work is on-going within GMFRS to identify further learning to support internal improvement.

25. At 20:29 hours on Friday 15 November 2019 NWFC received a 999 call from a mobile phone in which the caller reported a fre at ‘The Cube 8593 Bradshawgate, Bolton’.

26. The incident was subsequently declared a Major Incident3 and at its peak had an attendance of 27 fre engines and special appliances4. This number was exceeded whilst additional fre engines were mobilised to

relieve frefghters who had been working at the scene. Two residents, trapped in their fats by fre, heat and smoke, were rescued by frefghters from the exterior of the building, one from the sixth foor window by a high reach aerial appliance (AA). The second rescue took place from a second foor window by ladder.

28. With clear evidence that the building was failing to contain the fre in accordance with standard expectations, a full and immediate resident evacuation was instigated, testing for the frst time under real conditions, GMFRS’s recently developed and introduced procedures for such a scenario.

29. At the peak of operational activity 45 of 50 available GMFRS fre engines, and all on duty supervisory offcers who were available to form an incident command team, were attending this or other concurrent operational incidents. Simultaneous incidents attended by GMFRS included a gas leak, vehicle fre and two domestic property fres where persons were reported to be at immediate risk.

30. The highest number of supervisory offcers involved in supporting the response to The Cube, either at the scene or at remote locations was 14 between the hours of 02:15 and 04:00. The incident was also supported by two Principal Offcers (POs) at the rank of Brigade Manager and two

Assistant Principal Offcers (APOs) at the rank of Area Manager (AM).

31. At midnight, a total of 19 supervisory offcers were committed to incidents across Greater Manchester.

32. Resources from Cheshire and Lancashire FRS were utilised under existing mutual aid agreements and from Merseyside and West

Yorkshire FRS via National Resilience arrangements, resulting in 18 fre engines from other FRSs brought into Greater Manchester to support GMFRS. In addition to FRS resources, the incident attracted a multi-agency response from both Category One and Category Two responders5 .

33. The incident was open for a total of 15 days to support a full and comprehensive fre investigation, with GMFRS resources fnally leaving the scene on 30th November 2019.

34. Prior to the fre at The Cube, GMFRS had undertaken a signifcant amount of work in direct response to, and subsequent recommendations arising from the Grenfell Tower fre. A number of these areas are referenced within the body of this report.

Key Observation 1

The additional resources deployed at this fre, to support the evacuation of a multi-occupied residential building, support wider tactical and strategic multi-agency collaboration and provide safe systems of work through the initial emergency phase of the incident were signifcant. Against a backdrop to maintain effective concurrent fre cover across Greater Manchester, GMFRS experienced depletion of a number of key resources, requiring staff to be recalled to duty, and mutual aid to be called upon.