Today, Friday 7 May, Deputy Commissioner, Richard Mills, gave a statement from the scene of a fire at a block of flats on Fairmont Avenue in Poplar.
Deputy Commissioner, Richard Mills, giving a statement
"We were called to the incident at 08:55 this morning at the New Providence Wharf.
"It was made a 20 pump fire and involved 125 firefighters. The first crew arrived within four minutes and the second crew arrived within seven minutes, with an aerial appliance arriving in under 20 minutes.
"The fire was on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors and resulted in us carrying out 35 rescues, 22 using our fire escape hoods, and a further 18 people self-evacuated.
"In the rescue operations one of our firefighters did sustain an injury, and they were treated at the scene.
"This was a very dynamic and challenging incident and clearly there will be some people that will be looking at this and linking it to the tragic events of the Grenfell Tower fire.
"Our thoughts remain with the families and residents of the Grenfell community and there will some very challenging memories that may be brought back as a result of this incident.
"London Fire Brigade continue to learn from every incident that we attend and we will look at investigating this incident and the cause of the fire.
"Additionally we also recognise that there is much more work to be done about how we provide our service to the community in high-rise and we have learnt and are developing our procedures to improve those capabilities going forward.
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank my crews for an incredible and arduous incident and the amount of work they did to resolve the incident safely and effectively. I would like to also take the opportunity to thank our partners for everything they have done to support us at this incident."