A Fire in East London Recalls Deadly Grenfell Cladding Scandal

More than 80 people had to be evacuated after a major fire broke out in east London early Monday, fire officials said. The blaze brought back painful memories of the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in the city in 2017.

Part of the building in which the fire took place had flammable insulation, or cladding, similar to that which caused the Grenfell fire to spread so fast.

Two people were hospitalized on Monday morning, but there were no fatalities. “Everyone has been accounted for,” Andy Roe, the fire commissioner, said in a statement.

The blaze in Dagenham, in east London, came less than two weeks before the scheduled publication of the final report of an official public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire. It was Britain’s deadliest residential fire since World War II and set off a national re-examination of the widespread use of dangerous cladding, which was not allowed in many other countries.

“This highlights the painfully slow progress of remediation across the country, and a lack of urgency for building safety as a whole,” Grenfell United, a group which represents of survivors and relatives of victims of the 2017 fire, said in a statement on Monday.

Here’s an update on the Monday fire, the cladding fight and the inquiry into Grenfell.

What happened in Dagenham on Monday?

The cause of the fire is still unknown, fire officials said.