
The fire started in the kitchen of flat 16 on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower, a 24-story block in west London. Ethiopian-born Behailu Kebede had lived there for almost 25 years. Just before 1 a.m. on June 14, 2017, his smoke alarm shrieked, and he discovered smoke coming from behind his refrigerator-freezer.
He called the fire department and ran up and down the floor to alert his neighbors. But smoke seeped through the building, and flames engulfed it. It was home to possibly as many 350 people. Many were Muslims celebrating Ramadan and may have either been away at the time or awake breaking their Ramadan fast and able to escape—even though residents were told to stay put. Still, over 70 people died.
An inquiry into the disaster, called “Britain’s deadliest on domestic premises since the Second World War,” found that the building’s faulty construction invited a catastrophe. It took nearly 24 hours for the fire to burn itself out.
Head on over to Tweetspeak Poetry to discover some good that came from this horrible tragedy. Hint: It involves HRH The Duchess of Sussex, deeper friendships and lots of food. And a cookbook.