Door withstood flames for only 15 minutes
Smoke and flames rise from a building on fire in London, Wednesday, June 14, 2017. Metropolitan Police in London say they’re continuing to evacuate people from a massive apartment fire in west London. The fire has been burning for more than three hours and stretches from the second to the 27th floor of the building.(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
LONDON (AP) — Police say a door from a London high-rise that went up in flames, killing 71 people, has failed an expert fire safety test.
The Metropolitan Police force said Thursday that an undamaged door from Grenfell Tower withstood flames for only 15 minutes — not the 30 minutes it was supposed to.
Fire spread rapidly from a faulty refrigerator and engulfed the 24-story residential building in June. A police investigation and a public inquiry are working to find out how a small fire was able to spread so quickly, becoming Britain’s deadliest blaze in decades.
Flammable exterior cladding installed on the tower’s facade has been blamed. Officials later found that hundreds more buildings could be at risk because they have similar cladding.
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