Hero firefighters who saved lives at Grenfell Tower diagnosed with terminal cancers

Photo: MirrorUK

Firefighters who saved lives at the Grenfell Tower disaster have since been diagnosed with terminal cancer directly related to the fire a Mirror UK investigation has found.

On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey block of flats in North Kensington, West London, and burned for 60 hours.

72 people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping.

It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since World War II.

Analysis carried out on the debris found there were heightened concentrations of chemicals that cause cancer and proven carcinogens.

A Mirror newspaper investigation has found that up to 12 firefighters have been diagnosed with the disease – understood to be digestive cancers and leukaemia – but more than 20 may be affected.

Many of them are only in their 40s.

Photo: Toni Sands

Firefighters and survivors from the disaster have called for medical screenings for rescuers who went to the scene along with more data on those with cancer.

In July last year, The International Agency for Research on Cancer, declared occupational exposure. as a firefighter,would be classified as carcinogenic.

Firefighters after the Grendel fire

It looked into research around the world, proving that there were links between firefighting and cancer, including in the UK where initial University of Central Lancashire research found that surveyed firefighters were four times more likely to have been diagnosed with cancer than the general population.