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A young mother has revealed she faced a padlocked escape route gate and fire alarms failed to go off as she tried to flee a blaze at her block of flats.
Cydney Parker, 26, described thinking she was going to die when she ran into the blocked exit after the fire broke out at the Spectrum building in Dagenham, east London, in the early hours of Monday.
Speaking to Sky News of her ordeal, the tearful 26-year-old said: “I've looked outside and seen loads of fire engines pull up … I looked through the front door and the whole corridor is covered in thick black smoke.
“We had to run, and we realised that the [exterior] fire gate had been padlocked shut, so we couldn't get out. It felt like I was going to die then and there.
“The only way out was finding something [we could use] to jump over the fence. As we were on top of the fence, we couldn't get down, so we were screaming at police officers to come and help us...
“How can they cut off a fire escape?”
Hugging a young girl outside her burnt home, the mother of two also said: “No alarms went off. They have gone off so many times for no reason and the time we need them to go off, they didn’t go off.”
Ms Parker feared she had lost all her possessions in the blaze after she fled her flat still dressed in her pyjamas.
She said: “That block needs to get shut down, and we all need to get housed – I hope they are all as angry as me.”
Several residents said they did not hear fire alarms sounding during the emergency, however, some said they did.
Describing the incident as a “nightmare”, Irina Vasile, 46, a healthcare assistant who lives on the second floor of the Dagenham tower, said she did not hear a fire alarm go off during the evacuation.
However, Sam Ogbeide, who lives on the fourth floor, said he did hear a fire alarm but added he did not see any water sprinklers in Spectrum House.
Residents told of fleeing the burning building, in the Freshwater Road area, with some describing coughing up black soot after inhaling smoke as well as losing their belongings in the blaze.
All residents have now been accounted for after more than 80 people were evacuated and two were taken to hospital.
On Monday, the London Fire Brigade confirmed that an investigation into the fire had been launched, disclosing several fire safety issues regarding the building were known to authorities.
The block, covered in scaffolding, was undergoing “remedial” work to remove and replace “non-compliant cladding” on the fifth and sixth floors, according to a planning application document. The role of cladding in the fire will form part of the fire service’s investigation.
The Independent has contacted the building’s management company for comment.
