It was the deadliest blaze in Britain’s recent history. Earlier this month, a malfunctioning refrigerator set fire to Grenfell Tower, a public housing complex in London. Soon, the flames shot through the building’s 24-stories, most likely aided by the structure’s highly flammable aluminum composite cladding.
Two-hundred and fifty firefighters battled the blaze for 10 hours — but to no avail. The building burnt nearly to the ground, and a plume of smoke billowed into the sky for hours more, a grim reminder of the terrible tragedy. At least 80 people are presumed dead or missing as of July 3.
London Metropolitan police have already determined the cause of the fire: A refrigerator exploded in one of the apartments. It is assumed that the flame then spread unusually quickly because of the building’s cladding and other violations of fire safety regulations. In the ensuing two weeks, the UK
authorities have inspected more than 600 buildings across England and
found seven with similarly flammable cladding. They are now working to ensure this tragedy does not repeat itself.
Moscow is no England in that respect — and Grenfell has left Russian firefighters worried. Russia’s fire service, currently part of the Emergency Situations Ministry, has been paralyzed by a deep internal crisis, several firefighters and rescuers told The Moscow Times on condition of anonymity.
The firefighters, who were not authorized to speak on internal matters, fear organizational dysfunction has left the fire service largely helpless in the face of major blazes like Grenfell — a serious problem in a high-rise city where fire safety regulations are often not followed.
“We’ve long been on the verge of falling into the abyss,” a firefighter told The Moscow Times. “And it’s not getting better. We’re only stepping closer and closer to the edge.”
Glory days
During the Soviet era, firefighting was somewhat more efficient. It was a militarized entity within the Interior Ministry. Only highly qualified professionals worked as firefighters, perpetually passing their knowledge and skills down to younger generations. This force was bound by values, traditions and, most importantly, accountability, firefighters say.
Every death in a fire and every unusual incident was thoroughly investigated. These investigations were meticulously analyzed and used by authorities and the fire service to prevent similar deaths and dangers.
“I can still teach young servicemen with Soviet fire analyses, that’s how good they were,” an experienced firefighter told The Moscow Times. “If a firefighter died in a fire, heads would roll. Everyone knew that, so it was a rather rare occurrence.”
Construction standards were strict, and government oversight of fire safety regulations was relentless. Moreover, the fire service would frequently test fire safety. “In new buildings, they would pick out an apartment and set a controlled blaze in it to analyze potential scenarios,” a firefighter told The Moscow Times.
But those glory days died with the Soviet Union. In the
early 1990s, economic crisis took its toll, firefighters recall. For
some time, the service barely received any funding, and servicemen saw
their wages shrink and lost motivation to work. Many left the profession.
“Those who stayed survived a very dark period. Some of them resorted to drinking, including on duty,” a firefighter said.
Around the same time, a young and zealous bureaucrat named Sergei Shoigu took charge of the State Committee for Emergency Situations, which was transformed into the Ministry for Emergency Situations (MChS) in 1994. Currently Russia’s defense minister, Shoigu cut his teeth on Emergency Situations. Veterans working in the fire service at the time recall that Shoigu immediately had his eyes on the fire service.
By the end of the 1990s, the crisis in the fire service started to die down, and the situation began to improve, sources say. But in 2002, Shoigu got his way. The 278,000 staff members of the fire service officially became part of MChS. That is when the downfall began, firefighters say.
According to a veteran firefighter who has been working in the fire service since the 1970s, one of Shoigu’s first moves was to purge the old guard at the top of regional branches of the service.
Generals who “knew what firefighting was about” were replaced with Shoigu’s own military cadres, who had “little to no experience in firefighting.”
With them in charge,
inefficiencies began metastasizing throughout the system, the veteran
firefighter says. Almost every operational process was affected — from training firefighters to dealing with major accidents and deciding on firefighting tactics.