Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea / Rydon
Grenfell Tower Fire
Estimated impact: 72 deaths; £1B+ in cladding remediation across UK; regulatory overhaul
A fire in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in London killed 72 people. The building had been recently refurbished with combustible ACM cladding to improve its appearance. Resident complaints about fire safety were ignored. The "stay put" advice proved fatal as the cladding turned the building into an inferno.
Decision context
Whether to use combustible aluminum composite material (ACM) cladding during the refurbishment to save £293,000 compared to fire-resistant alternatives, and whether to investigate resident fire safety complaints.
Biases present in the decision
Toxic combinations
- Status Quo Lock
- Echo Chamber
Reference class base rates
Across all 146 curated case studies in our library:
Lessons learned
- Saving £293,000 on non-combustible cladding on a building housing hundreds of people represents cognitive misering at its most lethal
- Resident complaints about fire safety were dismissed as "troublemaking" — selective perception filtered out the people with the most direct risk information
- Building regulations that relied on "desktop studies" rather than full-scale fire testing created a systemic knowledge gap about cladding fire behavior
Source: Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 Report (2019); Phase 2 Report (2024) (Post Mortem)
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