Grenfell Tower firefighter describes moment he discovered children unharmed on upper floor

'The eldest just cuddled me, I think out of relief,' says Raoul Codd

The youngest child led the group out of the building after they lost their way

A firefighter has described his surprise at finding three children unharmed on an upper floor of Grenfell Tower, hours after the blaze began.

Raoul Codd, a crew manager of a fire and rescue unit (FRU), said it was “freaky” the children were not even coughing when he encountered them at the 12th floor of the stairwell, which was filled with thick black toxic smoke.

In a written statement to the public inquiry into the disaster, Mr Codd said he was wearing extended-duration breathing apparatus, which meant he had been tasked with reaching the 22nd floor, where many residents were trapped.

But the firefighter made the decision to take the children down to safety instead. The eldest child, a girl aged around 13, “cuddled” him out of relief, while the youngest, a boy of around six years, helped lead him outside, he said.

“I didn’t hear any alarms when I went in, there was a deadly silence,” Mr Codd said in a statement.

“All I could smell was burning, I didn’t smell gas it was just burning.

“As I (went) up the stairs I got to the landing, I was just about to turn the turn to the next flight of stairs when these three kids appeared ... the eldest one just cuddled me, I think out of relief.

“It was really weird, they had no signs of smoke inhalation and they weren’t coughing. It was freaky.”

As he paused to speak to the children, he heard loud banging on flat doors nearby, but decided to take them down instead of investigating, the inquiry heard.

The children passed a dead body on a lower floor as they descended the building’s single staircase.

When they reached the fourth floor, they realised the operational bridgehead – the firefighters’ base – had moved.

Mr Codd said in his statement: “I literally went, ‘Where is everyone? They were here’.

“Then the youngest kid turned around and said ‘we can get out round here’ which was quite good, the rescuer is now being rescued so I said ‘follow him’.

“We got to the second floor and I can’t remember who, or if anyone took the kids. That was the last time I saw them.”

According to the London Fire Brigade, Mr Codd went into the building at 3.05am, more than two hours after the fire had started, and emerged at 3.21am.

Press Association contributed to this report