London Fire Brigade has defended itself against claims that its "stay put" advice to Grenfell residents may have cost lives.
A report by fire protection expert Dr Barbara Lane, released by the Grenfell Tower inquiry, found residents should have been told to evacuate within 46 minutes of the fire starting at just before 1am on 14 June.
Instead they were advised to remain in their flats and by the time those instructions were abandoned at 2.47am, it was too late for many to get out.
The blaze in north Kensington, west London, killed 72 people.
In a statement to the inquiry, the London Fire Brigade said its personnel had been in "intolerable positions" when trying to decide whether to tell people to stay in their homes or to try to get out of the 24-storey building.
The LFB also said firefighters would not have been aware of "defects in the fabric of the building", such as the cladding, which have become known since the fire.
"The nature and scale of the fire and the manner in which it developed and spread was exceptional in the long experience and collective knowledge of both the LFB and the fire service nationally," the LFB said.
:: Long read – Grenfell and Britain's fire safety crisis
There were a number of reasons as to why it may not have been feasible for firefighters to advise residents to get out, the statement added.
These included there being no way to communicate with everyone in the building, only one staircase that was also being used by firefighters as there was no working firefighter lift, and "rapidly changing conditions" possibly creating a "toxic and lethal" environment residents would have to pass through to escape.
The LFB received more calls for fire survival guidance from Grenfell residents that night than from the whole of London in the past decade.
The fire brigade said the inquiry would likely hear that "many of those who made calls during the fire felt extremely reluctant to leave their flats and face the conditions beyond".
"Some were simply unable to do so whatever advice they may have received. Some who self-evacuated tragically lost their lives in the lobbies or stairwell."
The cladding used on Grenfell Tower has been described as more flammable than "dropping a match into a barrel of petrol".
Here's the lawyer representing some of the 72 victims who died as a result of last year's fire pic.twitter.com/7zvmTj6M0a
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 5, 2018
One of the lawyers representing the bereaved said it was "vital" for the inquiry to consider whether racism contributed to the tragedy.
Some residents say officials ignored safety concerns because the tower block's occupants were mostly working class and from black and ethnic minority communities.
Imran Khan said that if these issues were not addressed, "we will be putting at risk the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people from black and ethnic minority communities who are over-represented in high-rise blocks across Britain".
1:38Earlier, those representing victims criticised the refurbishment of the block overseen by Kensington and Chelsea Council.
Danny Friedman QC described it as having been done "in such a way as to render (the building) a death trap".
The west London block was wrapped in polyethylene cladding, a material "now openly described by some in the industry as petrol", his colleague Stephanie Barwise QC said.
Ms Barwise told the hearing that gaps in the tower block's windows were plugged with a material derived from crude oil – "the perfect medium for flame spread at the edge of the window".
Quoting Dr Lane's report, Ms Barwise said: "We say, based on Dr Lane's report, that the entirety of the cladding constituted a material alteration, since, as it stood before the refurbishment, Grenfell was constructed of virtually incombustible concrete.
"It was however covered by the polyethylene cladding now openly described by some in the industry as petrol."
Ms Barwise said the cladding system had "patently" promoted rather than resisted fire spread.
She added: "Our understanding is that the ignition of the polyethylene within the cladding panel produces a flaming reaction more quickly than dropping a match into a barrel of petrol."
Ms Barwise also criticised CEP, the sub-contractor that purchased and fabricated the panels, Harley Facades, which installed them, and architects Studio E for all saying they cannot yet participate in the inquiry.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has told the Fire Brigades Union that treatment of Grenfell survivors is a "national scandal" that "shows a heartless contempt for working class people".
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