Fire chief feared not all her crews would survive Grenfell disaster they could 'never plan for'

• Video report by ITV News Correspondent Sejal Karia

The chief of the London Fire Brigade has spoken of how she comforted her crews before they entered the Grenfell Tower blaze for fear some of them would not survive.

Commissioner Dany Cotton told the Grenfell Inquiry she was hit by an "overwhelming" anxiety as crews were committed, physically touching firefighters to give them a final positive memory of being comforted.

Ms Cotton said: "People will quite rightly have questions, but for me I could not be more proud of the absolute commitment and dedication of the firefighters. They were clearly terrified of going into Grenfell Tower."

She went on: "I recall I actually physically went and touched some firefighters when I spoke to them, because I was not a hundred percent convinced in my mind that everybody was going to come out of there alive.

"The building was so hugely involved in fire; you cannot help but compare it to 9/11."

Ms Cotton revealed she had witnessed the devastating impact the fire had on those tackling the blaze.

"Where normally you would go out and just make an assessment of operational plans and tactics, I had spent a large amount of time talking to firefighters who had broken down in my arms.

"Firefighters I had never met before, firefighters I didn't know.

"I had never seen a situation where firefighters are openly crying in distress," she said.

Some 71 people died in the fire on June 14 last year, with a 72nd victim dying months later.

Ms Cotton recounted in a statement the moment she arrived at the scene of Grenfell Tower, describing it as a "disaster movie".

She said: "Sitting in my car I could see the tower through my front windscreen. I was still on the phone to Tom (Director of Operations) and said 'What the f***? This can't actually be happening; I can't believe what I'm seeing'.

"It just looked like something from a disaster movie. Like a hideous mixture of 'Towering Inferno' and a video I was shown in training school of a high-rise fire in Sao Paulo where people jumped to escape.

"I think I said that in as many words to Tom and he just said 'I won't keep you, you need to go, I'll speak to you later'".

"So my first words about Grenfell Tower were down the phone to him, and most of them, consisted of the 'F' word."

Commissioner Dany Cotton told the inquiry of how she struggled to talk about the tragedy or look at images of the inferno in the months after the blaze in June last year.

She also revealed she has experienced significant memory gaps following the catastrophic tower block fire, and has received therapy to help her process the trauma.

In a written statement made available to the public inquiry on Thursday and made on February 21, Ms Cotton said she had memory blanks which she believed were "linked to the traumatic nature and sheer scale of the incident."

She said: "I deliberately didn't write any notes at the time of the incident."Because I had such poor recall of the night's events and I'd hoped they would improve I have subsequently undergone an accredited counselling technique called EDMR with a view to improving my memory recall."This had not been "terribly successful", she said.

She went on: "I'm still finding it very difficult to look at visual images and have conversations about Grenfell.

"I'm still responsible for effectively running the London Fire Brigade, and everything else that's involved in that. It would be no good for me to fall apart.

"Therefore, I have not spent huge amounts of time in my head looking and thinking about Grenfell Tower.

"In speaking to police to provide this statement, this will actually be the first time I have talked through the whole incident."

The fire chief acknowledged the warnings and risks which had been given about Grenfell Tower in the months before the fire.

"As with a number of other risks, I accept that people where aware of that."

Commissioner Cotton later added she believed the fire was so complex and devastating that even if everything had been known about it 24 hours before, crews still wouldn't have been able to put it out.

"I would loved to have had the foresight, I would loved to have had the ability and the knowledge but even if we had that we wouldn't have been able to extinguish the fire."

• Video report by ITV News correspondent Neil Connery

Ms Cotton is the most senior fire officer to give evidence during the public inquiry.

When asked by Lead counsel to the inquiry Richard Millett QC whether all firefighters should be prepared for the unexpected, the fire chief responded:

"I don't think that's a reasonable thing to say, we do expect the unexpected, we respond to what we find in front of us.

"At the beginning of last year you wouldn't have expected the attacks to have happened in London but we responded and developed and trained from those.

"We learn from every operational incident."

"But in the same manner, I wouldn't develop a training package for a space shuttle to land in front of the Shard.

"We would respond to it and deal with it in the same manner we do an incident of that scale.

"I wouldn't expect us to be developing training or a response to something that simply shouldn't happen," she added.

Ms Cotton was questioned on the brigade's use of the "stay put" policy at Grenfell Tower.

Questioned on why she did not ask officers upon arriving to the scene why the advice to residents had not been changed earlier, she said: "At that moment in time it was far more important to collect the information with the ongoing situation.

"The priority at that point was to save life."

When questioned about why the "stay put" policy was not revoked earlier, Ms Cotton said it was due to the "very narrow" single staircase evacuation route.

She said: "People were trapped by smoke and it would've added to congestion on the stairwell. Bringing people out at that moment in time would have added to the casualties and delayed the response."

When pressed further by Mr Millett on the "stay put" policy, Ms Cotton said: "I think I've just explained it but I'm happy to go through it again, if you like, about why it wasn't revoked."

This response drew sighs and muttering from members of the public.

Ms Cotton is expected to continue her evidence throughout Thursday.