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Radio 4,2 mins

London fire: Did cladding cause fire to spread?

World at One

Available for over a year

Six people have been confirmed dead after a huge fire raged through the night at a west London tower block, and police expect that number to rise. There have been reports that cladding - the building's outer layer designed for insulation, environmental protection and aesthetic purposes - caught fire "like a firelighter". Matthew Needham-Laing is an architect and a construction lawyer at law firm Katten UK. He told Radio 4's World at One it looked like a cladding issue, in which the flames cross the fire stops - which are designed to contain the spread of the fire - and ignite other floors. Asked how many buildings in the UK have this kind of cladding, he said: "Probably tens of thousands". (Image: Exterior of Grenfell Tower. Credit: PA)

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