'Get me in there, I want to help' Rookie firefighter whose first job was Grenfell Tower

As well as being a fire risk assessor her former company specialises in the analysis of building defects and problems with materials like cladding.

Last Wednesday’s devastating fire at Grenfell Tower in Kensington, London, reached temperatures of more than 1,000C and engulfed the building in an inferno – a fact that has been put down to the exterior cladding.

But until March this year, when 26-year-old April left the safe office world to retrain as a firefighter, the closest that she had personally come to cladding was in sorting out the payroll of her colleagues in the building pathology department.

All that changed on Wednesday last week when a fire in the tower block took hold and April found herself in the front line helping more than 20 people escape the blaze.

She arrived on the scene with her crew shortly after 2am. “It was like the end of the world,” she says. “My adrenaline was going and I thought, ‘Get me in there, I want to help. This is what I signed up for.’

“The smell of smoke, the sound of crackling, the sound of debris hitting the ground, children screaming, people handing you their phones to speak to loved ones – these are the things I won’t ever forget.”

Ever since she was a girl April had wanted to fight fires.

One of her responsibilities in a previous job had been managing a fire alarm system but she was only five days into her dream job when the call came to attend what Labour MP Emma Dent Coad has labelled as a “hideous and unforgivable event”.

April’s station in Shoreditch received their call to arms at 2.03am and within 90 seconds she was on a fire truck with four colleagues.

When they arrived, burning debris was falling around them and they were forced to shelter for a while under a walkway.

“It was April’s first search and rescue,” says Fire Brigades Union station representative Jon Warnsby.

“I grabbed her helmet, looked her in the eyes and said, ‘Slow and steady wins the race’.”

Once inside the tower block April and her colleague Paul made their way to the third floor having been given the choice to stay outside or head straight towards the flames without their full breathing apparatus.

April says: “Paul and I looked at each other and said, ‘Shall we just get in there?’ There were loads of people coming out so we had hope.

“We ended up on the 10th floor. I wanted to get to the residents so we went higher and higher. I had never done this before but there was something inside me telling me every step of the way that this was what I had to do.”

The heat in the building was comparable to a cremation, which is one reason that the number of fatalities has yet to be confirmed.

To walk into such a hazardous environment after only 11 weeks of training must have been frightening.

“This was the first proper job where I have seen actual flames,” says April.

“You are so blinded by how serious it is that you just get on with it and do the best you can.”

April, who lives with her mother and brother in Bethnal Green, volunteered with the London Fire Cadets and was accepted into the London Fire Brigade in August last year.

After an intensive course she graduated in May but one of her former colleagues is not surprised by her courage.

“April is a highly resourceful, effectual and proficient young lady,” says e-commerce consultant Sara Kaplan.

“Her sharp intelligence and understanding means she is able to tackle whatever is thrown at her.” Of course April was just one of 270 brave firefighters who risked their lives that night to rescue the Grenfell residents caught up in the inferno.

One of her colleagues was pregnant but still returned repeatedly to the dangerous smoke-filled stairwell to guide occupants to safety.

Other firefighters worked beneath riot shields as sections of the tower block sheared off above them.

April says others protected babies beneath their helmets. For a rookie firefighter it was a brutal introduction.

“I’m quite headstrong and will be able to get through this,” says April.

“I can deal with it and move on once I’ve cried about it enough. “I’m proud to be part of such an amazing emergency service and want to give credit to every firefighter that was there. I have never seen a group of people work so hard to save lives.”

Union rep Jon Warnsby says his newest colleague has the right attributes for a successful career.

“She got on with her job. She was being looked after well but she went in and she did it. Seems like she will be a good hand.”