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| Grenfell Tower Fire Aftermath: 14-16 June 2017 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 15 2017, 11:13 AM (98 Views) | |
| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:13 AM Post #1 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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note: main Grenfell Tower thread can be found here.... (The Guardian) Summary - 7:15am (1) At least 17 people have died in Wednesday’s fire at Grenfell Tower. Police have said the death toll is likely to rise. Sniffer dogs are being sent into the burnt-out tower to search for bodies, while structural engineers work to make the building safe for firefighters to search. The search operation could take weeks, according to the Met commander Stuart Cundy. (2) A ruptured gas main hampered efforts to quell the fire overnight. It was finally brought under control at 1.14am on Thursday. (3) Theresa May visited the scene where she met members of the emergency services. She was criticised for failing to meet residents during the visit. Jeremy Corbyn also visited the scene. (4) Nine firefighters were hurt in the rescue and there are concerns for their mental health. The fire commander Dany Cotton said: “I’m more concerned longer term about the mental impact on a lot of people who were here. People saw and heard things on a scale they have never seen before.” (5) Labour is demanding a special Commons session to question a senior minister about what the government plans to do in the wake of the fire and ask why it failed to act on coroners’ concerns about two previous tower block fires. The Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, said that what happened amounted to “corporate manslaughter”. (6) There is growing frustration from the families of the missing about the lack of information about their loved ones. The names of at least 24 people have been circulated by friends and family. Police say they cannot give figures on the number of people missing. (7) A total of 37 people are still being treated in hospital, with 17 in critical care. They are in six hospitals across London. (8) The Queen has issued a message of condolence and paid tribute to the bravery of firefighters. (9) A huge relief effort has swung into action, with charity workers and volunteers providing aid for those affected. Residents have voiced their anger at a lack of coordination from the council and other authorities. More than £1m to help displaced residents has been raised via online donations in just over 24 hours. (10) Experts said the fire spread at unusual speed and raised concerns whether the cladding may have contributed to this. The tower, which was built in 1974, recently underwent a major refurbishment. (11) It also emerged the cladding used in Grenfell Tower was behind a rapidly spreading blaze at a tower block in Melbourne in 2014. An eighth-floor fire raced up 13 floors to the roof of the 21-storey building in 11 minutes. The spread was “directly associated” with the external cladding, said the fire brigade. (12) The Grenfell Action Group, a residents’ association, repeatedly warned about the risk of fire and claimed a major blaze was narrowly averted after a power surge in 2013. The group said its concerns were dismissed. (13) Witnesses described screams of terror and people jumping out of flats in an attempt to reach safety. A baby was caught by a member of the public after being dropped from the ninth or 10th floor, a witness said. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:30 AM Post #16 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) The Labour MP Karen Buck says until 2010 Grenfell Tower was in her constituency. She says she was there this morning, and the word that struck her was “accountability”. Not blame, but accountability. And they want it quickly. She says many MP have thousands of residents living in tower blocks. They will want to be reassured. And they need the government to pay for any safety measures needed. Anyone who has been made homeless will need to know that their needs will be met too. Harriet Harman, the former Labour deputy leader, is speaking now. She is MP for Camberwell and Peckham, where six people died in a tower block fire in 2009. She says she know that after this survivors were left without anything, even a phone. They need the state to provide help, she says. And she says there must not be delays. She says, with the Lakanal House fire, the inquest did not take place until four years later, and prosecutions took another two years. She says the Lakanal House fire happened after the building had been refurbished. The same thing happened at Grenfell Tower, she says. She says MPs must make the resources available to stop this happening again. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:32 AM Post #17 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Jeremy Corbyn is speaking now at the briefing. He has just come from the scene of the fire. He says he feels “very angry” that people have lost their lives like this and that so many people are now “traumatised” by what happened. They have a horrible wait for the fire service to find the bodies of their loved ones. He says residents are very angry that they raised concerns which were ignored, for example about alarms and about sprinklers. There are thousands of tower blocks, and hundreds of thousands of people living in them. Every single one of those people will today be frightened and traumatised. He welcomes the fact the inquiry is taking place, but says the residents must get help to ensure they are legally represented. And he says residents should not be shipped out to seaside towns. Kensington is a tale of two cities. The southern part is incredibly wealthy. But the ward where this happened is the poorest in the country, he says. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:33 AM Post #18 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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![]() (The Guardian) The family of 12-year-old Jessica Urbano, missing since the fire, are “getting desperate” for news as they search hospitals. Jessica was last seen on the 20th floor of the block. She became separated in the chaos. Her uncle, Carlos Ruiz, said: “We have just been trying everything – searching all the hospitals, twice, three times over. We haven’t heard anything yet. “We are aware of other families in the same situation – just waiting. It may take a long time to collect everyone’s details. This is a 12-year-old girl and her parents are getting desperate now. All the family are,” he told the Press Association. A tearful female relative showed a missing poster of Jessica to the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, during his visit to St Clement’s church and begged for him to help find her. The poster, which the family has distributed, reads: “Have you seen Jessica Urbano? Missing from Grenfell Tower fire. Jessica is 12 years, approx 5ft with brown eyes and long curly hair.” The family requested journalists not to ring the numbers on her missing poster. “Those numbers are just for people with information about Jessica,” said her uncle. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:34 AM Post #19 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Labour’s Hilary Benn says people in Grenfell Tower were advised to stay in their flats in the event of a fire. But they will have seen people on TV saying they ignored this advice and survived. He says it is essential that people in tower blocks get proper advice, as soon as possible, about what they should do. Labour’s Stephen Timms asks about the status of the review of fire regulations that was requested by the coroner after a previous tower block fire. Nick Hurd says the TV cameras are now being turned on, so you should be able to watch this on the parliament channel. Alok Sharma, the housing minister, says every family that needs to be rehoused will be helped. On the point about building regulations, he says the government did write to landlords after the Lakanal House fire. New fire regulations were issued, he says. There was also due to be a review of fire regulations in 2017-18, he says. He says the scope of that may change in the light of the Grenfell Tower fire. Labour’s Karen Buck says the government today should tell every family that needs housing as a result of the fire that they will get it. They want the reassurance, she says. Nick Hurd, the fire minister, says he will take that point away to the ministerial meeting on this that he is chairing later. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:36 AM Post #20 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Jeremy Corbyn spent half an hour at St Clement’s church, one of the centres coordinating the community response, and pledged to help residents find answers about the fire. “We have to get to the bottom of this,” he said as community leaders showed him the donations that had been pouring in since the disaster. He repeated his pledge on leaving the church, before heading to parliament to raise questions about the fire. “There is desperate stress and sadness,” he said. “There are still bodies to find in that dreadful building. We will demand and get answers.” Earlier, Theresa May visited the tower but did not meet local residents. The prime minister was photographed on a long lens talking to senior figures from the emergency services. Later she announced a public inquiry into the inferno. Along with other community centres, St Clement’s church had closed its doors to donations by Wednesday morning, telling a stream of people arriving with bags and boxes that it could not cope with more items. A man representing Pizza Express told a volunteer the company wanted to deliver “hundreds and hundreds of pizzas”. The offer was declined. The local activists Eve Wedderburn and Dayo Gilmour tried to get into the church to speak to Corbyn but were blocked by volunteers. “We want to tell him that we fear a cover-up over the fire, and that the council will use this as an opportunity to move people out of the borough,” said Wedderburn. “We don’t trust anybody,” said Gilmour. “The voices of small people need to be heard.” Father Gillean Craig, the vicar of St Mary Abbots on Kensington High Street, said the area dean had set up a rota of clergy to be on hand day and night. “When I left at 11pm last night, you could hardly get out for the flow of people laden down with donations. “But support is going to be needed for a very long time yet, and it might need to be professional help because of the level of trauma. It’s wonderful to sit alongside people but the enormity of what’s taken place will take time to seep through, and people will need extraordinary help.” Many residents of blocks close to Grenfell Tower were still excluded from their homes on Wednesday, although a few were allowed back under escort to collect personal items. One family of six, who declined to give their names, said they had slept in their car on Tuesday night after waiting for hours for the council to provide accommodation. “We just got too tired waiting. We’d been up since 1am when we were evacuated,” said one of them. A group of residents were camping on a patch of ground near their cordoned-off flats. William Wake, who was also displaced as a result of the fire, claimed that the Westfield shopping centre had offered to pay for hotel accommodation but the gesture had been rejected by the council. “They claimed to have it all under control,” he said. Fahim Mazhary was one of several locals who expressed fears about “social cleansing”. The fire was a “golden opportunity” for the council to rehouse people outside the borough, he said. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:37 AM Post #21 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Data confirms extreme inequality around Grenfell Tower. From the top floors of the 24-storey Grenfell Tower, residents could see out across Kensington and Chelsea, one of the wealthiest local authorities in the country. But the tower and its residents were situated in one of the most deprived areas in England. The borough is among London’s most unequal, with extreme poverty and wealth living side by side. Data shows that the vicinity of the tower was among the top 10% most deprived areas in England in 2015, ranking alongside parts of Bradford and south Tyneside. According to the English Indices of Deprivation, there were 11 so-called lower super output areas (LSOAs) in Kensington and Chelsea that ranked in the poorest decile in the country. On the other hand, 14 areas in the local authority were among 30% least deprived. The constituency of Kensington, which makes up most of the local authority of Kensington and Chelsea, is the wealthiest in England, with an average income tax bill of £51,000 per taxpayer in 2014-15. The average terraced house sold for £4.3m in 2016. The median weekly household income varies widely across the local authority, from £670 to £1,380. -Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/15/wealth-and-poverty-sit-side-by-side-in-grenfell-towers-borough |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:38 AM Post #22 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Several flats in Grenfell Tower had been advertised for sale or rent after being bought under the right-to-buy scheme. A two-bedroom flat on the 15th floor was recently marketed by Foxtons for £250,000. The agents promoted the home as “a very light and well-proportioned two-bedroomed apartment situated on the 15th floor of this purpose-built block and featuring ample storage space and far-reaching views over London.” One two-bedroom flat on the 18th floor was advertised last December for £455 a week rent, or £1,772 a month. The estate agents described the flat as “a fabulous bright two-bedroom flat furnished within three minutes’ walk to Latimer Road tube station. The flat is on 18th floor of the newly renovated Grenfell Tower with panoramic views of London landmarks.” Another two-bedroom flat on Rightmove was advertised as available from 6 May for £395 a week or £1,712 a month. Photographs advertising the flat show it had been redecorated with a new kitchen and wooden floors. Acccording to Rightmove, three flats had sold recently, including one in 2013 for £185,000 and another for £270,000. Traditional mortgage lenders often refuse to lend on high rise buildings, so they are often bought as rental investments instead of by owner-occupiers. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:39 AM Post #23 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) The Conservative MP Jeremy Lefroy says the inquiry should be conducted under the Inquiries Act, so that people can be compelled to give evidence and made to give evidence under oath. Labour’s Mary Creagh says this was “a manmade disaster”. She says Sharma said it was up to local authorities to enforce building regulations. But she says councils work in according to guidelines set by government. And she says when there is a flood, the Bellwin scheme kicks in to ensure councils get the extra money they need. Why can’t the same thing happen here? |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:40 AM Post #24 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Leigh Day, a law firm that represented 40 victims of the 2016 Shepherd’s Bush tower block fire and advised the residents’ committee after the fatal Lakanal House fire in 2009 in Camberwell, has welcomed the public inquiry. Composite panels or “sandwich panels” at Lakanal House were described at the coroner’s hearing as two external layers filled with a sort of blown or aerated foam. They had been fitted during a major refurbishment of Lakanal House in 2006. In her narrative verdict in the inquest after the tragedy, the coroner, Frances Kirkham, said the replacement of composite panels on Lakanal House had “had a significant impact on the fire resistance of the external wall”. Initial reports suggest composite panels recently fitted to Grenfell Tower during a refurbishment may have contributed to the spread of the fire. Thomas Jervis from Leigh Day, who acts on behalf of 40 victims of the Shepherd’s Bush fire, which is believed to have been started by a faulty appliance, said: “A full public inquiry is overdue as many people across the world have paid with their lives for high rise living. “We await the findings as to the cause of the blaze but we would call on the authorities to take urgent action to identify those buildings which may be at immediate risk.” |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:41 AM Post #25 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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![]() --Key information for those affected by the fire at #GrenfellTower. (London Fire Brigade, 15 June 2017) |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:42 AM Post #26 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) From the 11th floor balcony of Jose de Faria’s home in nearby Adair Tower, the blackened skeleton of Grenfell Tower is half a mile away. His friend Marcia Gomes and her family lived on the 21st floor of the gutted high rise. “She is now in an induced coma in hospital suffering from smoke inhalation,” he said. I was up late that night. I tried to go to sleep but heard a helicopter, got up and looked out of the window. Grenfell Tower was like a match flaring. Then I woke up my wife and we called our friends on the 21st floor. I told them to get out but they didn’t leave. They were told twice by 999 to stay put. It was about 1.20am. I went down there. I rang her again and said they should leave. That was 3.24am. The fire brigade said they were going to get the family. Then her side of the building erupted into flames. Seconds after, I think, they decided to run for their lives. Their youngest daughter went at the front. As they were coming down the stairs, [her husband told me in hospital] they were stepping over bodies. He’s still in shock. Like Marcia Gomes, Jose de Faria belongs to the large Portuguese community that has been settled in north Kensington for many decades. The fire brigade only got up to the 20th floor of Grenfell Tower, he said, and did not reach the trapped family. While Adair Tower has two separate stairwells, he added, there was only one in Grenfell Tower. It was Marcia Gomes’s second high rise fire. She had been visiting the De Faria family last October when a fire broke out on the third floor of Adair Tower. It did not spread beyond that floor but sent smoke billowing through the whole building. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:43 AM Post #27 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) All Grenfell Tower families to be rehoused locally, MPs told --At the Home Office briefing in Westminster Hall David Lammy repeats his call for a criminal investigation. He says a public inquiry should not hold up criminal investigations. Harriet Harman says that, after the Lakanal House fire, residents did not get legal representation at the public inquiry. She asks for an assurance that this will not happen again. Alok Sharma, the housing minister, says the inquiry will be under the Inquiries Act. As for reassurance that can be given to people living in tower blocks, he says the government wants councils and housing providers to carry out checks on property as quickly as possible. He suggests the communities department will be saying more about this later. Jeremy Corbyn asks for an assurance that there will be a proper ministerial statement in the Commons when the Commons starts sitting again. Nick Hurd, the fire minister, is now wrapping up. He says rebuilding lives will be a long-term process. Parliament needs to hold ministers to account throughout that, he says. He says at the ministerial meeting he chaired to determine the government’s response, he sought to push the system very hard. He told officials they should act as if it were their friends and family who were involved. Around the country local authorities and the fire service must ask themselves if the advice they are giving is clear enough. On housing, he says he hopes that after the ministerial meeting later today he can give families needing housing the assurances Karen Buck said they should have. He ends by saying this seems to have been a very unusual fire. We need to understand what happened, he says. Labour’s Clive Efford says Hurd should be more specific about resources. Will the government give local authorities what they need? Hurd says the government is in “no doubt” about the need to help. “Resources aren’t the issue here,” he says. Sharma, the housing minister, adds a final point. Every family from Grenfell Tower that needs to be rehoused will be rehoused locally, housing minister Alok Sharma tells MPs. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:44 AM Post #28 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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![]() (The Guardian) Amid the terrible fallout of the Grenfell Tower disaster, one potential risk has been ruled out: that of a major spike in air pollution across west London. Air pollution experts at King’s College London (KCL) have been monitoring the impact of the blaze on air quality but detected only a small rise in particle pollution in nearby Brent on Wednesday morning, carried there by the north-west wind prevailing at the time. This is because the smoke was lifted high into the air by the heat of the fire and dispersed over a large area before it returned to ground. Concentrations of pollution rose to 80 microgrammes per cubic metre for half an hour after 7am. But averaged across the day, the level remained well below the 24 hour EU limit of 50μg/m3. “There was a tiny bit of air pollution, but really tiny,” said Gary Fuller at KCL. The nature of the fire means the impact close to the site is also likely to have been small. “What normally happens is that the fire is very intense and the smoke is lofted up high and then it gets carried some distance away,” Fuller said. “So you often don’t see effects really close by, but you do see them a few kilometres away.” Similar small spikes were seen after a large warehouse fire on the site of what is now the Olympic Park in 2007 and the fires during the 2011 London riots. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:45 AM Post #29 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) JustGiving has said that £1.65m has been raised so far through several donation pages published on the website. One page, set up under the name Haley Yearwood, has raised £783,878 of its target of £1m. Yearwood wrote: The money raised will go to the residents of Grenfell Tower and will hopefully, even in some small way, help them with whatever they may need in the aftermath. Marilyn Barford was one of many people who donated and left a comment on the page, saying: “I hope in time these people will all be able to rebuild their lives. My heart goes out to them all.” Another fundraising page, set up by Anass Boudarka, reached over £20,000 on Wednesday. It is now up to £38,510. Boudarka said: “I am an A-Level student living in Kensington trying to help as many people as possible in their time of need. Please help us do this by donating.” A spokesperson from JustGiving said: The swell in generosity for those involved in the awful fire at Grenfell Tower has been astonishing. Not only through the hundreds of pages set up on JustGiving, but also those sending supplies to the area. We’ll keep working to ensure that those who want to give can, easily and safely. |
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| Webster | Jun 15 2017, 11:46 AM Post #30 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) There is a growing sense of anger and frustration among the crowds gathered under the Westway flyover where volunteers are sorting and boxing donations. One volunteer, Sinead O’Hare, said the fire and loss of life had tapped into a deeper sense of resentment and alienation. “People are angry about years of Tory policy of cutting corners and costs, and refusing to take responsibility. The interests of the Tory party are closely allied to the interests of business and private landlords,” she said. People from other parts of London who are homeless and hungry had started turning up in the area hoping for food and other necessities, she said. The media is one target for resentment. “You press people didn’t come here when people were blogging about the danger. You only come when people are dead,” said Calvin Benson, who was carrying a handmade sign saying: “I am not a photo opportunity. You pick and choose your stories. The blogs have been active for years but no one was interested.” Several photographers and camera operators have been pushed, jabbed and shouted at as anger and tension have overtaken initial shock at the fire. |
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