Fire at Student Halls in Wembley

Early Tuesday morning at Unite student halls in Wembley, a fire broke out on the fifth floor. Around 3am a group of students were in the kitchen cooking when a grease fire began. In a panic to try and put out the fire, they threw water on it, which caused it to spread throughout the rest of the kitchen.

The alarm failed to sound on all floors of the building, so it was up to knocking on doors and texting friends to get Unite evacuated. For 6 hours residents of the building waited outside in the cold for the damage to be assessed.

Pipes had burst on the fifth floor, flooding all the floors under it. This also caused a massive power outage to the bottom half of the building. Power outages continued to happen as the rest of the week went on as well. 

Since the fire, students staying on the first five floors have been relocated to hotels and other student accommodation throughout London. 

No harm was caused to anyone involved in the fire, however there was a fair bit of property damage from flooding. Throughout the week people have been sent in to fix everything that was affected by water damage. 

Students living in Unite have taken to Twitter to demand compensation for their current living situation. Many argue that under the given circumstances, they should not be paying a thousand pounds per month for a room they can’t live in.  

This isn’t the first time students have been upset with how things are handled at Unite. Earlier this year there was a problem with a loose snake in the building, which has still yet to be found. Resident Kirsten Hubbard said she was in constant fear of her safety. 

In 2017 Unite Wembley failed multiple fire inspections. They were told that if the cladding was not replaced, another incident like Grenfell would happen. Luckily new cladding was installed right before students started moving in for fall semester this year. If it wasn’t, it’s likely the incident would have done a lot more damage. 

- Haley Lindbak