Heroic Grenfell firefighters have said they were willing to die in the inferno as they desperately struggled to rescue everyone inside.

They relived their experiences of tackling the horrific fire in a new ITV documentary series exploring the challenges the brigade face every day.

A London Fire Brigade commander said as they battled flames they had 'no intention' of coming out until they had rescued everyone they could, despite their fear the burning building was on the verge of collapse. Commander Welch was one of the first senior officers to arrive at the scene and he described how the flames kept raging as more and more firefighers arrived.

He added: 'Initially they had six machines. Then they asked for eight, and then 10, and then 15, 20 and 25.'

Commander Welch said it very quickly became clear that they needed to declare a major incident .

Commander Pat Goulbourne, who was also at the scene, added that he knew Grenfell Tower and had be there before, reports the Mirror.

He said: 'I just knew we had the job of our lives on the go because already I could see fire from the lower floors and I could not believe I was looking at fire to the top floor. 'I've never seen anything like that. The fire was changing, it was moving rapidly. You could hear people screaming for help. There were people making signals for help. It was dreadful.' 

Commander Goulbourne described 'men, women and children' coming out of the building 'fully sooted'.

The men worked from a bridgehead post two floors below where the fire started on the fourth floor.

Commander Goulbourne said it was the busiest bridgehead he had ever seen.

The June 14 fire, which claimed at least 80 lives, is featured in the ITV series: Inside London Fire Brigade. TV crews followed the London Fire Brigade for 12 months, showing the diverse challenges they face.  

Commander Welch described the logistical problems the firefighters faced when they arrived at the 24-storey building in the early hours of the morning.

'We had our hoses going up the staircase, he said. 'We had people trying to get out coming down the staircase.

'We've got firefighters going up the staircase and the staircase was filling with smoke.

'The priority was really to try to reach the flats we knew had people in. The issue we had was the intensity of the fire'.