Sir Ken Knight

Sir Ken commenced his fire service career in 1966 and served as a fire chief in a number of UK fire and rescue services before becoming London’s Fire Commissioner in 2003.

From 2007 until January 2013, Sir Ken was the UK Government’s Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser for England, advising on fire policy matters and providing advice during major emergencies and planning for the 2012 London Olympics.

Sir Ken has produced a number of organisational reviews including:

• a report for UK Government on the fire and rescue services response to widespread flooding in 2007
• an efficiencies review of the 46 fire and rescue services in England which was commissioned by the
• a report commissioned by Government on a high-rise fatal fire in London in

Sir Ken also completed a review of the fire and rescue services in Southern Ireland, Bermuda and Gibraltar and the national fire safety and civil defence arrangements in the Kurdish region of Iraq at the request of the Kurdish Regional Government.

Following the fire at Grenfell Tower, London in 2017 in which 71 people tragically lost their lives, Sir Ken was appointed as the Chair of the Independent Expert Advisory Panel

Her Majesty the Queen awarded Sir Ken the Queen’s Fire Service Medal in 1991 and the CBE in 2001. Sir Ken was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the fire and rescue service.