Lessons from the Summerland fire that killed 50 people in Douglas in 1973 could have prevented the Grenfell Tower tragedy, researchers say.

A BBC documentary to be aired tonight (Tuesday) will say that the Summerland fire in 1973 was the first of five major ’fires that foretold Grenfell’.

The others were Knowsley Heights fire, Liverpool (1991); Garnock Court fire, Irvine, North Ayrshire (1999); Harrow Court fire, Stevenage, Hertfordshire (2005), and Lakanal House, London (2009).

The programme focuses on three factors: the application of flammable material and cladding to buildings, the ’stay put’ advice given by fire services, the absence of sprinklers - and how they contributed to each of the previous five blazes, sometimes with fatal consequences.

It was made over the course of 12 months for the BBC by production company Amos Pictures.

Researchers say: ’[The programme] tells the story of the legislative history of building regulations from 1973 to the present day through five fires.

’It explores the causes, subsequent investigations and the recommendations that were sent to successive UK governments, ultimately posing the question: if lessons had been learned as a result of tragic repetition of errors over the decades, could Grenfell have been avoided?’

Amos Pictures were in the island last June, filming interviews with people involved with the Summerland fire.

One of those was Tina Brennen, from Kirk Michael, who has been a vocal campaigner for establishing a permanent memorial on the site to those who died.

For Mrs Brennen, witnessing the Summerland fire has been something which she has never been able to forget. When she saw reports of the Grenfell fire unfolding on the television she said: ’It was what it brought back. It was just like the Summerland fire all over again, the speed of it and the way it took hold.’

She recalled the moment when she was just 19 and living in Port Jack with her husband, John, and they first saw smoke rising from the direction of the building. Realising it was serious they went to see what was happening. What they found has stayed with her for the rest of her life.

She said: ’There was this inferno. It was just like looking into the jaws of hell.’

Although Mrs Brennen did not lose family in the fire and neither she nor John was injured, that sight prompted a compassion for victims and a determination to see their lives marked in some meaningful way.

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She said: ’When you witness something like that you never forget it.’

And she added: ’At the time of the fire no one was held accountable, no one resigned, no one was sacked, no on went to court to account for what had happened.

’We were told at the time by the UK press that [a fire like this] could never have happened in the UK because their fire regulations were more up to date than ours and they were right: our fire regulations at the time dated back to regulations for the theatres in Victorian times.

’Thirty-two recommendations were made and acted upon.’

In recent years there had been well-documented uncertainty about the future of the Summerland site and still no memorial has been put in place there.

Five years ago, to coordinate with the 40th anniversary of the fire, Mrs Brennen took matters into her own hands and started a petition for one which attracted 2,000 signatures. For the last five years she has also held an unofficial memorial event on the site with a one minute silence for the victims. She is determined to get what she calls ’a permanent and substantial’ memorial put on the site.

She said: ’I feel very strongly about it. To me, that site is sacred. We haven’t earned the right to sell that site and take what is blood money for it.

’This was a huge injustice. The families of those that died never got accountability.

’The very least we can do is to commemorate the victims on the site where they were killed.’

’The Fires That Foretold Grenfell’ airs on BBC2 at 9pm on Tuesday, October 30.