LIVE VIDEO - Fire engulfs London high-rise apartment building

London, Eng. — Fire swept through a high-rise apartment building in west London early Wednesday, killing an unknown number of people and sending more than 50 people to area hospitals.

Flames shot from windows all the way up the 24-story Grenfell Tower in North Kensington as more than 200 firefighters battled the blaze. A plume of smoke stretched for miles (kilometers) over the capital. The scent of acrid smoke hung in the air.

"This is an unprecedented incident," Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton told reporters on the scene. "In my 29 years of being a firefighter I have never, ever seen anything of this scale."

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Cotton said a number of people died in the fire, but she couldn't yet confirm how many because of the size and complexity of the building. Witnesses said that they saw people jumping from the upper floors.

Local residents said they had warned local authorities about fire issues in the building, a public housing block built in 1974 and containing 120 homes, according to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.