Concerns have been raised about the ability of Scotland’s fire service to deal with major fires such as the one that destroyed a Victorian office block in Glasgow when it emerged that the city’s only remaining fire engine with a high-reach ladder was unavailable on Sunday.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that while the city’s regular fire engines arrived at the scene within minutes of the first 999 call, the nearest available high-range apparatus – adding vital additional capacity to combat a large fire – was from Coatbridge, 18km and a 26-minute drive away with light traffic.
The Guardian understands that, following cuts in 2023 that reduced the number of high-range fire engines in Scotland from 26 to 16, there is now just one parked around Glasgow city centre, at Maryhill, and another in the nearby town of Johnstone. On Sunday, there were two other major fires in the east end of Glasgow and also in Dumfries, and a hazmat incident in Edinburgh, where that vehicle may have been deployed before the Union Street fire broke out.
Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar questioned First Minister John Swinney over these FMQ cuts, saying: “We don’t know now what difference reducing fire service capacity on Sunday would have made.
“We need an immediate investigation into any potential impact this has had on the response so that lessons can be learned urgently.”
Standard fire engines were initially mobilized from three stations in or very close to Glasgow city center (Calton, Cowcaddens and Maryhill), with the first arriving five minutes after the first emergency call.
Other appliances came from Springburn and Polmadie, outer suburbs of the city, and Bellshill, a town 10 miles south-east of the city centre.
Following a request for additional support, the first high-range device was mobilized from Coatbridge, 13 miles and 26 minutes away in light traffic, with other high-range devices located in Greenock (25 miles), Kilmarnock (22 miles away), Falkirk (26 miles) and Edinburgh (50 miles).
A high-reach vehicle has a mobile ladder with a reach of 32 meters, compared to the 13.5-meter fixed-point ladder of a normal vehicle. This allows a significant volume of water to be quickly applied from a height and provides additional rescue capacity and safety for firefighters. But these vehicles are much more expensive to purchase and maintain.
Colin Brown, executive board member of the Scottish Fire Brigade Union, told The Guardian: “The reality is that as an incident commander, if you make the decision that you need additional resources, you will need them urgently and you will count the seconds until they arrive.
“Overall, Scotland’s response time has increased by around a minute and a half since 2016, but in Union Street it took six minutes for the first pump to arrive on the scene, so it is well below average. It is difficult to know at this stage whether previous cuts to height resources or deployment to other incidents had a direct impact… But there is a wider question: when there are 18 appliances on a job, what is the geographical spread we are covering with fewer resources? There are usually 18 pumps waiting for respond within their community area.”
Mr Brown noted that at the same time as the Prime Minister was visiting the site of the fire on Monday, he was: “sitting in a meeting with government officials being briefed on proposed public sector pay and job cuts that could see a further 2.5% reduction in fire and rescue service workforce – the same people who worked tirelessly to fight the Union Street fire and prevented it from getting much worse.”
Sarwar added: “We know there are now fewer firefighters, fewer firefighting teams, longer response times and closed stations. Our fire and rescue service has already faced years of cuts. Sunday’s tragedy should be a wake-up call and a reason to pause.”
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has been contacted for a further response.
