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Concerns have been raised about the capacity of Scotland’s fire service to deal with large fires like the one that gutted a Victorian office block in Glasgow as 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 standard city-based fire engines were on the scene within minutes of the first 999 call, the nearest available high-reach appliance – which adds vital additional capacity to tackle a large blaze – came from Coatbridge, an 11-mile (18km), 26-minute drive away in light traffic.
The Guardian understands that after cuts in 2023 that reduced the number of high-reach fire engines across Scotland from 26 to 16, there is now only one stationed around Glasgow city centre, at Maryhill, with another in the nearby town of Johnstone. On Sunday, there were two other significant fires in the east end of Glasgow and also in Dumfries, and a hazardous materials incident in Edinburgh, where that vehicle may have been deployed before the Union Street fire was called in.
The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, challenged the first minister, John Swinney, over these cuts at first minister’s questions, saying: “We don’t know right now what difference the reduction in fire service capacity would have made on Sunday. We need an immediate investigation into any potential impact this may have had on the response so that lessons can be urgently learned.”
Standard fire engines were initially mobilised from three stations in or very near Glasgow city centre – Calton, Cowcaddens and Maryhill – with the earliest arriving five minutes after the first emergency call.
Further appliances came from Springburn and Polmadie, outer suburbs of the city, and Bellshill, a town 10 miles south-east of the city centre.
After a request for further support, the first high-reach appliance was mobilised from Coatbridge, with further high-reach appliances based in Greenock (25 miles away), Kilmarnock (22 miles), Falkirk (26 miles) and Edinburgh (50 miles).
A high-reach vehicle has a mobile ladder with a 32-metre reach, compared with the fixed point 13.5-metre ladder on a normal vehicle. This allows a significant volume of water to be applied quickly from a height and provides additional rescue capability and safety for firefighters. But these vehicles are much more expensive to buy and maintain.
Colin Brown, an executive council member of the Fire Brigades Union Scotland, told the Guardian: “The reality is that, as an incident commander, if you make the decision you need additional resources then you need them urgently and you’re going to be counting the seconds until they arrive.
“Overall, Scotland’s response time has gone up by about a minute and a half since 2016, but at Union Street it took six minutes to get the first pump on the scene, so that’s well below the average. It’s difficult to know at this stage whether previous cuts to height resources or deployment to other incidents had a direct impact … But there is that wider question – when there’s 18 appliances on one job, what’s the geographical spread that we’re covering with fewer resources? Those 18 pumps are usually waiting to respond within the locale of their community”.
Brown pointed out that, at the same time as the first minister was visiting the scene of the fire on Monday, he was “sitting in a meeting with government civil servants being briefed on proposed public sector pay and workforce cuts that could see a further 2.5% reduction in headcount for the fire and rescue service, the very people who worked tirelessly to tackle the blaze on Union Street and stopped it being so much worse”.
Sarwar added: “We know there are now fewer firefighters, less firefighting equipment, longer response times and stations closed. Our fire and rescue service has already faced years of cuts. The tragedy on Sunday must be a wake-up call and a reason to pause.”
The Scottish fire and rescue service has been approached for a further response.
