QUINTINSHILL - 1915

The Quintinshill rail disaster occurred May 22, 1915, between Glasgow and Carlisle. A troop train collided with a local and an express plowed into the wreckage. As many as 226 people died; 246 were hurt.

GREAT WESTERN ROAD - 1972

Photo: Glasgow City Council

On Nov. 18, 1972, a fire at a disused furniture shop killed a Glasgow firefighter and another person.

The shop was located in Great Western Road.

According to The Glasgow Story website:

"Forty-one dwellings, six shops, two public houses and a post office were destroyed by fire or subsequent demolition and fifty families were made homeless.

"A stretch of the Glasgow Underground was damaged and had to be closed.

"In the wake of the incident, which came close on the heels of the Kilbirnie Street disaster of 25 August, there were demands for the introduction of greater fire safety precautions."

CLUTHA VAULTS - 2013

On Nov. 29, 2013, a police helicopter crashed into Clutha Vaults, a pub on the north bank of the River Clyde in central Glasgow. Ten people died. (All three aboard the helicopter, six on the ground, with another succumbing later to injuries sustained in the pub.)

THEATRE ROYAL - 1969

On Nov. 3, 1969, a blaze at Glasgow's Theatre Royal claimed the life of fireman Archie McLay, according to the Evening Times.

The fire brigade turned to high expansion foam to flood the basement and extinguish the flames, which burned for 10 hours.

At the time, the building housed studios of Scottish television.

According to STV:

The fireman fell through a trapdoor in the building and was unable to activate his BA distress warning system.

Another firefighter who attended the blaze, John Jamieson, went on to invent an automatic Distress Signal Unit (DSU) for firefighters which would go off if they stopped moving for 30 seconds.

HALL STREET

Glasgow's Hall Street Fire Station on V-E Day in 1945

KILBIRNIE STREET - 1972

 

 

 

Photos: BBC, Scottish Television

UPDATED JANUARY 2014

On Aug. 25, 1972, seven Glasgow firemen perished at Sher Brothers warehouse on Kilbirnie Street.

Divisional officer Andrew Quinn, leading fireman Alastair Crofts, and firemen Iain Bermingham, Allan Finlay, William Hooper and Duncan McMillan died trying to evacuate a colleague, James Rook, who was pinned beneath shelving in the attic.

"Whilst evacuating the property after successfully rescuing the trapped firefighter, a massive flashover of extreme heat overtook them resulting in the deaths of all seven firefighters," according to Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

Temperatures reached 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

On the 40th Anniversary of the tragedy, retired firefighter Hugh Welsh, who was on the scene that day, told the BBC:

"I hate to say it, but it was an ordinary fire.

"It was not any worse than fires I had been at or even attended after it.

"It was just a fire that went not the proper way."

The Sher Brothers warehouse was originally built as a stable in 1899.

MOTORIZATION

Photo at Central Fire Station, Ingram Street, circa 1906, from collection of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums 

From The Glasgow Story

 

In 1906, Glasgow Fire Brigade bought their first motor pumps from Merryweather of London, one of which is shown on the right of this photograph.

The Merryweather contrasts with the old style Shand Mason steamer on the left.

Steamers cost more to run than the motor pumps as they required not only coal to fuel the boilers but the purchase and care of the horses which pulled them.

During the early 1900s steamers were phased out and replaced by the more cost-efficient and modern motor pumps.