JOHN Swinney has described the fire at a building next to Glasgow Central station as a "colossal incident".
Scotland’s First Minister also said his Government was willing to help the city council with the “immediate, significant, and unexpected” financial consequences of the blaze.
All train services from Scotland’s busiest railway station were cancelled on Monday, with the station unlikely to reopen on Tuesday.
Several city centre streets have been closed off as a result of the fire, which led to a building partially collapsing.
"This is a colossal incident and I'm deeply grateful to the emergency services for handling it in the way that they have," the First Minister told reporters on Monday.
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"From what I've been briefed about so far – although I've obviously not heard everything in the last couple of hours – the incident appears to be contained and thankfully we've had no serious injuries reported.
"But there will be enormous disruption to the city centre, disruption to the economy, disruption to members of the public."
Swinney added: “The Government recognises that there will be a significant financial cost arising out of this incident.
“We’re in the early days of all of that. But I want to signal our willingness to support Glasgow City Council and to support them financially in dealing with the consequences, which will be immediate, significant and unexpected."
Asked about setting up a specific fund, Swinney said: "I don't want to be prescriptive at this stage because I don't know quite what the what the extent of the disruption will be and what the circumstances will be, but we'll engage to address that with Glasgow City Council. I give the commitment at the outset that I recognise there's going to have to be additional financial support for Glasgow to recover from that."
He added that he "can't imagine it won't" be in the multi-million pound region.
The First Minister then said that the issue of unused historic buildings would be looked at.
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"On this particular incident, in terms of what I'm being briefed, though again it's early stages in the investigation, the fire started in a vaping shop, so it's an incident that's originated there and obviously it has spread to other buildings and that in itself is of concern," he said.
"The second issue is about the condition of historic buildings and in many cases empty buildings in the city centre.
"I think we've got to look carefully at what solutions might well be in place because some of these buildings will not have had a use for some time and putting them into active use is a priority.
"We've got to find the mechanisms to enable that to be the case, but that's very much the discussions we'll take forward with Glasgow City Council."
Elsewhere, Downing Street paid tribute to the bravery of firefighters who dealt with the “devastating” blaze.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said: “Clearly, this has been a devastating incident for Glasgow, the loss of historic buildings that have dominated the city centre for so long. Our thoughts also go to those who have lost businesses and livelihoods.
“In this event, the emergency services were quick to respond to the situation. Scottish Fire and Rescue deployed 18 appliances and specialist resources at the height of the incident. We thank them and for their efforts and bravery.
“The response has now been scaled back, but emergency services remain on the scene. The advice for the public is to continue to avoid the area, and for those impacted by travel disruption to keep across updates from National Rail.”
No 10 would not say whether Keir Starmer plans to visit Glasgow following the fire, adding that his travel plans would be set out in the “usual way”.
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