AN investigation has been launched into the cause of the Union Street fire in Glasgow, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has confirmed in a major update on the blaze.
The fire service put out a statement on Monday afternoon stating that they “cannot at this early stage speculate on what happened” and that more than 200 firefighters were involved in the response effort.
It comes as a senior officer in SFRS said it took a “huge effort” for fire crews to prevent the blaze from spreading to a nearby hotel. It has been confirmed that the fire began in a vape shop, but it is not yet known how it started.
Only the facade of the B-listed Victorian building at the junction of Union Street and Gordon Street has been left standing, though firefighters managed to prevent the blaze from reaching the Grand Central Hotel on the opposite side of the station.
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A huge cordon is now in place around multiple streets in the city centre, with Police Scotland confirming that several roads had been closed and diversions put in place.
SFRS said the alarm was raised at 3.46pm on Sunday 8 March.
There were 18 fire appliances and specialist resources deployed at the height of the incident, with a high-volume pump drawing water from the River Clyde being deployed. As of Monday morning, eight fire appliances and three high reach vehicles remained at the scene.
A rapid relief team tent was set up on Renfield Street, providing crews on the ground with water and food as the day went on.
SFRS said there have been no reported casualties, either from the public or SRFS staff, but the fire caused “extensive damage” to the building. The fire service said that crews are now working to “cool off hotspots within the stonework” and assisting structural engineers to assess how stable the parts of the building that remain are.
Members of the public have been advised to avoid the area, while local residents have been urged to keep their windows closed as a precaution.
Glasgow Central Station, SFRS said, remains closed due to the “proximity” of the fire to railway infrastructure and the “presence of significant debris”.
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service statement
A SFRS spokesperson said: "This has been a significant incident in Glasgow city centre, which has involved hundreds of firefighters working tirelessly since yesterday afternoon.
"We have now scaled back and eight appliances, including three high-reach vehicles, remain in attendance.
"The initial response involved crews from Glasgow and Lanarkshire, however any incident on this level would need to draw on resources from across Scotland as we bring in relief crews to take over.
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"We cannot speculate on the cause of the fire at this time. In line with fire investigation protocols, a multi-agency investigation will be conducted, however due to the significant damage that has occurred this may be hampered."
It comes as assistant chief officer David Farries told journalists it was not known exactly what was inside the building where the fire started.
He said: “We’re not sure at this time, in terms of what the contents of the properties were at that point. Clearly, we were mobilised to an incident in what was a vape shop on the street.
“But we need to do full investigations with our multi-agency partners to understand the nature of the fire and understand why the fire spread the way that the fire did.”
Farries continued: “Clearly, we’ve stopped the fire spreading at the Grand Central Hotel, which was a huge effort from our crews.”
Asked about the ferocity of the fire, he said: “I think the pictures speak for themselves – that’s a very intense fire.”
Asked whether anything about the structure of the building caused the fire to escalate, Farries said: “We’re used to fighting fires in old buildings, and you’ll be aware that clearly, there’s buildings all over Scotland which are from this kind of Victorian era.
“Our firefighters are trained to work on these premises, but ultimately committing firefighters into buildings that are fully involved in fire is clearly dangerous, and it’s not something that we would do when potentially we would like to fight that fire in a different way and make sure the fire doesn’t spread to adjacent buildings.
“So it’s about making sure that we keep our firefighters safe and the public safe without letting the fire spread as far as we can possibly help.”
He added: “I think everybody’s been really shocked by the great intensity of that fire, which makes it all more impressive that they’ve managed to stop that fire.”
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