MY wife and I were strolling in New York in the summer of last year, on our way to see a Broadway show, when we passed a local fire station. We stopped to read a plaque outside with a list of its firefighters killed in the twin towers on 11th September, 2001.
It was a haunting moment.
I recalled that plaque a few days back on the 10th anniversary of the atrocity. It was a grim reminder that those who fight fires so often pay a heavy price. Scotland is now set to have a single fire service, it has been decided, much to the chagrin or doubt of many local fire personnel. But did you know there has been a fire service in Inverness for 233 years – and that this will not be the first time there has been a single fire service north of the border?
The Inverness Burgh Fire Brigade was nationalised in 1941 as part of a wartime emergency approach, which divided the UK into
11 regions, with Scotland as one region. This strategy was in response to confusion caused when, responding to blazes caused by Nazi bombing, many machines arrived at the scene with conflicting types of equipment. With London enduring a Blitz for 76 successive nights, this lack
of uniformity was fatal.
Clydebank was the worst affected in Scotland, when it was blitzed in March 1941 with over 500 people killed, over 600 seriously injured and only seven houses in the whole town still standing. Thankfully, being so far north, Inverness was spared.
There was also an urgent wartime need for more skilled firemen as well as standardisation of equipment and procedures. Area training schools enabled new recruits to be speedily trained and, in turn, many of these successfully trained were promoted to instructors to train the next batch. By 1942, the evidence was that the service throughout Britain was much more efficient.
This nationalised set up lasted until the Fire Services Act of 1947, which restored local services the following year. Will that ever happen once Mr Salmond’s single service comes into operation?
A couple of friends in the Inverness brigade accept that there may be significant efficiency savings from the move, but warn the price will be a lack of local accountability and local control. A single service will trigger a cull of senior managers, which could result in a potentially dangerous loss of local knowledge. This, in turn, may impact on maintaining frontline operations, which is already difficult due to budget restraints. We will see.
I recall seeing the huge, spectacular forest fire which swept across the A9 near the Carrbridge turnoff in the summer of 1976 and lasted for weeks. Fortunately, the location was pretty uninhabited but it was a challenging blaze, with one crew having to beat a hasty retreat and abandon their engine. As they were fleeing air cylinders: that was remarkably close to an awful tragedy.
I remember Jimmy McNicol being firemaster and chairman of Caledonian FC, and that shrewd character and later a Nairn councillor Bill Shand, under whose reign Inverness won the British Fire Service Cup with many firemen-footballers such as Billy Dingwall, Frankie Watt, Richie Mackay, Vic Fridge and John Docherty. Philip Black, who died tragically this year, managed that great team with humour and skill. Cynics whispered in those days that if you could kick a ball you could be a fireman!
One good footballer, Gordon Gillespie, was disabled when an engine crashed on the Loch Ness road on 10th May, 1990, badly injuring several of its occupants. Gordon, from his wheelchair, showed great resourcefulness by going on to up a successful photography business as well as participating with distinction in disability sports events.
Former Clach and Caley centre forward Donnie Grant was another extremely well-respected firemaster and the brigade has been an important employer in the city with, in recent years, up to 80 full time personnel and a dozen part-timers. Now, of course, we’re operating under a temporary firemaster while waiting for the appointment of the man to head up the new all-Scotland service.
I recall the tale of a major blaze which meant units were summoned from all over the Highlands. Those fighting the fire were astonished when the Ullapool brigade arrived, driving straight into the middle of the fire with its crew jumping out to battle the flames with unparalleled energy. Inspired, the other units rushed to their aid and the blaze was extinguished.
The Ullapool brigade was awarded £1000 for their bravery and asked what they would do with the money. The driver said: "The first thing we’ll do is get the damn brakes on the engine fixed."
Or the crofter from Abriachan who phoned in: "My barn’s on fire, come quickly." The operator says: "Calm down, tell us how to get there". And the crofter says: "Don’t you have those big red fire engines any more?"
Ironically, the Inverness Fire Engine Establishment was set up in 1819 thanks to the sponsorship of an insurance company which donated a fire engine, the first in the Highlands. It took voluntary donations to meet the running costs of the new service, based behind the Town House.
In the early days of the service in Inverness, the water supply ran from the River Ness to a storage tank at Old Edinburgh Road, then Loch Ashie became a water source for the town in 1883, allowing many more fire hydrants in the Highland capital. If the water supply was only a trickle at a fire scene "Burn Drawers" carried large casks of water from the river on ponies.
Apparently, if the fire was at night, everyone who helped the brigade went to the police station next day to be paid. More helpers turned up for reimbursement than could possibly have helped, causing animosity until firemen started handing out slips to people to swap for a few bob next day.
Duncan Macdonald of Inverness, firemaster from 1950-56 wrote that in the early 1800s, if there was a fire at night, a policeman had to rush round the firemen’s houses blowing a whistle, which must have thrilled the snoozing neighbours. This arrangement hardly led to a rapid response. But, in 1860, alarm bells, controlled from the police station, were installed in each volunteer’s house.
Macdonald highlights another problem of the era in that engines were pulled by horses. In an emergency, cabmen and carters would unyoke their horses in High Street and take them to the fire station to help out.
In 1883 the council asked the head of Glasgow Fire Brigade to assess the Inverness resources and acted on his recommendation on the need for more and better equipment. The council bought the Highlands’ first steam-driven fire engine, allowing the equine stalwarts to put up their hooves.
During the war, the service tackled major blazes at Rothiemurchus, where a forest fire endangered farms, and in 1915 at Dunrobin Castle, which was at the time used as a naval hospital. Special trains were chartered from Inverness to take the fire engines to the fires.
Beaufort Castle, Beauly, was extensively damaged, costing over £150,000, in 1938 and while the Inverness Brigade were responding fireman George McDougall fell from the engine to his death.
The next year the council dug deep and spent £2000 on a six turbine fire engine with pumping capacity of 600 gallons a minute. The burgh council then agreed to collect £680 a year from Inverness county council to answer distress calls for surrounding communities.
Renamed the Northern Area Fire Brigade from 1948, the full-timers were located at a base at Fraser Park which basically comprised of a few sheds, the part-timers continuing to use Castle Wynd. But it all changed in 1958 when a £45,000 new fire station opened in Harbour Road.
That fine Invernessian and later Provost, W.J. ‘Bobo’ Mackay, presided over the opening ceremony as chairman of the Northern Area Fire Committee and he said the new building was the HQ for an area of 11,000 square miles, from Ballachulish to Unst in Shetland. In 1983 the service was renamed the Highlands and Islands Fire Brigade and six years ago it was changed once more to its present tag, Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. It now has 127 stations throughout a vast area, including a training facility in Invergordon, but Harbour Road remains its hub.
It is also unusual to note that if anyone in the UK reports a fire using a mobile phone, there are only three operator assistance centres. They are in Blackburn, Newcastle – and Inverness.
It’s a long time since those ponies carried water to fires. Our city and its surrounding communities now has highly professional round-the-clock cover, using the most modern equipment. We’re fortunate Harbour Road does not have one of those plaques I saw on that New York station. I hope we never have.
