This Is My GlasgowJun 12, 2023

A community mosaic created by pupils from Anderston and Saint Patrick's Primary Schools in association with Impact Arts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the fire at a bonded whisky warehouse on Cheapside Street in Glasgow where fourteen firemen and five members of the city's salvage corp were killed.

#glasgow #firefighters #memorial #glasgowfireservice #cheapsidestreetfire #clydewalkway #kingstonbridge #anderstonprimary #stpatrickaprimary

Show threadThis Is My Glasgow
The Cheapside Street fire was one of the worst peacetime fires in British history and every fire engine on Glasgow attended the blaze. The warehouse contained a million gallons of whisky and thirty thousand gallons of rum. When some of the casks ruptured from the heat, it created a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion) which blew out rhe walls of the building, killing some of the firemen instantly and burying others. It took a week to finally extinquish the blaze.
Jun 12, 2023 at 10:39pmWeb
Show threadThis Is My GlasgowJun 12, 2023

As well as this community mosaic, there is an official memorial plaque on the banks of the Clyde near the Kingston Bridge and a tomb where those who were killed are laid to rest in the city's Necropolis.

#glasgow #firefighters #memorial #glasgowfireservice #cheapsidestreetfire #clydewalkway #kingstonbridge #anderstonprimary #stpatrickaprimary

Show threadAllyDJun 13, 2023
@thisismyglasgow The testimony from survivors of the #cheapsidestreetfire was horribly evocative, the outbreak "like a tracery of ivy on the walls illuminated by blue flame", then "blazing whisky ... coming down like rain", images that stay in the mind. (Quoted in Kenneth Roy's fine postwar #ScottishHistory , "The Invisible Spirit" p250-5)