Tinderbox Heroes

Tinderbox heroes now on sale.

Tinderbox Heroes, a book that commemorates the 50th annniversary on Sunday 28th March of the Cheapside Street Disaster and major fires that broke out in postwar Glasgow, is now on sale.

The book, published by Strathclyde Fire & Rescue's Retired Employees Association, is available at Waterstones' branches in Sauchiehall Street and Argyle Street, Glasgow, and at The Avenue Shopping Centre, Newton Mearns, price £12.99.

Tinderbox Heroes uses Glasgow Fire Service reports,  first-hand accounts of fire service veterans  and outstanding photographs from the archives of the Herald and Evening Times to tell the dramatic story of firefighting in Glasgow when it was known as Tinderbox City.

The book marks the 50th anniversary of the Cheapside Street disaster when 14 firemen and five members of Glasgow Salvage Corps were killed when a whisky bond exploded. That was the highest loss of life in the peacetime history of the British Fire Service.

Tinderbox Heroes also gives moving and dramatic accounts of other major fires including the Graftons fashion store fire in Argyle Street in 1949 when 13 young female shop assistants died, the James Watt Street fire of 1968 which claimed the lives of 22 factory workers and the Kilbirnie Street fire of 1972 when seven firemen were trapped and killed in a warehouse blaze.

Tinderbox Heroes is written by Alan Forbes, Public Affairs Manager of Strathclyde Fire & Rescue, and James Smith, a retired staff officer of Glasgow Fire Service and Strathclyde Fire Brigade and an authority on fire service history who attended many of the fires described in the book.