Glasgow Central is on Fire!

[weareallqueens]

The fire started in a vape shop, apparently but seems utterly out of control now. No trains in or out of the station. Has hit the Grand Central Hotel too.

I fully agree. The vast majority are money laundering fronts, just like the Turkish barbers, hand car washes, ethnic supermarkets, nail bars, etc. Too many people think "it's ok" because they think they're "just" avoiding tax, but behind them is modern slavery, dangerous workplaces, drugs trade and arms money laundering etc. It's not just the fact they make shopping streets look tacky, there's a lot of human misery behind them too.

"Proper" shops like Currys, Apple, etc will have proper procedures in place and will have smoke/fire alarm systems, staff training, etc and probably don't have literally piles of dangerous stock stored badly. The stock will be properly organised and probably not quite so concentrated as a tiny shop literally full of vapes!

It’s crazy. There is no system for putting out lithium fires. The only option you have is contain and delay and take it somewhere safer to burn out.

So I can’t see what system a vape shop could have. Perhaps contained storage cabinets which flood? But I don’t see that as feasible economically tbh.

We have to store lithium batteries at home for our work. We have fire proof bags and they each are stored individually. I don’t think that actually saves you. Just buys you some time to throw the bag in the garden.

Under ground carparks filled with electric cars below residential also a major issue. I can see a big incident occurring at some point with this.

Not just High Streets. I live in a village. It used to have the normal range of shops etc., but over the years, we're now just left with a co-op. Most of the empty shops have been converted into residential units, an old bigger one is now a private gym. There are two next door to each other which were empty and rotting for several years. Over Winter, both have been occupied - one a vape shop, the other a Turkish barbers - I work opposite - very little, if any, work was done on the buildings, so heaven knows what the state of the electrics and water are in. One week an old and unsafe looking van came and a couple of blokes emptied it with loads of boxes - then they put a load of plastic/vinyl stickers on the windows and doors, and within a couple of days it had opened as the vape shop, complete with flashing neon signs. The following week, another dodgy looking old van arrived and "delivered" a crappy old sofa, and a hairdressing chair, and a different couple of blokes in a crappy old van came and spent the day installing the sink, mirror, etc. Then again, a couple of days later, it was open, again, flashing neon signs, cheap vinyl window signage. Not yet seen a single customer enter either shop - the two blokes running each are often just sat on the crappy old sofa playing on their phones, or stood outside smoking. There's NO WAY these are legitimate businesses. Our village isn't big enough to sustain them, even if they had some customers, none of it adds up.

I’m not sure exactly what their criteria is, but Queen St have emergency exits on both sides and at the front. Same as central generally has, and even when work was being done previously and the side ones weren’t in use as entrances they were still usable as emergency exits.

For a major incident they’d want to be able to use Union St and Hope St for emergency vehicles.

In many ways it will actually be easier to plan for a completely closed station rather than the unexpected delays like power cuts. Going by how quickly the likes of Avanti have made plans this morning it seems like it’s swung into action quickly.

So I can’t see what system a vape shop could have. Perhaps contained storage cabinets which flood? But I don’t see that as feasible economically tbh.

This would therefore limit the number of shops as an unintended consequence of strict fire safety legislation. (As long as shops are inspected and licensed).

Paramount if there are residential properties above.

I think a good start would be obligatory smoke alarms to at least alert the fire service quicker, along with more stringent requirements (that are actually enforced) to have fire extinguishers. Maybe extend it to a requirement to have proper fire retardant materials within the construction, i.e. fire doors, fire retardant walls/ceilings, etc to at least try to slow down the spread to other parts of the building.

I still see shops and offices with those dangerous polystyrene ceiling tiles - I have no doubt at all there'll be some vape shops with those still on the shop ceiling.

The removal of the legal requirement for the fire service to check commercial buildings around 30 years ago was insane. Before then, virtually every business would get a fire service visit every few years. But since the law was changed and it became the business owners' own responsibility to self-police their premises for fire safety, it's inevitable that some simply won't bother and there's no one forcing them to do - it's only after an incident that there could be a prosecution for not complying with fire safety laws as no one is checking otherwise.

But the crux of any changes would have to be that they ARE properly inspected. At the moment, it's very lax, whether it's H&S, or tax, or employment, or trading standards etc - the "dodgy" shops are getting away with it because the checking/inspection regimes of all such bodies are very lax.

Whilst faster response is never a bad thing.

There’s not actually anything fire fighters can do to put out lithium!

And extinguishers do nothing!

I really don’t think people understand about lithium fires.

YOU ACTUALLY CANT DO ANYTHING!

I was working in Ayr for a spell 2.5 years ago. Had to use public transport to get there. It was a ruddy nightmare getting from original destination to Glasgow Central → train from GC to Prestwick → diesel train from Prestwick to Ayr.

No it’s above WH Smith.

it does seem as though the fire service can do something about lithium fires and I remember being shown materials that can be used against lithium battery fires a while ago - the question then was how to get the material around a battery that was in flames but I don’t think it’s right to say you can’t do anything

and most of what is burning isn’t the batteries

The heat in the fire from a lithium battery is almost unimaginable, now consider how many were in that shop and the sheer power of that fire. It’s a miracle nobody is dead!

Probably good that it was a Sunday and a lot of the smaller businesses were closed. I wi be in town this week to go to the office and will pass by the station.

Yes, it would have been so much worse if the buildings were full.

The town is chaos today 😢

Yes it is good that there have been no injuries

and yes I do think there needs to be better legislation and improved monitoring in this area

but scaremongering about the inability to handle such fires isn’t truthful or helpful

Everyone is rushing to the conclusion that the fire was started by a malfunctioning battery. Could just as easily be an electrical fault or any number of possible causes. Maybe we should let the fire investigators do their job before rushing to coonclusions based on no evidence whatsoever.

I have no idea how the fire started and have drawn no conclusions about that here. But if it’s a vape shop it follows that there will be lithium batteries on site regardless whether that’s how it started. You can hear the explosions in the videos circulating. You seem very invested in defending the vape!

So are you really saying that every building which includes a unit selling vapes is at risk of a major fire and likely to end up burnt out and collapsed??

I personally couldn't care less about vapes. I don't use them and never will. But many people seem to be concluding that the fire was caused by a battery catching fire and calling for vape shops to be banned despite there being no evidence of that whatsoever.

Then maybe go and quote the people who are blaming it on vapes and calling for the shops to be banned, I have done neither.

How difficult is it getting about the city centre today? And is there a lot of smoke in the air? I'm supposed to be going to an event about half a mile away tomorrow that 100 people will be travelling to from across Scotland, and I am wondering if it should be cancelled.

I went in about 8am and the roads were pretty gridlocked. It was bad so I decided to go back home. I was up near Caley so not down near central. I imagine it will be really congested all over the town, especially with all the road works around G Sq. plus the ones up at Dobbies Loan/cowcaddens. Central low level lines are running but not stopping at central. Depending where the event is, people could get off at Argyle st low level. Or use Queen street.

Yeah, an electric vehicle went up in flames near us. 3 fire engines and what they did was evacuated nearest houses, dampen a near by grass area, tell other local houses to keep windows and doors shut. Then they watched it burn and made sure people didn't go near it.

See that's what scared the shit out of me and all my neighbours when they wanted to build a BESS near us.

I've heard from a reliable source in the emergency services that it was an E scooter in the vape shop that was originally the source.