Fire Science Show
Fire Science Show
178 - Origin stories of fire prevention and firefighting with Michał Stachowicz
Happy 200th birthday, Scottish Fire and Rescue Services!!! I'm a bit late to the party. Still, I've done my best to celebrate your anniversary in the best way I can - by giving homage to the amazing fire safety engineering and firefighting that came out of Edinburgh and your founder, James Braidwood.
In this episode, we tap into the secrets of early fire safety measures and discover the fascinating history of firefighting with our guest, Michał Stachowicz, a dedicated Scottish firefighter. We promise you'll gain a newfound appreciation for the roots of fire engineering, which surprisingly predate the establishment of professional firefighting. From the early codifications of the 1400s to the impactful Great Fire of London in 1666, this episode is brimming with riveting tales and historical insights into the evolution of fire protection in the UK.
We take a journey through time as we contrast the altruism of today's firefighters with the profit-driven origins of fire protection, shaped significantly by insurance companies. Learn about the preventative measures that were set in place long before formal fire services existed, including the fascinating use of historical firewalls in cities like Copenhagen. We also explore the pioneering efforts of James Braidwood, whose revolutionary work in risk management and fire prevention set the stage for organised firefighting in Edinburgh and London during the 19th century.
Join us as we honour Braidwood's legacy and his transformative impact on fire safety regulations and practices. From his groundbreaking techniques, such as early personal protective equipment and strategic fire station placements, to his radical ideas on fire spread prevention, Braidwood's forward-thinking approach remains influential. Despite facing financial hurdles and limited cooperation, his vision for a unified fire service prevailed, underscoring the enduring significance of his contributions. Michał Stachowicz helps us celebrate the indelible mark Braidwood left on the firefighting community, offering a compelling narrative for history enthusiasts and fire safety advocates alike.
Read more about Braidwood in this memoir book: Fire Prevention and Extinction by James Braidwood.
Visit the Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage
Learn about the Great Fire of Edinburgh
Cover image: One of Edinburgh's first fire engines from 1824, By Kim Traynor - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19965754
Thank you to the SFPE for recognizing me with the 2025 SFPE Fire Safety Engineering Award! Huge thanks to YOU for being a part of this, and big thanks to the OFR for supporting me over the years.
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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.
Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show.
Speaker 1:Did you know that some first codification of fire safety countermeasures was brought in the UK in the 1400s and that was like 200 years before the professional firefighting is developed? I never realized that fire safety engineering was older than firefighting. In a way and this is a type of a fact that you will learn from this episode of the Fire Science Show the direct reason of recording this episode is the 200th birthday of the Scottish Fire Rescue Services. So happy birthday, scottish firefighters. It's very impressive that your company is 200 years old. That's not that many companies in fire safety that would have such track record. But this episode is not just about the amazing developments in Edinburgh 200 years ago. It's about the history of our discipline, a very, far, far history and a very interesting history. Actually I've invited a colleague, a fellow Polish who lives in Scotland, who's a Scottish firefighter, michał Stachowicz, and he is very passionate about the history of firefighting. He dug all of those amazing resources about the early beginnings of the firefighting, early beginnings of fire safety engineering, and in this episode we discussed that in depth fire safety engineering, and in this episode we discussed that in depth. There's also a third person, james Braidwood, the person who started the Scottish Fire Brigade and then started the London Fire Brigade. What a guy that was, and you will learn a lot about that person in the episode. He was not just a person organizing the professional firefighting, he was a person who was kind of the first fire safety engineer actually A first fire risk assessor. What a persona, and for me it was amazing to discover the history of his life and his achievements. This episode contains some fire safety engineering, but it mostly contains fun and joy For those whose passion is fire safety and fire protection engineering. After this episode you will have a ton of anecdotes for your informal and formal meetings in the space of fire safety, and I don't think I have to advertise it anymore. It was just such a joy to talk with Michal and learn about James Braidwood and the vast history of fire protection in the UK and in Scotland. So let's spin the intro and jump into the episode.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Firesize Show. My name is Wojciech Wigrzyński and I will be your host. This podcast is brought to you in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Ofr is the UK's leading fire risk consultancy. Its globally established team has developed a reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise, with colleagues working across the world to help protect people, property and environment. Established in the UK in 2016 as a startup business of two highly experienced fire engineering consultants, the business has grown phenomenally in just seven years, with offices across the country in seven locations, from Edinburgh to Bath, and now employing more than a hundred professionals. Colleagues are on a mission to continually explore the challenges that fire creates for clients and society, applying the best research experience and diligence for effective, tailored fire safety solutions. In 2024, ofr will grow its team once more and is always keen to hear from industry professionals who would like to collaborate on fire safety futures. This year, get in touch at ofrconsultantscom.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show. I have today a colleague from Scotland, a firefighter, michał Stachowicz. Hey, michał, good to have you in the podcast, thanks for having me, and I've invited you because there's quite a celebration happening currently at the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and it's an institution that this year celebrates 200 years of the services. Congratulations, happy birthday, scottish Fire and Rescue Services. Thank you, thank you, I would say. In the space of fire safety and fire safety engineering, there is not very many institutions that could celebrate 200 years of existence. So, paying my homage to the fire brigade and professional firefighting. I know there's a lot of interesting stories about the origin and the history of the fire brigade in Great Britain and Scotland. I would love to hear about them and let's pay a tribute together. So where do we start?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So we can go back talking about fire service in the UK. We can go back as far as Roman times. The first fire brigades, or what we would see today as fire brigades, were actually created in Roman times, during Roman occupation of Britain. But those guys were obviously military guys and they were only looking after their own bases, so not available to everybody. Then very quickly, or not very quickly, I'm maybe exaggerating A few years.
Speaker 2:A few hundred years later, very, very basic firefighting provisions started popping up, attached to local churches, parishes, usually in rural areas, and that's the not problem with modern firefighting. But back then anybody who had a bucket in the house could call themselves a firefighter okay uh, it was very now.
Speaker 1:Now this, everyone can call themselves a fire safety engineer. It it's also not regulated. There's still room to improve, you don't?
Speaker 2:even need a bucket. So back then, whenever there was a fire, funnily enough it was still thought, even in the 1800s, that a big fire in the city was something caused by the higher power, probably a god that would send punishment on the city because somebody didn't observe sabbath or something. But back then, as if the fire happened, everybody volunteered their services. They would come together with their buckets and try to do something. Obviously it wasn't ideal and usually it was only to protect neighboring properties because there was no way they could actually put out the fire of the building that was affected.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. As an important note, it's also the age of urban configurations. So Great Britain, of course, the Great Fire of London 1666, that's probably the most well-known large fire in the world, but pretty much in those years every single city had the great fire of XYZ city, like literally every single city in the world burned down at some point right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, we had a great fire of Edinburgh in 1824. So yeah, you're very right on that.
Speaker 1:So those collective experiences from those great fires and trying to fight those fires, they must have issued a need to change, like people were not sitting down and waiting until they burned down again. At some point they had to realize there are better and worse ways to build their cities or homes and there are better and worse ways to fight the fires. Can you indicate the beginning of, let's say, professionalization of this fire service of prevention?
Speaker 2:Yes. So before we can talk about the professional fire brigades, we can definitely talk about attempts to limit number of fires by legislation. So the first time we see any mention of fire prevention in legislation was the Scottish Act of 1426.
Speaker 1:1426?.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the first mention of fire prevention measures. So no hemp or straw to be stored anywhere near fires. Any people selling those things had to keep them away from fires and were not allowed to use any lanterns or candles in the vicinity. You were forbidden to carry naked flame from house to house. It had to be enclosed in some kind of lantern, and the houses in Edinburgh were only allowed to be roofed by slate or stone and not straw, which was very popular down south in England. Also, in the late 17th century there was another act that limited the number of stories within the building to five.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Edinburgh due to its geography. I don't know if you've ever been to Edinburgh.
Speaker 1:Not yet, but it's coming next year.
Speaker 2:It was built on a hill and the main street that used to be basically the whole city back in those days. The front of the buildings on that main street it's called Royal Mile are usually about five or six stories high, but on the back they can be 10 or 11. So Edinburgh was one of the first places in the world that you could say had high-rise buildings and they were up to 14 stories high back in 1600s. So then when the act limited them to five, obviously it did not work backwards, so it was only the new build that were limited to five stories, so all the older ones still remained and obviously there was no any fire safety measures within them, which would have been very, very challenging for the any firefighting attempts back then to deliver the water to the 14 story building.
Speaker 1:Of course, Even today it's like Exactly.
Speaker 2:We would have problems today and back then with their hand pumps and everything. It would be impossible. One of the more interesting things as well in 1681, there was a first water main laid down in Edinburgh, so we had public water available and there was a provision for the drawing of that water in cases of fire. So we had three inch water main. And that was in 1681. And then it was at the time when, obviously, it was upgraded and more of them were popping up around the city. Hopefully, yeah three inches in the biggest.
Speaker 1:And I brought up the Great Fire of London. That must have been a massive, even in the entire Great Britain, or entire world probably, at that point. So did it bring any substantial changes to to how fires were treated, or or we're just making a big deal right now out of it because it's the best documented and no, it was definitely, definitely wiped a big part of london, despite there was not that many casualties.
Speaker 2:A lot of buildings were affected and it created a lot of homeless people. And, purely due to business sense, something had to be done and on the back of that, insurance companies started creating their own fire brigades. So there will be no training provided to the firemen, as they were then called, or any special equipment apart from hand pumps. So these insurance fire brigades started popping up immediately after the Great Fire of London, so late 1600s, and even within London there was plenty of them. There was probably 20 or 30 within London itself.
Speaker 1:How does an insurance fire brigade work?
Speaker 2:So insurance fire brigade, they would provide you. If you wanted a policy, they would provide you. If you wanted a policy, they would provide you with the fire mark, which was a picture, essentially. I actually got one somewhere, it's in my garage, it's a. It's a mark that you attach to the front of your property and that told the fire brigade or everybody, everybody that you are insured with that company and in case of fire, they would arrive eventually because obviously they weren't that quick, and attempt to put the fire out. However, if you had, in your building, insured with different company than the one that arrived, they wouldn't have put the fire out. Okay, really. Also, they would then attempt to sell you the other policy with their company if you want them to put the fire out.
Speaker 2:So there is a film called Gangs of New York with Leonardo DiCaprio, daniel Day-Lewis, and in that film although the scenes in the film picture New York of, I think, mid-1800s, but there is a scene where two fire brigades are coming to a house fire and what is happening? They obviously working against each other. One is hiding the hydrant from another so the other one can't use it, and then they start fighting among each other and apparently that was very common, that the fire brigades would turn up, and if they were rival fire brigades they would just fighting among each other. And apparently that was very common, that the fire brigade would turn up and if they were rival fire brigades they would just start fighting each other. Who's got the right to put that fire out, thus claiming some money? So it wasn't perfect. Let's put it that way it was not perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, to some extent it's kind of funny in the modern context. You know, and I know a lot of firefighters and they are like the nicest people I know, like really putting their lives on the line to save others, driven by passion. I don't know a single firefighter who would go into the profession because of profit, Like literally, I don't know a single one. And yet this world looks like completely opposite, like a business model of protecting.
Speaker 2:It absolutely was a business model. You know probably just think of insurance companies of today.
Speaker 1:You know they will not do anything that will not provide some profit for them sorry, but an interesting observation is is that if the fire brigades in a way formed underneath the disinsurance companies after the great fire of london, perhaps some of them were somewhere existing before. Maybe I don't know, but this is like late 1600s and the first acts were for the fire protection. Basically were 200 years earlier. It seems that fire engineering has preceded fire service. That's an interesting observation. I've never realized that that could be the case. I always thought that fire engineering was kind of a response to firefighters' needs and the need to reduce the damage as an outcome of the industrial revolution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're absolutely right. There was a lot of in the, let's say, preceding 200 years to creation of insurance fire brigades. There was a lot of acts both in Scotland and in England listing those preventative measures and materials that the houses could be built from the distance between the houses. All that stuff was already. The foundation was being laid Because the firefighting force was so poor or non-existent in the majority of cities they had to do something to limit the spread of fire and the consequences from fires.
Speaker 1:I wonder if anyone ever studied this properly, because you know, in the modern fire engineering there is this underlying assumption that eventually you will have the guardians angels come in, you know, and put the fire down. The concept of fire resistance is highly in many legislations. It would be connected to the fact that the firefighters can arrive to the scene and stop the fire, the concept of compartmentation, that the fire will not spread beyond. That's also related to the fact that you can secure the perimeter. I've once read, if I recall it correctly, the reasoning for. I don't know if you have that in UK, but in Poland if you have a wall of 60 minutes, you can put 30 minute doors in that like half their fire resistance. Maybe that's a Polish thing, but I've heard a justification for that coming from, apparently Sweden, where they said it's easier to fight fire in the doorway. That's why perhaps half of that would be safe enough.
Speaker 1:And also one more example of historical fire provisions that was quite interesting for us to discover, us as fire safety engineers, when we were on an SFP conference in Copenhagen this year.
Speaker 1:There was an SFP performance-based conference in Copenhagen.
Speaker 1:The day before the conference, that big building burned down the burson, the, the big historical building in the middle of copenhagen from 1600s and we in during the conference, we we had a fire chief of copenhagen come on the last day of the conference and gave a very powerful speech about that that fire and their response.
Speaker 1:And one thing that he mentioned was that apparently 1800s or something, someone has put a firewall in that building, you know, because they were uncomfortable with the fact that the entire building was one compartment. So they've built a firewall in that and that was the exact firewall at which they established perimeter this year when they were fighting the fire. So those provisions actually were put in place a few hundred years ago and work today perfectly, showing the power of good engineering. Very interesting case. I wonder if more examples of those early provisions are known. Because now to close my chain of thoughts, because back then you could not rely on fire brigade to come and put out the fire, so if there was any fire engineering it would have been like self-sustaining in a way when we'll get to James Braidwood and London Fire Brigade, or London Fire Establishment as it was called back then.
Speaker 2:Braidwood was requested many a time to attend different places as an expert within the field, as the only expert really known to assess them under the risk of fire, and he recommended in a lot of dockyard buildings in London he was recommending dividing walls within the big warehouses or limit the number of flammable goods stored or the maximum quantity should be stored within any one place. So he was making those kind of very early risk assessments or fire risk assessments to help the landlords or the owners to manage their properties safely, and he was writing this all down. There is a book written by Braidwood Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction and he was writing this all down. You know there is a book written by Braidwood Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction and he writes all those things down in that book. It's a really good book and it's not very big, so it's a nice read.
Speaker 1:Probably it must be scanned and available online somewhere.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it probably can be found for free.
Speaker 1:I'm going to check it out If it's available. I'm going gonna link the link into the show notes for the podcast because it's I'm very interested in in looking into how this fire prevention measures. Look at the earliest phase of fire safety science and engineering. After all, it's a fire science show. We covered the entirety of it. Anyway, let's move to edinburgh, because so far we were discussing uk in general, different parts of UK, different regulations at different points of time. Now let's move exactly 200 years ago. What happens and how the first fire brigade is formed and how is it different from what was existing at that time? What's the innovation in here?
Speaker 2:So, as we mentioned before, there was a series of serious. Series of serious. That doesn't sound right, but there was a lot of serious fires in Edinburgh around early 1800s, and then there was what we call Great Fire of Edinburgh in 1824. And they were attempts to create some kind of firefighting force within the city under the command of one person that would supersede the insurance company's fire brigades.
Speaker 1:So you had insurance, fire brigades in Edinburgh.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was not just a London thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly the same, Exactly. There were actually even some big insurance companies who had operated in both London and Edinburgh the same companies. So, yeah, they were in Liverpool, in every big city. Eventually it spread and some of them were purely Scottish, some of them were working along the whole of the UK. Okay, so the order was written up to create some kind of establishment that will take care of it, some kind of establishment that will take care of it, and the fire insurance companies chipped in some money towards it and the city added some money and what they created was Edinburgh Fire Engine Establishment, and they created that in 1824. And the first person who was to be in charge of it was nominated to be James Braidwood. He was only 24 years old at the time.
Speaker 1:You mentioned Braidwood before, and it's a person that this episode will be a lot about, so maybe can you give me a brief idea of who he was as a person.
Speaker 2:So he was born in 1800. So he was 24 when the Fibre created. He was a surveyor, so he trained in building construction and his dad was a thing a cabinet maker or carpenter or something like that, and so from the youngest age he was around tools and familiar with building construction and knew the city very well and also he was born in edinburgh yes, yes, he was.
Speaker 2:yeah, uh, his uncle was one of the senior people in one of the insurance companies. I'm not implying that he got a job because he knew somebody, but obviously must have been the best choice at the time. It's not confirmed how he was chosen to lead, but he was and it was a very good appointment Because up until this point, insurance companies, whether it's in London or Edinburgh, were usually fighting fires from the outside. You see old pictures, big jets of water being shot from the street into the building and he transformed that approach that the fires should be fought from the inside.
Speaker 1:So he's kind of like a godfather of compartment fire.
Speaker 2:He came up with the idea that fire is fueled by oxygen, and the more we can close it down, the lesser the rate of development is fueled by oxygen, and the more we can close it down, the lesser the rate of development is going to be.
Speaker 1:That's super interesting because if you're talking about early 1800s, that's not long after Lavoisier's discovery of oxygen. After all, I think that was late 18th century.
Speaker 2:Whether he talked purely oxygen or air, you know, is obviously….
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the previous theory was the theory of phlogiston, so that was the previous paradigm. Okay, that was a completely different understanding of how fires behave. It was assumed that a fire comes from a substance that's called the phlogiston, and that's basically the fuel. So it's like a complete paradigm shift and that's basically the fuel.
Speaker 1:So it is like a complete paradigm shift when the oxygen was discovered in air and the fact connected that it's related to the burning process. So when you say that he observed that fires at large scale could have been connected with this newly discovered substance, in this newly discovered chemical context, it also means that he has to be well-educated and quite a clever person. Because we're talking about top discoveries of his time right.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and he briefed all his firefighters and police officers at the time because there was a lot more police officers in the city than there was firefighters.
Speaker 2:Probably to stop the firefighters from fighting, that as soon as the fire is discovered, whoever discovers it, should go and close all the doors and windows within the place where the fire is happening to limit the availability of oxygen or air and then give the fire brigade time to, to, to make their preparations and arrive and all that so.
Speaker 2:So that's one of his, his big things. In his book, his first book, in 1830, he published a book because he was looking for ideas, he was looking for concepts, and he couldn't find anything in English language, written English language, talking about the fire service or putting out fires. So he decided in 1830 to write his own book. It was called On Construction of Fire Engines and Apparatus, the Training of Firemen and Methods of Proceeding in Cases of Fire, and he talks a lot there about the dependency between the fire and air. What he makes the point of is close down the building and get your water as close to the seat of the fire as you can. So also he observed that the layer of fresh air is always available just above the floor, which obviously back then the firefighters didn't have any breathing apparatus or any equipment like that, so they would go into the fires just breathing normal air obviously. So he recommended they should stay as low as possible, because that's where the fresh air is.
Speaker 1:Wow, so seriously the observations you are giving me right now. This is on par with I don't know other loveless observations of algorithms 100 years before computers.
Speaker 1:This is how I see it, you know, because if you say he observed a layer, probably he did not name it like that. Maybe he did, but if he observed the layered behavior, this is something we didn't know until 1956, kawagoe. That was the first observation of layers and formulation of zones in fires. Apparently, kawagoe went to US, to California, and argued there whether those layers exist or not, and Kawagoe was also the first one to, or Kawagoe proposed a model to establish what was the heat release rate based on the flow through openings. So what you now say, that observations of Braidwood precede that by a hundred years, that's like that's outstanding.
Speaker 2:I will give you a little quote out of his book. So he says a layer of fresh air Outstanding. I will give you a little quote out of his book about that. So he says a layer of fresh air is almost always to be dependent on from six to 12 inches from the floor. And then he describes his experience. The smoke was rolling in thick, heavy masses which prevented me from seeing six inches before me. I immediately got down on the floor, above which the air seemed to be remarkably clear and bright.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's hundreds of years before Kamigoy. This is outstanding. Wow, what a lad.
Speaker 2:So, and then I've got one more about the air exclusion, and he says the door should be kept shut while the water is being brought and the air excluded as much as possible, as the fire burns exactly in proportion to the quantity of air which it receives. Wow, outstanding. So he was a smart guy. He was a smart guy.
Speaker 1:Sounds like quite a clever guy. I mean it's interesting that from observations and just experiencing those fires you can create such a powerful technical rules actually that work. I'm not sure if it would work today because of the prevalence of plastic materials and our buildings tend to be much larger and compartments are much larger than they have been in 18th century. That's also something people don't appreciate. How much air there is in a car park or in a shopping mall. Closing the doors will not help that much really. But if you're talking about small compartments in a small building, that can actually be quite sufficiently used to slow down the fire at least.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's still, I think, within the domestic environment. This still absolutely holds true and is one of our bases for our learning today. So he was way, way ahead of his time in that respect.
Speaker 1:Another thing about Braidwood. I've read on the Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage and I highly recommend the webpage and I assume the museum was also a place that you can visit right.
Speaker 2:It's lovely. It's not far from the city centre of Edinburgh and it's lovely, it's like it's it's not far from a city center of edinburgh and it's just opened I think last year is very, very interactive, good for kids. So, yeah, go and visit it I'm as good for me.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go there anyway. On their website I've learned that he also was responsible for first ppe given to firefighters in edinburgh. Can you comment on that?
Speaker 2:yes, he. He came up with the first type of helmet that firefighters should wear. He describes exactly where he got the idea from from New Zealander war helmet or something like that, I can't remember exactly. And then he attached a flap of leather on the back of it to stop any embers going to the back of the neck of the firefighters. So he issued them with the jackets, trousers and helmets, uh, which was again. Firefighters of the fire insurance companies also had uniforms, but they were very ornate, very colorful, yeah to figure out who to fight with.
Speaker 2:Yeah probably it's like football team shirts they knew the colours, whose colours are whose. But he created the uniforms that were like working uniforms that actually help firefighters and keep them thermally safer, because the previous ones were just decoration, basically Okay. So he thought about them and then even he was thinking whether in the fire engineering that we discussed here, he also in other areas like he created four districts within the city of Edinburgh and they created four fire stations, one in each district. But he placed each district fire station at the highest point of that area, so the firefighters who back then were pushing or pulling the fire pump had always downhill to any fire so they could attend much faster. Because Edinburgh is a very hilly city it was built on seven hills, so he even thought about geography and topography of the land when putting the fire stations around the city to allow them to attend fires quicker.
Speaker 1:What was the kind of equipment that was available at that time? So we were like 1830s, probably around that time. It's not just a bunch of buckets right at that point yeah, they, they already had hand pumps.
Speaker 2:It was basically a big carriage, if you like, with big, big, long handles on both sides and they they would connect the hose, which was back then made out of leather, and they would set into some kind of water supply. And that was created by opening one of those mains. They used to call it firecock, so it was basically a hole in the mains and they would flood the little area and create some kind of boundary to gather the water there, or even dig a hole and gather the water in it, and then the engine would suck the no suck. I'm using non-scientific language here.
Speaker 1:No, all this suction is a scientific word. You can use it.
Speaker 2:The water out of that through the fire engine and to the hoses. Also, the engines back then would be operated by bystanders, Okay, and they would be rewarded with beer afterwards. That's a great trait Fair, fair, and the firefighters would actually do firefighting, so they're not wasting their energy on pumping action as such. So that was a very popular thing.
Speaker 1:I wonder how many fires started because of that tradition.
Speaker 2:Interesting fact. One of the interesting facts is that the first firefighter to die in Edinburgh under Braidwood was actually run over by their own engine. Because they were going downhill and it gathered some speed and there was no brakes on them, so the only way to stop it was to turn it perpendicular to the hill. You could think of it, handbrake, turn. So that was the first firefighter. It was killed. He was killed on Dundas Street, which is pretty steep street. What about?
Speaker 1:the information to firefighting. So in modern world we would have, you know, fire alarms and most of the important buildings. We would have a direct transmission to the fire brigades to cut down on the information time taken. Also, our fires tend to grow quicker than in 18th century, I would assume. Anyway, how is fire notified about the fire? Were there watchers?
Speaker 2:So again, he was the first person to introduce the concept First of all. Finally, we had a professional fire service. So the fire service in Edinburgh, as we call it, was the first municipal fire service in the world. So it was funded by the city and those guys, the firefighters, were actually now trained by Braidwood and they were training once a week at 4 am in the morning to not anger the locals spraying water about. So they've done it very early morning and to allow firefighters to still go to their day jobs Because the firefighting was not their sole profession.
Speaker 1:But they were paid for-. They were paid, yes, okay.
Speaker 2:For training and for attending fires. So he created the concept that, as I mentioned, there was a lot more police officers, watchmen. They would be roaming the streets and if there was small crime and all that, they would be reacting to that. So these watchmen had a list of all the firefighters in the city where they lived Okay, because the city was a very small place and obviously they knew where the fire stations were. So on discovery of the fire they were supposed to alert another person or a runner to go to the address and alert the fire brigade. It was very rudimentary back then and it relied on people passing the information on, I think Braidwood. According to his diaries because he kept very, very detailed diary they would respond to fires probably within 20, 30 minutes since the fire was discovered. So it's not what we know today that the fire brigade will be on scene within five minutes. So it was taking them a while to achieve that. But later on, when Braidwood eventually moved to London because London Fire Brigade or London Fire Brigade, london City offered him a job to create a similar establishment in London. So when he got there eventually they started something called fireboxes.
Speaker 2:When the telegraph was invented there would be fireboxes, boxes and I think they still exist in america, in the us, okay, where there is basically a box which is connected to the fire service central call handling place and so somebody could pull that handle and that would alert the fire service.
Speaker 2:So you would find your nearest fire box, pull the handle and by the number on that box they would the fire service would know where that box is located and would report to that and hopefully the person is still there and they would the fire service would know where that box is located and would report to that and hopefully the person is still there and they would tell them oh, I've seen the fire over there and I'm sure that still operates in in the us because I still see even new york they will say that it was box alarm and the number which was addressed assigned to that box. I think I'm correcting that. I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. So yeah, so he revolutionized firefighting, not only with the firefighting techniques but also the engineering, understanding and just procedures that we would go through on discovery of the fire.
Speaker 1:So tell me about the formation of London Fire Brigade and what happened to him as he moved to London.
Speaker 2:Well, I think London Fire Brigade just stole him from us.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're not proud about that.
Speaker 2:Okay, he has been very successful with creating the fire service in Edinburgh. A lot of international and within the UK other cities were coming to see it or heard of him creating this thing. So when London heard of it, they've invited him to come over and paid him a lot of money to come over and attempt to create something similar in London. And it was not exactly the same because the establishment London fire establishment that he created was still funded for many years through insurance companies. Basically, each insurance company was adding some funds.
Speaker 1:But it would be one unified service, not a scattered fighting against each other. It would be just one service for all insurance companies. Let's say Okay.
Speaker 2:However, it was still only I think initially only maybe seven or eight fire companies or fire insurance companies signed up to it.
Speaker 2:So Braidwood would have created London Fire Engine Establishment, but there would still be another, maybe 15 other insurance companies, fire brigades that would operate within London, but at least Braidwood's establishment would put fires out of any building. So there was no requirement to have an insurance. Okay, so finally, ordinary working people and even poor people could have something from the city, from the local fire brigade, and back then it was quite a normal thing that if you had a fire in the neighboring building, people would carry out all their belonging out onto the street from all the other buildings around it, just in case the fire spreads. Oh, and talking, I just remembered when you were talking about compartmentation Also, Braidwood thought about that, Maybe not in the context we think of it today, but he thought about the fire spread from one building to the next. And he says in his book when fire is likely to extend to other buildings, the communication should be immediately cut off by pulling down the building next to that one on fire.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's a radical measure.
Speaker 2:So he actually cooperated with the local police and military and if it was a stone building, they would use gunpowder to blow up the building to stop the fire spread.
Speaker 1:That's pretty radical. So he could not comprehend the compartmentation like we do today, because I would date that to, let's say, late 19th century.
Speaker 1:So, let's say 1870s would be the first furnace-like tests of columns, and 1880s, 1890s, that's New York and Chicago, that are the first fire tests. Standardization of that is like early 20th century standard fire curve 1916. So that's a good almost 100 years after. For the spread of fire, that's pretty interesting. To have them take down the buildings, it's a measure I would not probably recommend today. However, I can see why would that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'd be very unfortunate if that was your house, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I also know that Braidwood perished in a fire. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was in 1961. Braidwood was very involved 1861. 1861, yes, 1861, obviously Braidwood was very involved 1861. 1861, obviously Braidwood was very involved in fighting fires. He wasn't the kind of chief who stood back and commanded he would get involved, he would go into buildings and the fire that happened where he died happened on Tooley Street and throughout his career with London Fire Brigade he already attended a number of fires within the same area and they were all fires that were affecting the dockyard and the storage of goods brought by the river and obviously back then the commerce and trade functioned mainly through ships. So all these warehouses were full of materials and he, throughout his career, was advocating limiting the number of goods stored within any single building. Also, he has influenced the act that was written to limit the square footage of any one warehouse to limit, in turn, the number of goods to be able to store in it. Also, as you say about compartmentation. So basically he was trying to advocate having smaller warehouses, more, but smaller, rather than one big one.
Speaker 1:Well, he also kind of invented from this description a concept very close to the fuel load that we would use every day in fire safety engineering. Probably he did not call it like that, but it works exactly like that limiting the amount of fuel you have and I think that's the concept. You can date to 1920s.
Speaker 2:So again, the guy is 100 years ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Very impressive, and what happened at the Tully Street.
Speaker 2:So again, it was one of those dockyard warehouses fire. Once these fires happened the fire brigade was not really there to put it out. They would only protect neighboring properties and try to stop it from spreading. It was such a spectacle that apparently there was 30,000 people lined up the riverbanks to watch the fire going, because it was such a big event and there was a lot of flammable liquids stored in those warehouses, like fats and oils, and they would all spill into the river, setting the river alight. So a lot of ships on the river were also lost. So even again, that was one of Braidwood's things, that the ships on the river should have been parked. I don't know if that's the right moored. I think is the right word.
Speaker 2:It's set in distance apart, so if there's fire on one ship it does not spread to the other. And he was walking around the building checking on his men when one of the walls collapsed and buried him with his assistant, and it took a good few hours of firefighting to allow his firemen to get his body. The body of the assistant was never recovered and I think part of his uniform is still available to see in London Fire Brigade Museum, and he was buried in London and his funeral procession was the biggest gathering of people apart from the coronation in London up until that moment. It was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, because he was obviously such a likable character yeah, he sounds like.
Speaker 1:He sounds like a good guest, like a good guy, yeah yeah, I, I would, I would love to interview that absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know his diaries are just absolutely fascinating. You know he he wrote after. Maybe that was it definitely helped future generations because he kept his diaries and after each fire he would write exactly what they've done at that fire what was the fire damage, what was on fire, what was the cause of the fire, if he could establish that and how they proceeded to put it out. And so he kept a very, very detailed account of that.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Okay, so 200 years of Edinburgh Fire Brigade. Redwood is not the complete story of Edinburgh Fire Brigade. That's just the beginning. Edinburgh is an important place on the world's map, and we all know that the Fire Brigade had great influence on the department of fire safety engineering at the university of edinburgh as well. That's a much more modern history, but one that it's still are unraveling, and and it's just one of those places when you think fire edinburgh comes to your mind any we're short on time, but any other memorable things from the history of the edinburgh fire brigade a lot of facts interesting for me.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they're interesting for the listeners, but obviously then later on we've progressed to steam fire engines, or initially pulled by horses. There is in one of the old fire stations in the city although now recently the building has been sold to Edinburgh University there are marks on the floor where sparklers were placed. So when the fire engine was going over it it was lighting up the boiler of the steam fire engine to start building up the steam as they were going to the fire. So again it was, again it was. It was very innovative and and that fire station it still looks like if I it's been sold. The building's been sold and now it's undergoing renovations, but you can still see it through the window and it's still exactly the same as it was.
Speaker 1:It's very, very exciting and for all those who want to learn the the remaining 200 years of the history. I guess Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage is a place where you can learn about that what the future holds for your organization, in this podcast. I'm looking forward to talking and working together with firefighters and a lot of them have really brilliant minds. They are keen observers of the fire and just as brady would observe some of those facts that science recognized. A hundred years later, we still can learn a lot from each other are. Is there still some connection between fire brigade and the department of fire engineering at Edinburgh university, or that's been lost?
Speaker 2:I think there is. I have been invited recently visit them at university and I spoke with Rory Hadden and Luke Bisbee and and I went to visit them and they were lovely. They were lovely Show me the lab and everything. There was definitely some experiments being done a couple of years ago maybe three, four years ago, between the Scottish Fire Service and Edinburgh University working on, I think, basement fires. So that was a nice collaboration and you know what the future holds. We are now.
Speaker 2:Edinburgh is now part of the Scotland-wide fire brigade, kind of like in Poland. Scotland has the national fire brigade now and it's refreshing to see that all across Scotland we all do the same thing Before, like it still is in England or in Wales, there are very regional fire brigades and they are very independent from one another and they all do. You know, there is, I think, 49 maybe, fire brigades in england and they all do things differently and so as much as for us it's a challenge that if we want to change something in scotland we need to change it across the board in 360 fire stations, but on the other hand, when that change actually comes in, we're all doing the same thing.
Speaker 1:So I'm very hopeful that we can come up with some gold standard and keep it on that level across the country. Fantastic, and I wonder how many chops like Braidwood we have today in the service. You guys are on the line, you observe, you learn, you have to tell us what you see and perhaps we can figure out the physical mechanisms behind it and maybe build something together. That's my dream, that's my wish for the future that fire science community, fire engineering community and firefighting communities are one fire community, one fire family that works together. And I'm looking up for bringing back beer for assisting. I would.
Speaker 2:I would do that I'm with you on that one okay, we hope, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for coming to the fire science show. Pass your colleagues my deepest congratulations on 200th anniversary of the scottish Rescue Services and many, many hundreds of years more serving the society and battling fires.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you on behalf of our organization, and the pleasure is all mine.
Speaker 1:And that's it. I hope it was a joy for you, as it was, to record it. I'm not even sure what key takeaways to give you from this episode. I mean, come on, there was a guy who did fire science 100 years before fire science. He was a fire engineer. 100 years before any fire safety engineering, he was a risk assessor. What a guy. That Braidwood was amazing, amazing persona, and I wonder how many people like that we had over the course of the history of mankind, whose history we still need to uncover and cherish. Because, yeah, it's just amazing to think how profound knowledge of fire you could get from just observing it and, from our perspective, quite primitive tools that were available in the early 1800s. So that's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1:Happy Birthday, scottish Fire Rescue Services. Congratulations on your 200th anniversary. This is really, really something. And appreciation to the Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage. I've went to your website. I've learned a lot from it. I'm looking forward to visit you next year. Very interesting place it seems, and for anyone who is in Edinburgh, I probably would recommend to go there. You can just go and scout and tell me if it's good I've heard it's good.
Speaker 1:Anyway, next year, sfp Europe Conference in Edinburgh a good chance to also cherish this heritage, visit the museum, learn something about the place that we will be having our European meeting at. So that's it for today's episode. Thank you for being here with us. Thank you, michal, for this interesting interview, and all of you next week, more fire safety engineering coming your way, perhaps a little more modern one, though. It's going to be fun. See you next Wednesday. Cheers, bye.