Tag: stairwell fire

Second deliberate stair fire in Granton area

A man and a woman had to be treated for smoke inhalation after a suspected deliberate stair fire yesterday afternoon. This comes just a week after a fire which resulted in a three month old baby being taken to hospital.

Two engines from Crewe Toll and a height appliance were mobilised to West Granton Road at 12.19pm after reports of a building alight.

On arrival firefighters discovered a fire in the ground floor of the common stair within a three-storey tenement property. Four firefighters in breathing apparatus and using a high pressure hose reel extinguished the blaze and vented the building for smoke.

A man aged 24 and a woman aged 27 from one of the top floor flats had to be checked over by ambulance crews at the scene.

Lothian Borders Fire & Rescue Service’s Fire Investigation Unit and Police were called due to suspicion the fire was started deliberately.

The Council and Scottish Gas were also contacted about heat and smoke damage in the common areas.

A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service said:

“Early indications suggest this fire may have been started deliberately. Fortunately no-one was seriously hurt but there was noticeable damage to the common stair area.

“If you live in a property with a common stair and shared areas please be a good neighbour and do what you can to prevent this type of incident. Always make sure main doors leading to flats are kept locked. Don’t let strangers into common stairs. Never stored combustibles in a common stairway. They can be attractive to deliberate fire setters. Rubbish can also block exits in a emergency and burning materials will produce a lot of toxic smoke putting residents at risk of smoke inhalation.

“If you discover a fire and it is safe to do so, get out, stay out and call us out by dialling 999 and asking for ‘Fire’. If your stairwell is full of smoke it may be safer to stay inside your property and call 999. Fire control will give expert fire survival advice until fire crews arrive to help you. They will make sure firefighters know where to find you and they will tell you when it is safe to leave your property.”

For more fire safety advice, including how to make an escape plan for your home or what to do if trapped by fire, you can visit our website at www.lbfire.org.uk

Letter – Stairwell fire

Dear Editor

You might be aware of the fire that took place on Tuesday (14 August)  in the back stairwell of the middle block of houses in Royston; a stairwell I may add that is populated by families with small children – we can all just be grateful that it happened during the day and was spotted and contained.

Although I am not aware of how the fire started it would have required materials for it to get going.

Last year I complained to the Edinburgh North office of how a culture of tipping and the accumulation of materials was taking over the back gardens of Royston and it would not be a leap to surmise that the stairwells might be affected by this culture of people getting rid of an excess of materials from their houses into the bottom of stairwells.

Given the demographic of people in the Royston area there will be people who can not afford for items to be uplifted by the council or hire vans to take them away or have no cultural awareness of the etiquette of living in a communal stair in a city.

It would be interesting for someone in the council to do the arithmetic on how much it takes to do a free uplift compared to how much it is going to cost to fix a back stairwell that has been fire damaged? Or how much it takes to fix the problem of a culture of fly tipping taking over?

Maybe some sort of inspection of the state of the stairwells is required throughout that area to asses the potential to prevent any future incidents like this happening again.

I make this suggestion as it would appear by the nature of the questions asked by the police officer who knocked on my door and the neighbours’ doors that the police are looking for someone who was seen running from the scene at the back of the gardens shortly after the fire was started.

Secondly there is now a culture of people smoking at their back stairwell doors in the last few years and if they are not extinguishing cigarettes properly there is the potential for more fires as well if people are storing or tipping materials.

 

Padraig O’Neill

Pilton Drive North