Fire Brigade Scotland Photos

First two images posted from Strathclyde

On 16th May 1975 under Local Government re-organisation part of Central Area Fire Brigade, the Glasgow Fire Service, the Lanarkshire Fire Brigade, part of South Western Area Fire Brigade and part of Western Area Fire Brigade joined to form Strathclyde Fire Brigade.
Strathclyde Fire Brigade is the largest in Scotland and among the four largest in the United Kingdom. It covers an area of 13,850 km (5,348 square miles), from the remotest areas of rural Argyll to industrial North Lanarkshire and the multi-storey blocks and congested city centre of Glasgow. Within its boundaries the Brigade faces a wide range of potential fire hazards. there are two major airports at Glasgow and Prestwick, and three smaller airports in other parts of the region, heavy and light engineering plant, shipyards and docks, ordnance factories, chemical works, oil installations, a nuclear power station, distilleries and large whisky bonds, steelworks, thousands of acres of forestry and grassland, and a number of historic buildings, often in isolated areas. The variety of situations which could arise is boundless.

From 1975 until 1996 the brigade was administered by the Police and Fire Committee of Strathclyde Regional Council which was made up of twenty eight Councillors. Since 1996, when Local Government re-organisation abolished the Regional and District Councils forming Unitary Authorities in their place, the brigade has been administered by the Strathclyde Joint Fire Board and is made up of Councillors from the following Councils:-

There were six divisions (A,B,C,D,E, and F) Each Division had a Senior Divisional Officer as Divisional Commander. In 1995 the six divisions were rearranged into four commands, Central, East, North and West. Central and West having an Assistant Firemaster as Commander and the other two Senior Divisional Officers as Commander.

At the start there were five Control Rooms:-

In March 1978 rationalisation of Controls proposed that the five controls would become two with one at Johnstone and the other at the new Cowcaddens headquarters now being build. This never happened.
What happened was that Charlie and Foxtrot Controls combined to form Juliet Control (J for Joint Control) at Johnstone and then the other three (Glasgow (GX), Ayr (AF) and Hamilton (FN)) moved to Johnstone and it was known as Control. It would appear that the Home Office as governing body told Strathclyde Fire Brigade that it couldn’t just call it Control and they would need to use it’s call-sign so it is now called M2GX.