How Edinburgh created the world’s first fire brigade

“It was fly by the seat of your pants, throwing water on to smoke and hoping for the best,” says fire historian Dave Farries from the Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage.

“When it came to the insurance, fire brigades fighting fires would end up sometimes fighting over the water supply.

“Nobody went into a fire to try to fight it, they all just tried to pour water in through windows from buckets, mostly to no avail and most of the properties were actually burned down.”

Mr Farries spent 55 years as a firefighter and volunteer and is now ambassador at the Edinburgh museum.

He said that in 1824, a series of large fires in Edinburgh’s Old Town prompted the city authorities to commission a better way of organising firefighting in the city.

That autumn the Great Fire of Edinburgh burned for five days.

Thirteen people died, hundreds were made homeless after their overcrowded, tightly-packed buildings were destroyed.

The Edinburgh Fire Engine Establishment was the first fire brigade in the world paid for by the city, free to the public.

The city’s first firemaster was 23-year-old building surveyor James Braidwood, a man now considered the “father of the modern fire service”.