Helen Hague reports on the past year of the FBU’s Red Plaque scheme
When a huge blaze spread through a warehouse in Langley Street, in London’s Covent Garden on May 111954, Clerkenwell fire crews were among the first at the scene. They could not have known that three of their number would never return.
Firefighter Arthur Batt-Rawden and station officer Frederick Hawkins were killed by falling debris as the building collapsed. Fellow Clerkenwell firefighter Charles Gadd later died from injuries sustained.
It was a bleak day for London – oneof the largest fires in the city since World War II. But as families and firefighters continued to grieve, investigations into the fatal fire exposed failures and shortfalls in procedures.
There were no agreed evacuation signals to warn firefighters to get out of the building if collapse looked imminent – and no-one was even monitoring whether crew members were wearing potentially life-saving breathing apparatus.
As too often, it took needless deaths to prompt changes to help keep frontline firefighters safer. But change did follow – including the tightening of BA procedures.
An FBU Red Plaque, funded by the Firefighters 100 Lottery, was unveiled in their honour at Clerkenwell fire station on May 11 this year – 70 years after the fatal fire.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
Trying to ensure the health and safety of frontline firefighters needs constant vigilance from the union’s members and officials – backed up with persistent campaigning to secure change when lapses and shortfalls are tragically exposed.
Take the deaths of Whitechapel firefighters Adam Meere and Billy Faust, who died fighting an intense fire in Bethnal Green in July 2004 after rescuing another man. They were among 50 firefighters called to a blaze in a three-story building. When they entered the basement, there was an explosion which triggered a collapse and cut off their water supply.
Their untimely deaths – Adam was just 27, Billy 36 – prompted widespread grief and their inquest triggered key improvements to equipment, communications and safety procedures. And in December 2017 they became the first firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty to be commemorated with an FBU Red Plaque. Twenty years after their deaths, a mural was unveiled on the side of Whitechapel fire station in their honour.
ACTS OF HEROISM
In Tayside, Roderick “Big Nic” Nicolson died after he volunteered to try to save two trapped workers from a 40-foot-high silo in Perth in December 1995. He became submerged in five tonnes of sodium carbonate ash – likened to quicksilver – and died from his injuries. The workers survived.
A Red Plaque was unveiled in his honour in May 2024. Since December 2017, Red Plaques have been unveiled at fire stations
and other locations across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland honouring firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty. And since 2020, the union’s DECON campaign has been working to save the lives of today’s frontline firefighters through reducing exposure to cancer-causing toxic contaminants.
HERE AND NOW
Edinburgh firefighter Barry Martin died after helping tackle a huge fire that ripped through Jenners department store in
Edinburgh in January 2023, where four other firefighters were injured. A Red Plaque honouring Barry’s service was
unveiled at McDonald Road fire station in January 2024 – a year after his death.
“The FBU’s Red Plaques provide places for us to remember fellow firefighters who have tragically lost their lives,” said Ben Selby, FBU assistant general secretary. “They become a place of reflection and sit at the heart of the local communities in which the firefighters served.
“No firefighter knows what they might face during any one shift. But as our history clearly shows, we must stand together and demand protections at work – from improved breathing apparatus to decontamination procedures.
“Every person signed up to play the Firefighters100 lottery helps to honour those who have lost their lives and to fight for future generations of firefighters. These donations are what power our DECON campaign for protections against firefighter cancer: saving lives while ensuring no one we have lost is forgotten.”
■ redplaque.org.uk
