March 9, 2026

expert reaction to Glasgow fire

Scientists comment on a fire in Glasgow Central train station. 

Prof Guillermo Rein, Professor of Fire Science and Director of Research, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, said:

“I am saddened to see the loss caused by the fire near Glasgow Central Station.  The destruction of a historic Victorian building, together with the disruption and uncertainty imposed on Glasgow, is a major blow to a city and a nation I know well and admire deeply.  I lived in Scotland for six years and I have enormous affection for the land and its people.

“I have one remark and one concern to highlight.

“My remark is this that the loss of a multi-storey building from a fire that appears to have started in a small commercial premise represents an extensive failure of fire safety in such building.  Such an outcome points to failures across multiple layers of protection, including prevention, early detection, compartmentation, suppression, and structural resistance.  The one success, thankfully, appears to be evacuation, because there are no reported casualties so far.  The contributing factors should not be reduced to the ignition source or to the actions of a few individuals.  This points at an extensive and multi-layered failure involving many safeguards that did not hold.

“My concern is about the possible role of the many Lithium-ion batteries reportedly stored in the shop where the fire began on Sunday.  That must now be examined carefully by the investigation.  If batteries were materially involved, this may not have been a conventional shop fire.  Lithium-ion battery fires tend to be unusually resistant to suppression, because they are designed to be protected from water, but generate intense heat, reignite, and in large numbers can result fire conditions that are difficult to bring under control.  That could help explain why even a highly trained and well-equipped force like the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service faced such difficulty in suppressing the initial fire.”

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