HENDERSON'S - 1960

Photo: Liverpool Ambulance

On June 22, 1960, fire destroyed Henderson's department store in Liverpool, claiming 11 lives.

The blaze led to reforms granting fire brigades legal authority conduct safety inspections of stores and offices and implement escape plans, similar to the requirements of the Factories Act.

One of the rescuers, Firefighter George Taylor, recalled the fire in a BBC interview in 2010:

"When we got to the incident the driver of the turntable ladder had seen the situation, there were people on the ledge about 100 feet up on the fourth floor of the building.

"They'd obviously managed to get out of the windows on to that ledge. A lot of heat and smoke [was] coming out of the building, flames on different levels.

"When the ladder was extended my boss was about to go up but he didn't have what we call a hook belt which was a security device.

"I'd managed to put one of those on so I called to him to let me go past him, which I did.

"As I'm going up the ladder about halfway up the people on the left hand side of the head of the ladder, two of them had been placed by Colin Murphy on to the roof of the building next door which was Bunneys department store.

"Unfortunately when I was about halfway up the ladder the heat and flame from inside the building blew him off the ledge and he went past me and he was killed. He dropped down on to the canopy outside.

"The people on the ledge, having seen what had happened to him they started to move away from where our ladder was positioned and so we had to call to them to stay where they were.

"Eventually I got to the top of the ladder and managed to get five people on to the ladder with me and as were coming down, with the blast of flame coming out of the windows, the two ladies who were amongst the group received burns to their arms and faces. It was only than I realised I didn't have a helmet on."

BETHNAL GREEN ROAD - 2004

Memorial mural at Whitechapel Fire Station

Photo: BBC

On July 20, 2004, Whitechapel station firefighters Bill Faust and Adam Meere died in the line of duty.

Faust, 36, and Meere, 27, were fatally injured at an eight-pump fire on Bethnal Green Road in East London and succumbed at a hospital.

 Meere had joined the brigade a few months earlier and finished his training in May.

The fire in the three-story commercial structure was reported at 4 a.m, according to a BBC report. The men, both wearing breathing apparatus, ran into trouble in the lower part of the building.

The deaths were the first since a firefighter died in Willesden in north London in 1993.

London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner Malcolm Kelly, quoted by the BBC, said firefighters reported a serious fire upon arrival in a clothing shop and its basement with smoke pouring from windows.

There were apartments on the upper level.

Two civilians were injured.

PRINCESS'S THEATRE - 1829

 Fire at Royal Princess's Theatre, 73 Oxford Street in London, in 1829. It was rebuilt.

ST CATHERINE'S - 1913

On May 6, 1913, fire gutted St. Catherine's Church in London and contemporary reports suggested the fire was set by suffragettes. The suffragettes were responsible for a series of blazes across London meant to protest government policy.

ROYAL VISITOR - 1974

Photo: Wiki Commons

Queen Elizabeth II meeting London Fire Brigade members who responded to 1974's wave of IRA bombings.

LONDON'S TOLL

The Luftwaffe dropped thousands of bombs on London from 1939 to 1945, killing almost 30,000 people and demolishing more than than 70,000 buildings. Additionally, 1.7 million structures sustained bomb damage.