LONDON FIRE JOURNAL British Fire History

On Feb. 10, 1969, a fire and explosion at a hardware rocked the village of Ripley in Surrey. T he Guilford Times and Advertiser said: ...

Photo : londonreconnections.com On Oct. 9, 1960, a Handley Page Hermes aircraft operated by  UK-charter carrier Falcon Airways overshot  the...

Photo : Cultural Community Solutions On Dec. 19, 1973, an express train traveling at 70 mph derailed at Ealing in West London, killing 10 ...

Photo : Birmingham Mail On Jan. 23, 1955, an express train plowed into the platform at Sutton Coldfield station in Birmingham, killing 17 ...

On June 9, 1902, fire claimed nine lives on Queen Victoria Street in the City of London. Escape ladders were too short to rescue people f...

Photo : London Fire Brigade On the evening of Oct. 7, 1940, Soho fire station in central London took a direct hit during the Blitz, killin...

On Nov. 9, 2016, a tram derailed near Addiscombe Road in Croydon, killing five people and injuring more than 50 others. The London Fire...

Photo : London Fire Brigade London firefighters rescue Dennis Norman McGowan, 19 months old, on Feb. 25, 1956. The child's mother wait...

Photos : Wikipedia, Manchester Fire & Rescue On June, 15, 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a 3,000-pound ...

Photo : PortCitiesLondon, Caters News Agency Fire at Surrey Commercial Docks, Rotherhithe on  Sept. 7, 1940, the first day of the Blit...

Photos : BBC On July 6, 1978, fire burned out a British Rail sleeping car at Fairwater Close, Taunton, killing 13 people and inju...

On the night of Dec. 29-30, 1940, London suffered the "Second Great Fire" -  timed by German raiders to coincide with low tide o...

Photos : ITV, Examiner On Oct. 31, 1941,  fire swept H. Booth & Son clothing factory in Huddersfield,  England, claiming 49 lives...

On Dec. 21, 1949, fire broke out in stacks of Christmas trees stored in catacombs beneath London's Covent Garden flower market, killin...

Illustration : BBC From 1953 to 2004, the British government maintained a fleet of "Green Goddess" reserve fire engines  for civ...

Three members of the Kent Fire Brigade died in the aftermath of a fire at a psychiatric hospital in November 1957. From Kent History Forum...

Fireman alongside statue of Queen Victoria after fire in Stepney, 1931

Photo : flashback.com 40 pumps, Metropolitan Wharf, Wapping, May 10, 1973

On March 11, 1914, fire destroyed the training ship Wellesley on the River Tyne at North Shields.  The old wooden vessel ...

On Sept. 25, 1935, fire swept Colonial Wharf in East London. The 60-pump blaze started in  a warehouse for rubber, tea and spirits and b...

Image : Illustrated London News On April 29, 1860, flames gutted the Liverpool Sailors' Home, claiming two lives. Fireman Robert H...

Photo : londonsriver.com Fire boats at West India Docks during the Blitz. West India Docks docks on the Isle of Dogs, which served com...

Photos : London Fire Brigade "I heard Sub-officer Cornford call out `Look out Sir' and saw the building collapsing. I cal...

Photo : BrixtonBuzz Flames gutted a Brixton cloth and dry goods store on Aug. 19, 1910.  " The fire at Messrs. Morley and Lancele...

UPDATED JUNE 15, 2015 P hoto : The Star Inferno at King's Head Hotel, Dec. 12, 1940 Photo : The Star Taxi turned auxi...

London firemen release boy from fence, circa 1950s or 1960s

On Aug. 14, 1883, fire destroyed a "lunatic asylum'' at Southall Park, killing six people, according to Haydn's Dictionary ...

On Aug. 29, 1929, flames gutted Lulworth Castle in Dorset, England.  The 16th Century castle sat in disrepair in the decades following ...

Dave Squires   Editor's Note : Weston-super-Mare is a town located on Bristol Channel in North Somerset, England. You editor foun...

Painting by Fred Ford from collection of Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service On Sept. 5, 1887, a fire at Exter's T...

 Flames devoured the Anglo Scotian Mills in Beeston, England, on April 29, 1886. 

Photo : Street of Liverpool Workers retrieve fire engine from bomb crater on Roe Street in Liverpool in late 1941.

Photo : Wikipedia Blitz damage on Birmingham High Street, looking toward Bull Ring, April 10, 1941. The Luftwaffe dropped 1,852 tons of b...

On April 10, 1984, fire claimed eight lives - including a hero nurse - at King Edward Memorial Hospital, the only hospital in the Falklan...

Photo : G. Del Giudice Buckingham Palace fire service - August 2014