Why are Glasgow’s old buildings burning down?

On Sunday night, firefighters battled with the flames engulfing Forsyth House – a Victorian building next to Glasgow Central station, home to dozens of small businesses. “By morning, the dome of the 175-year-old landmark had collapsed”, said The National. “For Glaswegians, it all feels painfully familiar.”

A troubling pattern

The “acrid smell of smoke” lingering in the air on Monday morning recalled the “devastating” fires that tore through the Glasgow School of Art first in 2014, and then four years later in the midst of its restoration, said The Guardian. Today, the building remains a “burnt-out shell”. Next to the art school, the O2 ABC venue was severely damaged in the same fire; parts of the facade have been demolished and the rest of the decaying site is still awaiting regeneration. A separate major fire that year ripped through a block on Sauchiehall Street in the city centre, destroying several shops and Victoria’s nightclub. And in 2024, a large blaze broke out at the derelict Carlton Terrace, a “once elegant Georgian terrace” on the south bank of the River Clyde. The destruction of Glasgow’s historic buildings is becoming a “semi-regular occurrence”. Declining footfall on the high street and soaring construction costs have hollowed out the city centre, leaving it as a “mess of gap sites and stalled renovations”. Many of its crumbling listed buildings and shops now lie empty. Sunday’s blaze might appear like a “tragic accident but it highlights a brutal reality”, architectural writer and critic Rory Olcayto told the publication. The city’s old buildings are “extremely vulnerable” and until Glasgow starts to treat them “as part of its social fabric, these crises will keep happening”. Alan Dunlop, the architect who led the 1990s restoration of Glasgow Central station, told The Herald the fire at Forsyth House would “leave a major hole” in the busy street. “I think at times we ignore or take for granted our splendid Victorian heritage and these buildings have to be protected.” A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said it was “absolutely committed” to protecting the city’s historic buildings and that it had spent more than £280 million since 2013 on heritage projects.

Failing standards

The blaze at Forsyth House – which also destroyed several businesses and shut down the railway station – is “not that unusual”, Billy Hare, a professor of construction management at Glasgow Caledonian University, told The National. Buildings dating back to the 1850s often contain more structural timber which increases the “fire loading”: the total amount of combustible material present.Victorian buildings also “rarely feature the fire protections of modern buildings, which must conform to national standards”. And improving safety isn’t easy, as alterations to listed buildings – of which Glasgow has hundreds – must be “sympathetically balanced with the internal and external appearance”, which inevitably leads to “conflict between regulatory compliance and heritage conservation”. Another critical issue is “compartmentation”, fire safety expert Henry Landis told the publication. This prevention strategy involves sub-dividing big buildings into different sections using fire-resistant walls to limit the spread of fire. But problems are common in multi-occupancy buildings, as it can be unclear who has responsibility for the overall “fire strategy”. While the cause of the fire at Forsyth House has not yet been confirmed, early reports suggest it may have been started by lithium-ion batteries exploding in a vape shop. This could indicate a “massive blind spot in our regulation”, Paul Sweeney, a Scottish Labour MSP for the city, told The Guardian, calling for stricter safety protocols. “Why on earth are we permitting these highly risky retail activities to take place in extremely vulnerable buildings adjacent to critical infrastructure?”