Letters to the editor

Fire lessons should have been heeded

Sir, - Leonardo da Vinci’s writings and drawings from between the latter part of the 15th and early 16th Centuries were collected and put into the 12-volume Codex Atlanticus.

Leonardo put his ideas into practice in his lifetime and installed a firesuppressing sprinkler system for the kitchen of his patron the Duke of Milan.

During a banquet there was a fire. His sprinkler system worked but soaked the food. The guests went home hungry and the duke wasn’t happy with Leonardo.

It is only by good luck that none of the students at Glasgow School of Art perished in the 2014 fire that destroyed their college and some of them must have mused as to why sprinklers were not fitted.

I thought at the time that it was simply awful how the blame was very quickly (within hours/ days) heaped on the shoulders of one hapless student.

The fire chiefs who issued a fire safety certificate for the building and the trustees who, for a hundred years, saw no need to protect their many students with this most basic necessity in a timber-lined building that stores highly flammable paints and spirits, should have been made to explain their actions at a public inquiry.

Had this been the case then maybe, just maybe, lessons would have been learned and lives saved elsewhere.

Tom Minogue. 94 Victoria Terrace, Dunfermline.

The aftermath of the 2014 fire which damaged Glasgow School of Art.