Money men fiddling while service burns?

Aspate of devastating fires in Dundee has brought the issue of emergency service cover across Tayside and Fife sharply into focus. On successive nights, fire services in the city were stretched to their limits as, first, Braeview Academy was severely damaged and then, Hilltown Indoor Market was gutted.

As a precursor, a farm building was burned down on Monday night, with livestock killed in the inferno.

The welcome pledge by depute chief officer Iain Bushell that no stations will be closed in Dundee could not have come at a better time.

However, there was an accompanying commitment to sharing fire and rescue resources between regions.

The effort to tackle Tuesday’s school fire, which saw appliances attend Dundee from Perth, Fife and Angus, was highly commendable and showed how the system can work in certain circumstances.

However, it is fair to ask what would happen if a second, and third, major emergency had been called in another part of the country.

At present, we are dealing in hypotheticals – and there can never be enough crews to deal with every eventuality – but such a scenario must be weighing on the minds of those tasked with allocating resources.

Further cuts are coming, unfair as that may be — they cannot compromise safety.