There were two fires last night in Wester Hailes.
One fire appears to have begun in a cupboard at Wester Hailes Education Centre. Council education bosses say that the school will be open on Monday to pupils.
The other further along the canal has resulted in a scene of devastation on the site of some of the most productive social projects in the city at the Calders Community Garden and Bridge 8 Hub.
SFRS said this morning that they were alerted around 8pm on Friday evening to reports of a fire within a school in Wester Hailes. Operations Control sent 7 appliances to WHEC where they found a fire in a cupboard inside the school. Fire crews were still on the scene over an hour later to make sure the fire was damped down.
Bridge 8 Hub was established by Sean Barry as a way of introducing those who might not otherwise get the chance to outdoor activities using the canal as a base. It appears that a wooden hut used by the community garden and the toilet block used by the outdoor activity base are now destroyed.
Cllr Gavin Corbett who is Canals Champion confirmed that efforts are being made along with Scottish Canals to reinstate toilet facilities so that outdoor activities can continue there.
This is what Sean Barry wrote on Facebook this morning.
Only last month Scottish Fire and Rescue Services reported that firefighters in Edinburgh were called to tackle five deliberate fires every single day in spring last year – double the number compared to the same period in 2018.
SFRS crews were mobilised to a total of 258 incidents of deliberate fire-raising within the Scottish capital between March and April 2019.
These fires were largely comprised of outdoor incidents impacting grasslands and refuse, but also included building and vehicle fires.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
