Fury of fire chief after crew member is injured in Springburn attack

The sickening outrage has prompted assistant chief officer Lewis Ramsay to promise there will be zero tolerance for the small minority of people prepared to put emergency services workers’ safety at risk.

Firefighters were quickly on the scene after the blaze was reported at 9.10pm last night, but although they dealt with the fire in a matter of minutes withdrew after a crew member was injured.

The firefighter was taken to Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary Hospital for treatment and later released.

A separate crew of firefighters was then called to the same area at 9.55pm after reports of a second bin fire.

This time firefighters, working alongside police, extinguished the fire without incident.

Assistant Chief Officer Lewis Ramsay said: “Our firefighters’ main purpose is to save lives.

“You can rest assured that they will always be there and standing on the front line to help at times of emergency.

“These firefighters are your father, mother, brother or sister – someone’s family.

“It beggars belief when I hear that they have either been physically assaulted or verbally abused when trying to assist their communities.

“Attacks on emergency responders are completely unacceptable and I am sure the public would be outraged by incidents where their firefighters have been targeted”.

He added: “This type of behaviour not only prevents our crews from bringing any emergency to a safe and swift conclusion but it can impact on our emergency service colleagues including the police when they have to escort us at the scene.

“But be left in absolutely no doubt that it is often down to a very small minority of individuals within those communities.

“I would like to take this opportunity to stress once again that this will not be tolerated because our firefighters absolutely do not deserve to be met with such behaviour.”