I remember this fire very well despite the fact that I was only 5 years old at the time.
It was on a Saturday in December 1963.
The Clearex Astral factory was based at Craigie Industrial Estate, in an area of factories between Longtown Road, Douglas Road and Milton of Craigie Road.
We just called the building The Astral, and it made components for fridges.
As you can see on the photo, the smoke was quite dramatic and seemed very close to us because we lived nearby in Craigie, where we were watching it from the back garden.
There were always lots of chemical drums at the factory location and a couple of them exploded, blowing part of a roof off which caused injuries to a couple of firemen while others had a narrow escape.
It took 10 fire engines to deal with it and eventually get the blaze under control.
I also remember my older brother ran to Douglas Road to get a closer view as there were lots of spectators.
The result of that was he ended up in one of the images published in the Courier - he was photographed running along Douglas Road.
We cut the article out and kept it as a souvenir, so that's probably why I recall the event clearly.
The different photo above is from one of the Sunday papers.
It was on a Saturday in December 1963.
The Clearex Astral factory was based at Craigie Industrial Estate, in an area of factories between Longtown Road, Douglas Road and Milton of Craigie Road.
We just called the building The Astral, and it made components for fridges.
As you can see on the photo, the smoke was quite dramatic and seemed very close to us because we lived nearby in Craigie, where we were watching it from the back garden.
There were always lots of chemical drums at the factory location and a couple of them exploded, blowing part of a roof off which caused injuries to a couple of firemen while others had a narrow escape.
It took 10 fire engines to deal with it and eventually get the blaze under control.
I also remember my older brother ran to Douglas Road to get a closer view as there were lots of spectators.
The result of that was he ended up in one of the images published in the Courier - he was photographed running along Douglas Road.
We cut the article out and kept it as a souvenir, so that's probably why I recall the event clearly.
The different photo above is from one of the Sunday papers.
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