A flight passenger has captured the massive Ibrox blaze in an astonishing video as he came in to land at Glasgow Airport on Sunday.
Dominic Morgan, 51, from Brighton, was just about to hit the runway in the city for a business trip when he was met with the astonishing sight.
Quickly moving to take images of the plume of thick, black smoke, Mr Morgan managed to capture the sheer scale of the incident which, according to some media reports, could even be seen from space.
Describing his descent, Mr Morgan told The Herald: “I was looking out of the window on approach to Glasgow Airport at about 17.55 when I noticed the huge plume of smoke.
“Initially, I thought it was the cloud from a cooling tower of a power station. However, it completely obliterated the sun when we flew behind it, which seemed really odd.
“My colleague pointed out that it was actually a big fire - you could just make out the red flames - and people on the flight suddenly began to realise something was wrong and were speculating what was burning, as it was near to the football stadium.
“It also seemed pretty close to the hotel we were staying in - the Village Hotel opposite the BBC Scotland building - which was worrying, as that was where our conference was going to be held.”
Some of the debris Mr Morgan said rained down from the sky (Credit: Dominic Morgan)
However, Mr Morgan said the hotel was just outside the area which had been cordoned off by police.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said its Operations Control at Johnstone received 200 calls in total after the fire took hold of tyres and vehicles at the scrapyard in Helen Street at around 16.24 on Sunday.
At its height, around 50 firefighters were involved in tackling the blaze, supported by additional SFRS personnel. Crews finally managed to bring it under control almost 20 hours later.
Mr Morgan’s images also show some of the fallout debris that was scattered all around the affected area, carried up in the smoke plume, and dropped in the downwind streets.
It is understood that investigations are now set to get under way to determine the cause of the fire which engulfed a building about 100 metres by 40 metres before spreading to a large yard full of tyres
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