IT would become known as the Great Fire of Edinburgh, razing an entire swathe of the Old Town, killing 13 people and rendering hundreds homeless.
But more than 180 years after the blaze, a fund set up in its aftermath by wealthy city businessmen is about to help a new generation of burns victims.
Councillors will this week be asked to spend money from the fund, established in 1824, on a new
scanner that could transform the lives of hundreds of children at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children.
The £45,000 "laser doppler scanner" can analyse the depth of an injury, and allow doctors to quickly work out the best treatment for a burn. This should reduce the amount of surgery needed for some of the 80 young burns victims treated there every year, and minimise unnecessary scarring.
In total, the council's pensions and trusts committee will be asked to spend nearly £60,000 on various products for the Sick Kids hospital and the burns unit at St John's Hospital in Livingston, which already has specialist equipment.
The move was today backed by the Scottish Burned Children's Club, an organisation set up to offer support to young burns sufferers and their families, which said the new scanner would benefit patients both "physically and psychologically".
The Surplus Fire Fund effectively became dormant in the late 20th century, but is now accepting applications again. It has a pot of £101,000, which should rise to nearly £145,000 once this year's interest is added. Around £10,000 has been used to help pay for a statue of James Braidwood – the "father of firefighting" – to be erected in Parliament Square.
Pensions and trusts committee member Cameron Rose, a local councillor for the Sick Kids, today said it would be "enormously sensible" to help the hospital.
In her application to the city council, Sick Kids Friends Foundation director Maureen Harrison said: "A laser doppler scanner would allow very accurate and speedy assessment of the depth of thermal injury.
"This will allow us to treat individual burns with a far greater degree of precision and allow us to determine the best treatment very early after injury. We are very keen to add this equipment to our department. It will allow us to predict much more accurately the likelihood that a burn wound will or will not heal. Inevitably this will avoid surgery in some patients, speed up surgery in others, and minimise unnecessary scarring and its consequences in all partial-thickness burn patients. In doing so it will also save money otherwise spent on avoidable operations and scar management."
The foundation has also asked for funds to purchase "distraction equipment", which provides an interactive storytelling experience to absorb a child's attention during painful procedures.
Mark Stevenson, chairman of the West Lothian-based Scottish Burned Children's Club, said he hoped the new scanner would cut the number of "traumatic journeys" to St John's Hospital.
