Get in touch
If you are interested in the history of emergency and community resilience, fire safety and the fire and rescue service, or if you just want to learn more, you can email Shane.
Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
The Challenge
Fire has shaped British homes, workplaces and communities for over two centuries. Burns injuries, emergency rescue and the evolution of fire safety reveal how society has understood danger, responsibility and resilience. Today, these histories help us rethink how we teach fire awareness, how we protect vulnerable groups, and how we honour those who served.
Our challenge focuses on three key areas:
- Creative learning and policy: Using real historical experiences to inform public policy, education programmes and the ways we commemorate firefighters and their communities
- Fire prevention and public safety: Applying lessons from past rescue work and burns prevention campaigns to strengthen community fire education, particularly for young people and vulnerable groups
- Diversity and representation: Sharing the stories of pioneering women firefighters to inspire the next generation and inform contemporary debates about diversity and cultural change within the Fire and Rescue Service
The Approach
Forged by Fire: Burn Injury and Identity in Britain c.1800-2000 is a research impact and engagement project, originally funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
The project combines archival research, historical analysis and community engagement with creative storytelling. It explores the lived experience of burns injuries, emergency response, trauma and recovery, drawing on medical records, fire service archives, media coverage, oral histories and memorial cultures.
Professor Shane Ewen's research connected to this project explores fatal fires alongside everyday incidents and prevention campaigns, highlighting how the past can guide safer futures.
He works closely with teachers, youth groups, performers, heritage specialists and fire and rescue professionals to turn research into accessible, emotionally resonant materials. Workshops, school sessions, theatre work and public talks help young people and communities engage with complex ideas about danger, resilience and care - not through instruction, but through stories that feel real and relevant.
Shane Ewen, pictured with members of the Fire Brigades Union's Region 1 (Scotland), at the unveiling of a red plaque to commemorate firefighters Stanley MacIntosh and Joseph Calderwood, at Motherwell Fire Station, January 2023.
The Impact
Community and memory
Forged by Fire has revitalised local fire histories that were previously at risk of being forgotten. Through collaborations with fire heritage groups, the project has helped communities reclaim stories of service, sacrifice and survival.
The red plaque commemorations - now honouring seven firefighters across the UK - have created new spaces for public memory, enabling families, firefighters and residents to reflect on loss, courage and collective responsibility.
Education
Workshops in schools and youth settings have encouraged young people to engage hands-on with fire safety in a way that feels personal rather than instructional. Student pledges to test smoke alarms, check escape routes and talk about safety at home demonstrate how historical storytelling can inspire meaningful behavioural change.
Creative learning activities have also helped students think critically about gender, representation and how public services evolve over time.
Policy
Drawing on historical evidence, Shane has contributed to national conversations about fire regulation, sprinklers in high‑rise buildings, building safety, and the consequences of deregulation. Policymakers and fire advisers have used these insights to reconsider long‑term patterns of failure, responsibility and reform - particularly in the wake of Grenfell.
Professional practice
Partnerships with Fire and Rescue Services across the UK have helped embed historical thinking within training, cultural change programmes and professional reflection. By foregrounding stories of women firefighters, everyday responders and overlooked incidents, the project supports ongoing efforts to make the fire sector more diverse, more accountable and more culturally self-aware.
Arts and heritage
The project has also led to exhibitions, performances and public events that merge historical evidence with the arts. These activities help audiences engage with fire history not just intellectually but emotionally - emphasising lived experience, empathy and the human cost of safety failures.
Case studies
Forged by Fire is helping to broaden and deepen public understanding of the Fire and Rescue Service by drawing attention to stories that have traditionally been overlooked.
Supported by the National Heritage Lottery Fund, Shane has worked with the East Leeds Fire Heritage Group at The Old Fire Station to recover histories that shed light on the cultural, social and emotional dimensions of fire service work.
This partnership has opened space for community members to revisit the past in ways that feel rooted and personal - exploring old appliances, photographs, memories and long‑standing bonds between stations and neighbourhoods. These are histories built not only on dramatic incidents, but on everyday acts of service, care and commitment that define how communities experience and remember their fire service.
By diversifying and expanding the stories told, the project helps ensure the past reflects the breadth of people who shaped it. It also strengthens the cultural identity of fire heritage spaces, enabling residents to see themselves and their communities in the history that surrounds them.
Trevor Leighton and Norman Field sitting in the Old Fire Station with a scrapbook of news cuttings relating to Trevor's career as a Fireman/Leading Fireman in West Yorkshire Fire Service.
Since 2018, Forged by Fire has collaborated with Fire and Rescue Service partners across Scotland and the North of England to develop creative learning resources that make fire history engaging and relevant for young people.
These resources blend historical material with storytelling, role‑play, visual art and hands‑on activities to help students understand fire, risk and community resilience in a way that feels alive and accessible.
A standout example is the work with West Primary School in Paisley, where pupils explored local fire stories and had the chance to engage with a vintage fire appliance. This sparked conversations about bravery, responsibility and how the fire service has evolved - offering children a vivid, grounded way to connect past experiences to the risks they navigate today.
By co‑creating these materials with teachers, youth groups and arts practitioners, the project ensures that fire safety education becomes not just instructive, but memorable and meaningful. Young people leave feeling informed, curious and more connected to the people who keep their communities safe.
A display of work produced by students from West Primary School in Paisley for the Forged by Fire project to commemorate John Sydney Farrow and David Wilson from the Paisley Auxiliary Fire Service who lost their lives during the Clydeside Blitz in 1941.
A central strand of Forged by Fire since 2024 has been Shane's research into the stories of women firefighters, spanning from the Second World War to the present day.
Working with charities, youth groups, heritage organisations, students at Leeds Beckett University and Fire and Rescue Service partners, the project has brought to light the experiences of women whose contributions have often been underrepresented in mainstream histories.
These stories reveal persistence, skill and leadership across generations - from wartime auxiliaries who responded to bombings and domestic fires, to modern professionals who have navigated and helped reshape the culture of the service. Through a touring play, workshops and public events, the project highlights how women have influenced firefighting practice, community engagement and cultural change within the service.
By centring these narratives, Forged by Fire supports ongoing efforts to make the Fire and Rescue Service more inclusive and reflective of the communities it serves. For young people, particularly girls, these histories offer powerful role models and a clear message: that courage, capability and leadership in the fire service come in many forms.
Leeds Beckett University History students visiting The Old Fire Station for a Public History Project on Women in the Leeds Auxiliary Fire Service, 2024. Pictured with members of the East Leeds Fire Heritage Group.
Find out more
- Trailblazing - Women have always been firefighters. For Every Response, Emergency Services Times. 11 December 2025.
- Before Grenfell: Fire, safety and deregulation in twentieth century Britain. London: University of London Press, 2023.
- Grenfell inquiry: How the privatisation of building safety testing led to this tragedy. The Conversation, 5 September 2024.
- Grenfell should have been a wake up call - but the UK still doesn't take fire safety seriously because of who is most at risk. The Conversation, 19 December 2023.
- Lessons from the Grenfell Tower disaster: The historic failures of the state in fire safety. History & Policy, 21 June 2017.
- Why red tape saves lives: The fire service, tombstone legislation and deregulating safety in Britain. History & Policy, 28 March 2018.
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