FLAMES OF FURY

Official figures show a surge in deliberate blazes in Scotland Former top cop compares it to the 80s Ice Cream Wars

- BY NORMAN SILVESTER

SCOTLAND'S violent gang war has fuelled an explosion in fire attacks, the Daily Record can reveal.

There were 226 deliberate building fires and 185 on vehicles in the first three months of the year - up 15 per cent and 21 per cent on the same period last year.

The surge comes amid a wave of firebombings of cars, homes and shops in the war being waged between hoods linked to Dubai-based Ross McGill and jailed coke king Mark Richardson.

It prompted calls for both sides to end their "reckless" firebombing campaign.

Graeme Pearson, former head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said: "The incidents that have been attributed to gangland activity have no doubt added to the upsurge in fireraising figures this year.

"It truly is reckless because no person who starts a fire either in a car or a building can know where it might spread to and human life is then lost.

"The six deaths in 1984 in the Glasgow Ice Cream War is a good example of that."