Fire Buffs promote the general welfare of the fire and rescue service and protect its heritage and history. Famous Fire Buffs through the years include Edward VII, who maintained a kit at a London fire station.

March 31, 2013

ART WAREHOUSE - 2004

On May 24, 2004, a fire at a warehouse in east London ``destroyed millions of dollars worth of work by leading contemporary British artists, dozens of them from the vast collection of Charles Saatchi, the warehouse's owner,'' The New York Times reported.

The newspaper said: ``Among the works that have been lost are pieces by Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread and Jake and Dinos Chapman, all part of the influential and showy Young British Artist movement championed and sustained by Mr. Saatchi for the last 15 or so years.

``Well-known works destroyed in the fire, which raged for two days and leveled the warehouse, included Ms. Emin's 'Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995,' a tent on which she had stitched the names of dozens of past lovers; and the Chapman brothers' 'Hell,' a series of nine miniature landscapes depicting the horrors of war that took them two years to make and that, according to some reports, cost Mr. Saatchi £500,000, or about $905,000.''