Dublin Fire Brigade had brought a large fire at a business premises in Coolock, north Dublin under control by Thursday night, although smoke continued to come from the building.
The fire broke out shortly before 5pm on Thursday at the premises on the Oscar Traynor Road.
The business housed in the building, Camfil, is a Swedish building supplies enterprise. It has operated out of the Coolock site since the late 1990s.
The fire caused significant damage. The roof of the building collapsed, the warehouse section of the building was gutted and the exterior walls were caving inward from the heat, according to Gerry Woods, district officer with Dublin Fire Brigade.
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Speaking outside the factory on Thursday evening, Mr Woods, the incident commander at the Clonshaugh fire, said the blaze spread quickly throughout the building because of the combustible nature of the goods housed in it, such as air filter units.
On arrival at the site, Mr Woods said that firefighters first worked to put out the fire, and to protect the adjacent Amazon data centre building. The exterior walls of the Amazon building, Mr Woods pointed out, had blistered in the heat caused by the fire.
Firefighters continued to work on the fire at 9pm on Thursday evening.
Mr Woods said it was too dangerous to enter the building, so firefighters were working from outside. “The reason why it’s still smouldering is because the roof has collapsed,” he said.
He said the cause of the fire was still unknown. “There was nobody hurt, no causalities, and the guards will now do their investigation,” he added.
It is understood the working day at Camfil had concluded around 4.30pm, about 15 minutes before the fire was noticed.
Most of the company’s 65 employees had left the building by the time the fire had started, with three administrative staff quickly evacuated from the site when the alarm was raised.
The fire emitted a large plume of smoke that was visible across Dublin. People living in the area reported ash landing in their gardens.
Dublin Fire Brigade, which deployed five fire engines to the scene, said the smoke had drifted across the locality and advised residents to close all windows and doors if they could smell smoke.
Flights have been taking off and landing from nearby Dublin Airport as normal. The fire is several kilometres from the former Crown Paints factory in Coolock which was the scene of several arson attacks last month.
A spokeswoman for airport operators DAA said: “A fire in the Santry area is resulting in smoke blowing towards the airport this evening. This is not impacting on operations at the airport and flights continue to operate as normal. The airport team, in collaboration with AirNav Ireland, continue to monitor the situation.”
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