Illegal Tyres Fires Cost Londonderry £336,000
By Alex Kapadia
Two major fires involving illegally stored tyres cost the Fire Service in Londonderry more than £300,000 to deal with.
Almost 100 firefighters were called in to tackle the massive inferno at Campsie in October, where it later emerged the tyres had been stored illegally.
The blaze was tackled by 16 appliances pumping thousands of gallons of water and took three days to put out. That single operation alone cost just over £229,000 to deal with.
Two months earlier, in August, another fire involving a tyre depot at Pennyburn Industrial Estate cost £106,000 to put out.
Four fire pumps and a specialist foam tender were tied up in that operation.
Concerns were raised at the time about the storage of the tyres and the impact both fires had on the environment.
Later today, officials from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency will brief councillors in Derry on their investigations into the fires.
Number: Z8037079
Reg: NKF419
