More than 100 emergency calls on Eleventh Night
Eleventh night bonfires sparked more than 100 calls to the Fire and Rescue Service, it was confirmed yesterday.
And the towering infernoes required a total of 80 responses into the small hours of Sunday morning.
“Thankfully no one was injured,” a spokesman said — though some operations involved having to use water jets to cool down adjacent housing and other buildings.
But the blazes actually lit on July 11 were only the first night of this year’s bonfire event.
Fire chiefs were last night expecting even more bonfires to be lit as the ‘Twelfth’ itself got under way, a day late due to falling on a Sunday.
And most the fires — possibly a majority — were not being lit after midnight, with Sunday over.
But it was hoped, a Fire and Rescue spokesman added, that the fires would not necessarily translate into calls on the service.
On Saturday and the early hours of yesterday the majority of the calls were in the Belfast area, although a Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said they responded to incidents across Northern Ireland.
By 1am, the service had received 104 calls and responded to 80 incidents. In some cases, dwellings and other buildings had to be cooled by crews using firefighting jets due to the proximity of bonfires.
The number of calls almost doubled between 11pm and 1am as the bonfires reached their heights.
By 11pm, the service had received just 64 calls and responded to 45 incidents, which represents a decrease over the same period in 2008.
