‘It sends a chill down your spine’

FOR firefighters soaring on skylifts above the burnt buildings at the Millfield Industrial estate, the scene resembled London in the Blitz.

The main Refond textile plant was completely gutted, with smouldering embers and twisted metal everywhere.

“It’s eerie looking at it. It sends a chill down your spine but the biggest thing is that there was no one hurt,” said firefighter John Hosford.

He was one of approximately 80 firefighters from Cork county and city fire brigades who fought the blaze in shifts for more than 16 hours.

Gardaí implemented a traffic management plan so that firefighters could be constantly re-supplied with breathing apparatus, which were being emptied of oxygen every 30 minutes.

The fire hydrants at the complex were too old to provide enough water pressure so fire crews tapped into a 12-inch main nearby. An engineering company built an earthen dam on the River Lee to make water pumping easier and staff at the HGW plant prevented paint tanks from exploding with the use of jet coolant.

“It was one of the biggest fires in the past 40 years but we are very happy that the evacuation was successful and that no one was injured,” said Cork County Chief Fire Officer, John Ryan.

Demolition work began yesterday on the famous five-story Red Mill building, which was founded by well-known Cork industrialist William Dwyer.

“It’s sad to see it gone because it was a landmark building. When you’d see it on the train back from Dublin, you’d say, ‘We’re home.’ It is absolutely devastating,” said local man, Thomas Roche.

Although the Red Mill building and six adjoining business units were destroyed in the fire, firefighters managed to save several other businesses.

At one stage on Thursday, the roof of the Spring grove factory complex was on fire and its employees feared the worst.

“It looked like we were going to lose the lot and that 120 people would be out of work,” said operations manager Sean Murphy.

The company, which cleans linen for hotels and hospitals, lost thousands of euros worth of stock. But by yesterday morning, it had shipped in 100,000 replacement pieces of linen and began work again.

The toilets in the Littlehands Children’s creche were destroyed but otherwise the rooms full of toys, cots and posters were perfectly preserved.