Cigarette may have caused fatal fire

A DISCARDED cigarette may have started the house fire which claimed the life of a father-of-five in Cork yesterday.

The victim was named locally as Ben Burke, aged 55, who lived alone at 99 Roche’s Buildings in Blackpool, the upper terrace of an historic city council housing estate off Rathmore Road, above St Patrick’s Hill.

He was alone in the small house located at the end of the terrace when neighbours spotted smoke at about 4am yesterday.