Firefighters see 'significant decrease' in number of bonfire calls at start of Twelfth of July festivities

Firefighters saw a "significant decrease" in the number of emergency calls due to loyalist bonfires in Northern Ireland at the start of the Twelfth of July festivities.

Large crowds gathered in Belfast city centre to watch an enormous pyre of wooden pallets set ablaze and emit a face-blistering heat to mark the main date in the Protestant loyal order parading season.