Cork fire: ‘It was all very slow. It did not look as if it was being dealt with’

Ballinlough Festival Committee was pulling down the shutters on a highly successful end-of-summer event in the community park when some of the children who had been in attendance came racing through a nearby housing estate shouting “Douglas is on fire, Douglas is on fire”.

As householders rushed to their windows and doors, pitch black clouds of thick smoke could be seen billowing high in the air above what’s known locally as Tesco Shopping Centre.