Cork City Fire Brigade extinguished a fire in a multi-storey car park which had been destroyed when a similar blaze caused €30 million worth of damage there six years ago.
It’s understood that a car started smoking just as it was about to enter the multi-storey car park at Douglas Village Shopping Centre in Cork at about 2pm, and the driver continued inside before parking the vehicle near a lift on the first floor of the 1,000-space facility.
Hundreds of staff and customers evacuated the shopping centre when an alarm went off, but Cork City Fire Service responded quickly and dispatched two tenders and a control unit, which reached Douglas in under six minutes and managed to quickly contain the fire.
Cork City Fire Brigade second officer Victor Shine told The Irish Times that some 13 firefighters tackled the blaze, accessing the first floor on foot via the main car park entrance ramp. Equipped with high-pressure hoses, they quickly extinguished it.
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“We were able to contain the fire in the engine compartment of the car with a fire blanket and then we quickly extinguished so that the flames never actually spread to the main body of the car, so it was under control within a few minutes, and it was soon business as usual.”
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Six years ago, on August 31st, 2019, a fire broke out in the car park when a smoking car entered the multi-story car park, where it then fully ignited, causing extensive damage, leading to the closure of the centre for over a year.
That blaze, which reached an estimated 1,000 degrees Celsius, destroyed 49 cars and caused steel girders in the structure to buckle. The car park later had to be demolished and rebuilt.
