Hero teen plucked nephew from blaze
Grabbed child seconds before inferno engulfed home
A BRAVE teenager ran into a burning mobile home and rescued his nephew, the hearing into the Carrickmines fire tragedy heard yesterday.
And the youth was ‘extremely lucky’ to survive.
John Keith Connors had a ‘tiny window’ of opportunity to enter the burning mobile home and rescue four-year-old Tom Connors at the site.
He grabbed the child seconds before a ‘flashover scenario’ occurred, as a chip pan of burning oil boiled over, creating an inferno that engulfed the entire dwelling. Chartered fire safety engineer David O’Connor told the inquest that the timeframe within which anyone could be rescued from the burning unit was ‘very small’.
The inferno killed ten people at a Traveller halting site, including a six-month old baby. Mr O’Connor said: ‘The flashover scenario created temperatures of between 500 and 600C in the unit, with hot gases, smoke and carbon monoxide.’
CCTV footage revealed the fire started at 4.15am on the morning in question. Dublin Coroner’s Court heard that within minutes, the inferno spread through the entire unit. Emergency services arrived at 4.34am, and a second mobile home caught fire between 4.34am and 4.38am. Speaking of the rescues, Mr O’Connor said: ‘There was a very small timeframe available to do that intervention.
‘It was extremely lucky they could do it at that time – another minute and they would not have been able to survive the conditions.’
The mobile home, a former portacabin that had been used as a security shed, was significantly more vulnerable to fire than a modern house, the court heard.
And the hot plate on a cooker that sparked the fire was powered on to its highest setting.
Mechanical engineer Paul Collins confirmed that the rear right hot
‘Rear hot plate was full on’
plate on the electric cooker was switched on to setting number six.
The jury, at the inquest into the ten deaths at the Glenamuck Halting Site in Carrickmines, south Co. Dublin, on October 10, 2015, heard confirmation evidence for the first time that the chip pan of oil placed on the hot plate was the definitive cause of the fire. The cooker was relatively new, there were no electrical faults and there was no isolator switch for the cooker installed in the kitchen, the inquest heard.
Mr Collins said he investigated the cooker after the fire on behalf of gardaí. ‘The rear hot plate was full on,’ he told the inquest. He said all that was left was the remains of the cooker knob which had been turned on to its full power.
Asked by the coroner if this was the definite cause of the fire, he said yes. ‘In our belief, this definitely caused the fire,’ he said.
Mr O’Connor told the hearing that the exterior of the dwelling was made of metal lining. A 38mm layer of polystyrene in the walls would have increased the burn temperature of the fire, the court heard. ‘This became the equivalent of an articulated truck on fire,’ he said.
The blaze spread to another mobile home located less than one metre away. The dwellings were the responsibility of the occupants, Mr O’Connor said. He noted that under the Department of Environment Guidelines for Traveller Accommodation (1998), there should have been at least six metres between dwellings on the site.
The guidelines note that ‘temporary’ sites providing Traveller accommodation should not exceed periods of more than five years.
The Glenamuck Halting Site was established as emergency temporary accommodation by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council in 2008. It was exempt from guidelines and regulations because it was an emergency provision.
Dublin Fire Brigade’s acting chief fire officer Denis Keeley agreed mobile homes and caravans carry particular fire risks.
‘The fabric of the units by nature are more vulnerable to fire spread and fire growth,’ he said. Those who died in the fire included Thomas Connors, 27, his wife Sylvia, 30, and their children Jim, five, Christy, three, and six-month-old Mary. Sylvia’s brother Willie Lynch, 25, his pregnant partner Tara Gilbert, 27, and their daughters Jodie, nine, and Kelsey, four, also died. The tenth victim was Jimmy Lynch, 39, another brother of Sylvia. The inquest continues on Monday.