Fire crews battle 8ft drifts to get to blaze
BATTLING 8ft snow drifts, 14 brave New Ross firemen, aided by a council crew, managed to get to Ballycullane on Friday where a woman’s house was destroyed and a neighbouring house was smoke damaged.
New Ross Firebrigade got a call to a house on fire in St Martin’s Park at 2.05 p.m. Fire Officer Cyril McGarr left in a four wheel drive vehicle followed by crews in two fire tenders which got stuck in 6ft snow drifts at Burkestown Cross, four miles from their destination.
Martin Shalloe, General Services Supervisor, New Ross District, arrived on the scene, along with Paddy Moore and Pat Laffan, with loaders and dug the snow in front of the fire tenders.
Cyril said: ‘They rescued us. They dug for 100 metres, then towed us up as there was still 3ft of snow on the road before disconnecting and shifting the snow again. They dug tunnels and towed us all the way to Ballycullane.’
The Volvo FL fire tenders had snow chains on the back and ‘snow socks’ on the front and even still couldn’t make any headway through the dense snow on the road.
The fire crews arrived at 5.10 p.m. in Ballycullane where they received a fantastic reception from the crowd, most of whom assumed the firemen, who by then had been on duty 24 hours straight, would have turned back.
The crew were fighting the blaze four minutes later.
The roof of the house, occupied by Anna Murphy, was totally gutted following a fire which started in the kitchen. Ms Murphy was safe from the scene within minutes of the fire breaking out.
A team of three firemen wearing breathing apartaus, went into the attic of a vacant house adjoining the burned house and using compressed air foam were able to prevent the fire from spreading through the roof and potentially into the attic. Meanwhile the firemen had to call for more diesel for fear the water on board would freeze.
Assistant county Fire Officer Ray Murphy said there are 1,800lts of water on every fire tender but every precaution had to be taken.
Mr Murphy said: ‘The fire crew left the scene at 7 p.m. having extinguished the fire. By this stage another foot of snow had fallen.’
Cyril said: ‘Cllr Michael Whelan met us there and he was excellent. He thanked us and was fantastic for the community as well, as was the guard on the scene, Eamonn Whelan. Some residents said if it was them they would have turned around but we only go one direction and that is onwards.’
‘It was actually worse coming back as more snow had fallen. It was up to eight feet.’
The fire crew returned to New Ross at around midnight and finished preparing the fire tenders for the following day.