Worst mountain fires residents can ever remember
THOMAS Flynn wasn’t particularly concerned when he first noticed smoke on the evening of Sunday May 31.
He was sitting outside the Rockmarshall home he shares with his wife Sonya and their four children Abha, Farah, Lorcan and Tiranan, enjoying a BBQ. ‘I could see the smoke a good distance away at Becks’ Lane,’ he recalls. The family then moved to the front of the house which is more sheltered and gradually he noticed that it was ‘getting more and more smokey’.
‘ Then in a blink of an eye, there was a line of flames at the back of the house,’ he recalls. Neighbours Alan and Helen Duffy came over and advised the family to move out of the house and offered them a place to stay.
Thomas spent a sleepless night as the flames advanced through the forest, coming dangerously close to both his own home and also the house belonging to his mother Ann.
‘I did think the fire was going to reach the houses and I was more worried about my mother’s house as it has a flat roof at the back which embers could set alight.’
‘ The smoke was horrendous on the Sunday night, he says, and days later it still lingers in the air as the forest continues to smoulder.
After fire crews spent the night quenching the blaze, the Flynns moved back home on Monday.
Reassured that the fires would be doused down, Thomas said they went to bed on Monday night only to be awoken at 1am by neighbour Mar Clarke who warned them that the fire was appraching the back of their house.
‘ There was a sheet of red flames approaching my mother’s house,’ says Thomas who frantically dialled 999. Two fire tenders from Dundalk arrived at the scene but Thomas says that only for his neighbour altertness, ‘it could have been a different story.’
He has lived all his life at Rockmarshall but has never seen such a bad fire. ‘I never saw flames like that so close to the houses.’
While their homes are safe, there was considerable smoke damage and he points out that the fences on farmland beside their house have been destroyed.
He believes that fire breaks need to be created between the edge of the forest and their homes.
In nearby Annaloughan, Gavin and Carolyn Joyce were getting ready to celebrate their daughter Caitlin’s 12th birthday last Wednesday.
‘I was doing some gardening on Tuesday evening when Caitlín came out and said she could see smoke coming over the mountain,’ he recalls. As he went to investigate, he saw flames coming over the ridge and phoned the fire service. This was the start of a long anxious night for Gavin, who remained in the house while the rest of the family moved in with relatives.
He watched as fire crews from Ardee and Dunleer fought the blaze and kept it from encroaching on his home.
‘Both crews were brilliant, very very professional - they were there from 8pm on Tuesday until 6.30am on Wednesday and then a crew from Dundalk came out at 8am.’
As the fire continued to burn and smoke filled the house, Gavin says it was a ‘ traumatic experience’ especially for the children.
This was the worst fire he has seen in the 13 years they have been living there. ‘ This one was really aggressive. The winds were changig direction and when the fire crossed onto the mountains, it was just dry gorse.’
He says that their house has suffered severe smoke damage.
As neighbours and friends rallied to offer their support, Gavin says ‘ the community out here is great.’
He too feels that steps need to be taken to prevent future fires for taking hold so aggressively, as this one had proven very dfficult to control due to the amount of dry vegetation which fed the flames.
As the fires made their way around the mountain, a number of other families also enduring an anxious wait as they watched the approaching flames although thankfully the fire service succeeded in keeping all their homes safe.