10 units attend large fire at Greenstar recycling plant in Cork
Units of the Cork City and County fire brigade have responded to a fire at a recycling plant in Glanmire this morning.
The blaze broke out shortly after midnight in the Sarsfields Court industrial estate.
There are no reports of injuries at the scene.
Ten units and a large number of firefighters from Cork City, Ballyvolane, Midleton, Cobh, Fermoy and Mallow attended the scene with a hydraulic platform and water tanker.
The fire was brought under control at around 4am this morning but operations are expected to continue for the next few hours.
A number of fires have occurred at the Greenstar recycling plant in Glanmire in the last five years. One such fire at the plant took three days to bring under control, while another fire in October 2017 caused major damage to the facility.
Fire crews from Fermoy, Midleton and @CorkCityFire are in attendence at a fire in a commercial waste facility fire in Glanmire. The fire is now under control but firefighting operations will continue for a number of hours. pic.twitter.com/WvTg4vvY0s
— Cork County Fire Service (@CorkCountyFire) February 23, 2019
Local Councillor Ger Keohane said he is relieved the blaze didn’t cause injury and praised the fire services for their efforts but said it was worrying that fires continue to occur at the site.
“It was a massive fire and it’s very lucky that nobody was injured. The recycling plant was badly damaged by a fire just a few years ago and they reopened.
“It’s worrying that this has happened again,” he added.
At 23:58 last night a crew from Ballyvolane, a hydraulic platform & a water tanker were called to an Industrial Fire in Sarsfields Court Industrial estate in Glanmire
— Cork City Fire Brigade (@CorkCityFire) February 23, 2019
CCFB crews fought the blaze with @corkcountyfire, Fermoy and Midleton crews until approximately 04:00#CorkFire pic.twitter.com/47PzrnEmX2
Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan said that there was a very real concern about the safety of recycling centres and accused the Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities of not doing enough to ensure that such units were made safe.
“Hardly a week goes by without a recycling centre fire in some part of the country. In the last twelve months there have been numerous fires in such centres, including a massive outbreak at Rathcoole in Co. Dublin last August...
"Clearly more needs to be done and unless recycling centres can be made safe then a question mark must remain over their future”.
