Fire crews have this month been battling against a major fire at a fuel depot in west Belfast. Around 14 appliances and up to 70 firefighters from as far away as Warrenpoint were involved in tackling the huge "fireball", the cause of which is still being investigated. The fire broke out at Colinglen Road in Poleglass, at around 9:00pm on Wednesday 14 February, and took three hours to bring under control. The single structure collapsed while Fire and Rescue Service officers were at the scene, and as the blaze spread it began to rupture tanks inside the building which caused fuel to run down Colinglen Road in a huge river of fire over 200 metres long. Miraculously, nobody was injured.
Belfast Area Commander Chris Kerr described the blaze as one of the worst he had ever witnessed and had the building not been situated on a hill, the incident could have been fatal. "As the firefighters were leaving the station they could see a huge fireball, which had risen hundreds of feet in the air and could be seen for miles. There was a very real danger of explosion because of thousands of litres of flammable liquid contained in the building, including five large tankers and hundreds of bottles of gas."
Whilst fighting the blaze, firefighters adhered to new guidelines from the Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) which state that control measures should always consider the impact on the surrounding area, which in this case was Colinglen Park.
