Busy night as DFB crews deal with over 200 fire calls
By Hayden Moore
Another year, another busy Halloween for emergency services as Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) received 229 citywide fire calls, 156 of which were Halloween related.
There were also 298 Dublin Ambulance request calls.
DFB attended a fire in Fortunestown, Tallaght (Pic: DFB)
From 4pm on Thursday (October 31) until 6am on Friday morning, DFB recorded its busiest night of activity for 2019.
However, according to Dublin City Council (DCC), there was a slight decrease in the number of both fire and ambulance calls in comparison to last year.
A van was set alight in a garden in Cherry Orchard (pic: DFB)
Most of the activity was Halloween-related activities such as bonfires.
However, there was also several anti-social incidents across the city, including attacks on fire crews.
In a statement to The Echo, a spokesperson for Dublin City Council said: “A number of anti-social incidents did occur across the city with a number of attacks on fire crews, projectiles including fireworks were used to intimidate fire crews, but thankfully none of our crews were injured.”
With an increase in the number of organised festive events across the county, Dublin City Council was happy to announced that they “proved extremely popular and were well attended”.
DFB put out a sofa on fire in Millbrook area (pic: DFB)
Dublin City Council also welcomed that “no reports of injuries to members of the public associated with bonfires or fireworks were reported to Dublin Fire Brigade last night”.
Last year, South Dublin County Council surveyed and mapped bonfire sites across South Dublin County, with a total of 280 bonfire sites recorded in 2018.
The local authority told The Echo that this mapping exercise will be repeated again this year.
A spokesperson for South Dublin County Council said: “This will provide details of bonfire sites to be be cleaned and these sites will also then need to revisited for reinstatement in 2020 once ground conditions permit.”
