A look back - Mayo fire service have been blazing a trail

By Tom Gillespie

A CHIMNEY fire took place in O’Reilly’s house at 32 McHale Road in 1963.

It was an occasion of great excitement as neighbouring children (pictured) gathered around in amazement as the firemen from Castlebar scaled the roof and put out the fire. To the left of the photograph is Kevin O’Malley’s shop.

There is an ambulance vehicle on the left which has the registration number DIZ 235 and was driven by fireman, the late James Clarke from Pontoon Road.

The part registration number on the car in front of the ambulance is 8519, with the possible prefix of IZ.

Back then the firemen in Castlebar were alerted to a fire by the sounding of a siren which was positioned on the roof of the courthouse at the Mall.

On one occasion the Mayo Fire Service was in the ‘dock’ in the early 1980s for bringing a major trial to a standstill at Castlebar Courthouse.

It was not the actions of the fire fighters but the whaling of a ‘call-out’ siren located overhead on the roof of the building.

In those days the fire brigade personnel were mobilised when the siren was set off and could be heard all over the county town.

However, those in the circuit courtroom below were deafened by the din as it echoed throughout the building and the presiding judge had no option but to adjourn proceedings.

Ironically, I was covering the case that day, one that radically changed the summoning of firemen to duty.

Retired Mayo fire chief Seamus Murphy, who served in the role for 36 years, remembered the occasion well and told me how firemen were then issued with personal alerters.

Some years ago Seamus said: “When I started (in the fire service) we were based in Mellett’s Garage on the Mall, which subsequently became the garda station. We moved to our new headquarters in 1992.

“The siren was located on top of the courthouse and unfortunately it went off a few times in the middle of serious cases and the judges were less than happy.

“Because the courtrooms were hollow it reverberated around the building.

“It was noisy enough on the roof but echoed even more in the courtroom.

“That was our call-out mechanism at the time, the same as was used right around the country.

“We then introduced personal alerters and in the earlier days they were not very reliable and the fire fighters were reluctant to dispense with the siren as they feared the alerter would not work.

“They felt it was hit-and-miss and there was a reliability issue so we ran both in tandem for a while. But as people got more comfortable with the alerters they became more reliable so we dispensed with the siren.”

How things in the fire service have changed since that chimney fire 57 years ago.

Any fire scene would now be completely cordoned off from the public for safety reasons. The modern fire tenders are fully equipped to tackle any emergency and the fire personnel are trained to the highest standards.

In Mayo, the county fire service cover one of the largest single areas for a single fire service in the country.

It is their obligation, under the Fire Services Acts, to make provision for the organisation of fire services, fire safety, fire fighting, the protection and rescue of persons and property and related matters.

There are 120 fire fighters working across 12 fire stations in the county - Castlebar (HQ), Westport, Ballina, Claremorris, Ballyhaunis, Ballinrobe, Swinford, Kiltimagh, Achill, Belmullet, Crossmolina and Charlestown.

The vast majority are part-time firefighters who are on call 24 hours for emergencies. They are highly trained and committed to keeping the public safe.

They also have responsibility for ensuring that buildings are planned, designed, constructed and maintained in a safe manner. Numerous fire officers are employed to look after public safety and process numerous applications such as liquor licences, fire safety certificates and lottery licences.

Pre and-post-Covid-19 the fire officers carry out inspections of buildings under the various Acts, as well as continuing their programme of random inspections of nightclubs with the assistance of the gardaí to detect and prevent overcrowding.

The fire service charges a fee for some of the services it provides as follows: Attendance at domestic chimney fire: €150; attendance at all other domestic incidents rate per hour: €750; attendance at all other types of buildings and at all incident types is based on a rate per fire appliance per hour: €750.

An invoice is issued for the appropriate charge based on the above rates after the fire brigade has attended and paying the invoice promptly is requested.

Most years, during hot spells, gorse fires are a plague and consume many hours to get them under control.

One of the largest emergencies in the county in recent years occurred on Good Friday, April 2, 1999, following a major fire at a workshop in the Cow Comforts factory in Belmullet.

A major emergency plan was put into operation. The Palm Court ballroom on the Bangor Erris Road was requisitioned as an emergency centre and civil defence and hospital emergency services were put on red alert.

While it was felt that there was no serious danger to health from the fire, it was inevitable that there would be some toxicity resulting from the fumes, said Padraic Hughes, the then Mayo county secretary.

“As a precaution,” he said, “people with asthma or bronchial-type disorders were advised to get out right away.”

It was most unusual to see a full-scale emergency plan in operation in the county, he conceded.

The last time was in 1989 when a passenger train was derailed near Knock and about 10 people were seriously injured.