“Sad and traumatic”: Massive fire destroys Kilkenny Civil Defence building in Kilkenny

Updated 9.28pm

Up to 10 units of the fire services were called to battle a large blaze at Unit 4A Purcellsinch Business Park, Kilkenny City this morning. Emergency services were alerted before 10am this morning to the fire that broke out in a unit occupied by the Civil Defence in Kilkenny while neighbouring units including Fastlane Audio Visual and Offtech were evacuated.

The blaze was brought under control after 11am but not before significant damage was done to the building.

No casualties were reported, while a number of units of the fire brigade remained on the scene throughout the day and into the night for dampening down.

Kilkenny County Council’s Simon Walton, who is over fire/civil defence matters for the council at present, spoke to KCLR for our evening programme, The Way It Is.

“The fire was under control from about midday today. The Civil Defence plus one other business (Ormonde Organic) are renting the [subdivided] unit and obviously there was an incident there in the Civil Defence element of the building that caused the fire and obviously there was extensive damage done to the particular unit itself, and two units either side of it.

There was a single operative belonging to the Kilkenny Civil Defence in the unit at the time and obviously the fire started in that unit but exact (sort of) cause of the fire, we’re still investigating that. There’ll be a further on that over the course of the next 24 hours or so.

It’s a sad and traumatic day for the Civil Defence in Kilkenny in that there’s 50 or 60 volunteers throughout the county and they do absolutely tremendous work on behalf of the county. Our thoughts are with them today – it’s a traumatic day for them.”

While neighbouring businesses may be counting their losses over the next 24 hours, we do know the extent of the damage suffered by Kilkenny Civil Defence out of the fire at their unit.

“At the time of the fire there was 3 jeeps, 4 boats, a rescue van, an ambulance, a minibus, various communications equipment and clothing equipment all associated with the Civil Defence and all that has been destroyed.”

KCLR understands one of the boats destroyed in the fire belongs to Waterford River Rescue.

Listen back to the full clip below.

Photos and videos

Stephen Byrne spoke to some of those evacuated from neighbouring units this morning.