Incident Report

Subject:                     Man dies following fire at Louth fuel depot

Date of Email report:   Sat 18/12/2010

Report Detail:

A 24-year-old man died after a fire at a small oil depot at Castleroche, 10 kilometres west of Dundalk, Co Louth yesterday.  The fire broke out at about 7am. Firefighters from Dundalk, Drogheda and Ardee fought the blaze and were assisted by the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.  Senior assistant chief fire officer for Louth Sheila Broderick confirmed that firefighters recovered the body of the man from a shed. She said three road tankers were destroyed in the fire. There was diesel, petrol and other types of fuel at the depot and the fire service was concerned about a possible explosion. A fireball had been reported earlier in the blaze. A spokesman for the Northern Ireland fire service said an appliance from Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, attended the scene at the request of the Louth fire service. He said there was intense heat and a large volume of acrid smoke from the blaze, which was quickly brought under control. Gardaí said the depot was beside a farmyard and the scene was being examined in an effort to establish the cause of the fire. State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy carried out a postmortem on the man’s remains yesterday at the Louth County Hospital, Dundalk.