Gardaí in Cork last night launched a criminal investigation into the cause of a fire which caused several million euro worth of damage to a landmark building in the city's docklands area early yesterday morning.
They believe the fire, which destroyed the upper levels of the 43m (140ft) grain silo belonging to warehouse company R and H Hall at Kennedy Quay in Cork, may have been the work of arsonists.
The fire was noticed shortly after 7am yesterday and it quickly spread across the upper reaches of the silo, one of several owned by the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society (IAWS) subsidiary at its 30-acre site on the south docks, a few hundred yards downstream from Cork City Hall.
Cork city fire brigade third officer Edward Buckley said seven units of the brigade - comprising around 25 staff and including six tenders - attended the scene. No one was injured in the fire.
The four staff who work at the storage silo were rostered to start work at 8am. They arrived to discover their place of work had been cordoned off by gardaí and emergency services to ensure no one was injured.
Firefighters donned breathing apparatus and used three hydraulic lifts to reach the upper levels of the building. They spent over an hour battling to stop the blaze spreading to other nearby grain silos and stores.
The silo contained 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes of barley, but it was unclear yesterday whether the barley had been damaged by either the fire or water during the effort to bring the fire under control.
It was unclear last night what would happen to the building, which was constructed in the early 1950s. It occupies a central location on the IAWS site which is expected to be a central part of a development in the south docklands.
A Garda spokesman confirmed technical experts were still conducting an examination of the scene last night, but sources indicated to The Irish Times that a full criminal investigation is already under way.
It is understood that there were several seats to the fire, leading gardaí to believe it was started maliciously.
Officers were yesterday studying CCTV footage from a camera at the Port of Cork building, which they hope will help them in their inquiries.
Gardaí are also investigating whether the fire at the R and H Hall building may be linked to an earlier arson attack on a car parked in a laneway at the rear of the South Infirmary/Victoria Hospital, approximately half a mile away.
Yesterday's fire resulted in a large plume of smoke billowing up over the southside of Cork, visible to thousands of people on their way to work as well as tens of thousands of residents of Cork's northside whose houses look down on the city centre.
This is the second major fire in the docklands area in the past 25 years.
It follows a major explosion at the then national grain silos on the south docks on October 30th, 1984, when two men, George Atkinson from Blarney Street and Tom O'Shea from Douglas, were killed.
