Further week to put out Naas dump fire

THE FIRE at an abandoned illegal dump at Kerdiffstown, near Naas, Co Kildare, will take at least one more week to extinguish, …

THE FIRE at an abandoned illegal dump at Kerdiffstown, near Naas, Co Kildare, will take at least one more week to extinguish, Kildare’s senior fire officer has said.

Celina Barrett, chief fire officer with Kildare County Fire Service, said steps taken over the weekend to use nitrogen gas to control the fire appeared to be successful, but considerably more work was needed before the fire would be fully extinguished.

“We’ve begun pumping large quantities of nitrogen gas into the site and it appears to be working reasonably well, so we’ll continue that overnight, which will allow us to excavate the cooled material during the day, but it will be another week at least before it’s out.”

The nitrogen gas works in two ways by cooling down the material within the dump and depriving the fire of oxygen, Ms Barrett said.

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The change in the weather in recent days, which brought heavy rains after a long dry period, had little effect on the fire which has been burning for almost three weeks.

About 60 workers, including fire crews from Laois and Wicklow, as well as Kildare, are working on the site each day.

“We have had to try to balance our resources to ensure we don’t compromise fire services for the county, that’s why we’ve called on other counties to assist, so that each county is still adequately resourced,” Ms Barrett said.

Local campaign group Clean Air Nass told an Oireachtas environment committee just over one week ago that the dump was having an adverse effect on residents’ health with people suffering stomach and breathing problems.

The dump, which opened 14 years ago, was closed on foot of a High Court injunction granted to the Environmental Protection Agency last year following more than 200 complaints.

Olivia Kelly

Olivia Kelly

Olivia Kelly is Dublin Editor of The Irish Times