FIRE CAUSED extensive damage to a terrace of eight houses in Dublin’s Terenure suburb yesterday afternoon. There was widespread rush-hour traffic disruption last evening and high winds spread thick smoke over a wide area of the populated area.
“All that’s left I’d say are the clothes on my back,” said Andrew Troy, whose home was one of a number destroyed by the fire in south Dublin yesterday.
Mr Troy who shares a rented five-bedroom house on Terenure Road East with four others looked on in shock as five units of the Dublin Fire Brigade struggled to contain the blaze which broke out in the terrace of eight houses near Terenure village yesterday afternoon.
“I got a call from a friend in London who said the house was on fire,” said Mr Troy who is originally from Ennis. “He said my housemate was knocking on neighbours’ doors to get them out on to the street.”
Mr Troy said his neighbours in the houses which are built over three floors included an older man, a lady and her daughter, a family, a couple and some Polish people.
A fire service water tanker and incident command unit also attended the scene though high winds are said to have hampered efforts to contain the blaze.
While gardaí said there were no serious injuries, three people were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation and a fireman was treated in hospital for burns to his hand.
Residents believe the fire started in the upper storey of one of the 1980s-built houses. The homes which have “mansard” or dormer type roofs with bedrooms built into the roof are located across the road from St Josephs Church and Boys National School. One parent who picked her son up from the school at 2.30pm said there had been no sign of a fire at that time.
A Polish woman who lives across from the terrace said: “I saw smoke and went outside. It was coming from across the road. I called 999 at about 3.15pm.”
“There were loud banging noises. Roof tiles were shooting off the roofs of some of the houses and flying across the road.”
The woman said the fire appeared to be coming from the top storey of the second or third last house on the terrace, near the corner of Greenmount Road and Terenure Road East. She said the fire, which initially spread along the roof of the terrace in the direction of Rathgar, then started to spread in both directions. “The wind did all the work,” she added.
