THE COSTS following a massive fire which destroyed a number of businesses in the Riverside Commercial Estate off the Tuam Road in Galway city on Saturday night may reach millions of euro.
Apart from destroying three buildings and badly damaging as many more, there was also smoke damage to a number of others buildings. The bravery of the fire fighters, Garda and emergency services has been praised by the owners of the premises.
The fire started at the lower end of the commercial estate shortly before 7pm on Saturday and spread along the buildings towards the Tuam Road.
Five fire brigades – two units from Galway and one each from Loughrea, Tuam and Athenry – fought the blaze, using two hydraulic platforms.
A large blow motor was also used to divert smoke away from some of the buildings.
The Galway Liquidation Centre and Westlink Car Sales premises were gutted, while the fire also caused severe damage to several adjoining businesses.
Peter Boland of the nearby Cases Wine warehouse said they were lucky to have escaped.
“We are reopen for business but it was a lucky escape for our firm as the flames were very close to our premises,” he said.
Meanwhile Tony Cunniffe of Cunniffe Electrical says his family business and a number of others were very lucky to escape the blaze. “To be honest at 11 o’clock on Saturday night I thought the whole premises was going to be caught by the fire.
“If that happened it would be 35 years of business gone up in smoke, but thank God we escaped,” he said.
Mr Cunniffe paid tribute to all those who saved their business premises and other adjoining premises by bringing the blaze under control.
“The bravery of the fire fighters and the gardaí is something that we never appreciate enough. They were amazing the way they moved to save the buildings and brought the flames under control,” he said.
Gardaí were still at the scene of the fire yesterday and the area remained sealed off for further examination.
As yet the cause of the fire is unknown and gardaí were trying to establish which premises the fire started in.
While the blaze was extinguished by approximately 2am yesterday the last of the fire fighters did not leave the scene until after 7am. They continued damping down the burned-out shells of the buildings that were destroyed in the blaze.