Sleepless times

Sleepless times as locals feared for their safety

LOCAL REACTION
Anton McNulty

“We were told to leave our house at 3.30pm on Tuesday afternoon by the fire brigade because the smoke was so thick. We were trying to leave but the fire came onto the road and we couldn’t get out because it was the only way out. We had to wait for a jeep to take us out…it was a scary experience.”
That was the terrifying ordeal experienced by Catriona Moran and her family as last week’ gorse fire threatened their home in the townland of Baralty.
The fire, which started last Monday, threatened up to seven houses in the locality of the Coillte forest and caused many sleepless nights for families who were unsure if the fire would damage their property. White smoke and ash covered homes for nearly four days and while, in the end, the fire itself stayed away, nobody wished to go through the experience again.
Catriona described seeing the flames coming over the hill towards their home but did not expect they would be in danger. However, it spread quickly on Tuesday morning and the fire brigade and locals had to rush over to Baralty to stop the flames getting to the houses.
“We couldn’t understand how the fire came all the way to us. My mum and sister stayed for the night but I felt I couldn’t stay, it was so close to the house at half ten at night. We were in such a panic at that time and just grabbed what we could. The trees were crackling and are now burnt to ash and you couldn’t see anything with the smoke. I never expected to experience anything like it in a nice quiet country village,” she said.
Mary Irwin, who lives in Gorthleatilla with her husband Philip, said the whole experience was ‘nerve-wrecking’ and explained that they had not slept for three nights as the fire raged close to their house. Like most people, Mary did not realise that the fire would last for so long and she was frightened for their safety.
“We were considering evacuating the house and were offered accommodation from a lot of people. We were frightened and panicking because we did not know what to expect. The people were fighting it hard and couldn’t get it under control. They would think it was under control and go somewhere else, only to see it blaze up again. The fire was not far from the back of the house and it was people power from the locals and the fire brigade that kept it away,” she said.
Mary’s neighbour, Eva Healy, was in the same position and was afraid to sleep with the fire raging. She described having tears in her eyes with the smoke and said the damage would have been much worse if it wasn’t for the efforts of the local people and the fire brigade.
“It was an awful experience and I never saw anything like it before and I wouldn’t like to see it again. You could not image the size of the flames, trees would shoot up in flames within seconds. Every time you looked out it was burning and we were glad to see the helicopter because without it, it would still be burning. The weather was so dry and I prayed for rain and not a drop came. There were downpours a mile down the road and not a drop here,” she said.
Her son Padraig came down from Dublin on Wednesday evening and could not believe the scale of the damage and destruction when he arrived. “It was hard to do anything to put it out. All we could do was monitor it from the outside, it was literally spreading like wildfire,” he said.