Dozens of cars destroyed or damaged in car park blaze

By David Young, PA

Dozens of cars have been destroyed or damaged in a blaze at a shopping centre car park in Co Cork.

The fire at the multi-storey parking facility in Douglas broke out on Saturday evening.

Firefighters battled through thick smoke as they worked for hours to extinguish the fire.

The Douglas Village Shopping Centre was evacuated when the fire started, and there were no reports of any injuries.

At one stage in the evening, there were 12 fire appliances on the scene, eight from Cork City Fire Brigade and four units from Cork County Fire Service.

Cork City Fire Brigade said the blaze was contained to one row of cars on one level of the car park.

It posted images on Sunday morning that showed the scale of the damage, with a row of cars reduced to charred shells.

The shopping centre was closed on Sunday as assessments were carried out to determine the safety of the building.

There were also traffic restrictions on nearby roads.

Tanaiste Simon Coveney tweeted: "Thank u to all the emergency services for their work last night. Very difficult for all businesses affected in Douglas - let's hope @douglasvillage will be open as normal very soon."

A Garda spokesman said: "The alarm was raised shortly before 7pm when a car parked in the facility was discovered on fire."

He said the car park remained sealed off to facilitate safety examinations.

"There are no reports of any casualties or injuries, a large number of parked cars were damaged or destroyed and significant damage has been caused to the building," he said.

MORNING AFTER: Crews are still at scene this morning in Douglas making up equipment and monitoring the building

Fire was contained to 1 section of burned out cars on 1 floor of the Multi-storey car park. The photos below show the extent to the grim reality of the morning after pic.twitter.com/79qKEbvhK8

— Cork City Fire Brigade (@CorkCityFire) September 1, 2019