Updated 10.41pm
AT LEAST 12 firefighting vehicles from Dublin Fire Brigade are currently dealing with a fire on the top floors of a building in Ballymun on the northside of Dublin city.
The building in question is the Metro Hotel complex at Santry Cross. Authorities first became aware of the blaze shortly after 8pm.
Road closures are in place as emergency services continue to deal with the situation. It’s understood that traffic in the area is currently at a standstill and that drivers should use alternate routes if possible.
It has now been confirmed by Dublin Fire Brigade that all occupants of the building were successfully evacuated. It’s understood that those evacuated were moved to a nearby hotel.
At present Dublin Fire Brigade says it has no record of any casualties resulting from the fire.
“It is the case that everyone is safe,” said local Fine Gael TD Noel Rock. “Some families were affected from the apartments above the hotel, but everyone is safe.”
The fire has spread across at least five floors at the top of the complex, with the ninth and twelfth floors visibly the worst affected.
Firefighters wearing specialist breathing apparatus are now inside the building amid ongoing efforts to extinguish the blaze.
In the last few minutes firefighters have got a hose through onto the 9th floor. The blaze has been much reduced visibly in the last hour according to witnesses on the ground on the outside.
It’s understood that the Metro hotel comprises the lower part of the building, with the floors which are visibly on fire containing apartments, though those units are part of the same complex.
At least 12 units, including several specialist firefighting vehicles have attended the scene, while a mobile command centre has also been set up.
Other emergency service vehicles on scene include ambulances, Garda vehicles, ESB networks units, and county council vehicles.
A crowd of several hundred people has been drawn to the blaze, which is being kept behind a number of cordons.
Local councillor Noeleen Reilly, who is nearby, earlier said that the blaze appeared to be across several floors of the complex.
It had been suggested that the building was at one time used to house homeless families in the Dublin area – however it has since emerged that no homeless persons have stayed at the Metro for at least the last 12 months, and that Dublin Regional Homeless Executive’s contract in the area is with a separate hotel.
With reporting from Daragh Brophy
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