Northern Ireland Fire Service Handled 151 Incidents Overnight, 54 Linked to Bonfires

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service received 303 emergency calls and responded to 151 operational incidents between 18:00 BST on Saturday and 02:00 on Sunday, The Bbc reported. Fifty-four of the calls were linked to bonfires lit ahead of the Orange Order parades. Firefighters withdrew from a bonfire in Cookstown, County Tyrone, after encountering a hostile crowd.

In Greenisland, Carrickfergus, crews extinguished fires that destroyed two homes, damaged two additional properties, and involved two oil tanks and a shed; the cause remains under investigation. A garage fire on Milner Street in Belfast was traced to spread from a nearby bonfire. Additional calls included accidental house fires in Antrim and Coleraine and an articulated lorry fire in Newry.

NIFRS Area Commander Dermot Rooney said the service remained prepared for further bonfires over the bank holiday weekend and urged the public to follow countryside fire safety advice amid continuing warm, dry weather. A man died after falling from an unlit bonfire in east Belfast on Friday night. On Saturday, anti-immigration slogans and images appeared at several bonfire sites in Belfast.

A bonfire in County Tyrone that carried a replica mosque was set alight prematurely on Thursday. Bonfires are lit annually in some unionist areas before the Orange Order parades, which commemorate the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. This year the parades scheduled for 12 July were moved to Monday 13 July because the date falls on a Sunday.