Letterkenny family forced to leave home due to controlled fires

A Letterkenny family had to leave their home due to the impact of controlled fires at the weekend, a local councillor has said.

Residents in one area of Letterkenny were “afraid to go to their beds” due to the controlled burning of vegetation at night, a meeting of the Letterkenny-Milford  Municipal District has heard.

Mayor of the municipal district Cllr Jimmy Kavanagh said people in the Gortlee area were “up in arms” about the burning which had caused one family with a child with asthma to move out at the weekend.

He told the meeting “people were extremely unhappy about it” and he received daily calls about the fires which took place between Thursday and Sunday with residents concerned about the impact of strong winds.

Parents and young children ‘running the gauntlet’ on busy Letterkenny road

Councillor warns that someone is going to be killed due to condition of footpath

“People were genuinely very upset about it and they were very worried about it,” he said.

There was particular concern that the fires were being started in the evening.

Cllr Kavanagh said he phoned an emergency number but got no response and also phoned the gardaí but was told the fires were being carried out with a permit and “it was all above board”.

He said he could not see how a permit would allow fires to take place in those circumstances.

Acting senior executive chemist Joe Ferry told the meeting that a permit was in place and that fires could not be lit “at a time the council would not have recommended”. He said fires may have gone on longer than the person who set them had envisaged.The fire service attended the fires and they were satisfied that nobody was in immediate danger, he added.

In a written response to a question from Cllr Kavanagh,  the council said the Waste Management (Prohibition of Waste Disposal by Burning) Regulation 2009, allows farmers, as a last resort, to dispose of bushes and shrubbery generated by agricultural practices. The council’s environment section receives burn notices from farmers who plan to carry out a controlled burn of waste vegetation from their land. Farmers are advised to contact the fire service before and after the burn. Checks are carried out to ensure fires do not contain materials other than green waste.

Those undertaking controlled burns are advised to comply with the  Department of Agriculture’s code of practice.