THE PRIMARK FIRE.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to gain an insight into one of our most iconic and historic fire incidents in recent years.

The time from alarm to arrival on scene, the speed of fire development, the numbers of fire fighters , appliances and specialist assistance along with the impact on the business and local communities will be of interest to all sectors

Primark is located at Castle Street, Belfast and was the old ‘Bank Building’. NIFRS mobilised to incident number 27797181 at Primark, Bank Buildings, Belfast just before 11.01 hours on 28 August 2018. The pre-determined attendance (PDA) of two pumping appliances and an officer was mobilised within 90 seconds of the first call with the first appliances in attendance approximately 3 minutes later.

At the height of operations on Tuesday afternoon 14 pumping appliances, 3 aerial ladder platforms (ALPs), 2 command support units (CSU’s), 2 high volume pumps (HVP’s), NIFRS specialist rescue team (SRT) and NIAS hazardous area response team (HART) were deployed to support the operational response.

A total of 257 firefighters were in attendance at the incident; in addition 45 officers and 63 appliances were mobilised between 28 August and 1 September 2018. The incident brought a number of specific challenges each of which had a direct impact on firefighter safety and on a number of occasions firefighters were withdrawn from internal firefighting operations on Tuesday afternoon to prevent injury or loss of life.

Significant damage was caused to the Bank Building section of the Primark premises as a result of the fire. This section of the building suffered complete collapse of floors, with potential for full or partial collapse of the building as a result of considerable elements of loading at a high level. Firefighting operations prevented fire spread to the 30,000 square foot new extension (known as Commonwealth House) to the rear of Primark Bank Buildings.