Halloween: Firefighters flooded with emergency calls about blazes across Dublin after dark

Firefighters are inundated with emergency calls for infernos across the entirety of Dublin from the moment it gets dark on Halloween, a top official has revealed.

Assistant Chief Fire Officer Greg O’Dwyer said it remains one of the busiest nights of the year for firefighters but declared it isn’t as bad as it once was. He told how in the past it was “rare” to get through a Halloween night without a crew member being injured or their equipment being damaged.

Mr. O’Dwyer, who has more than 35 years under his belt at Dublin Fire Brigade, said this is a direct result of the work done by local authorities who organise safe events while simultaneously removing stockpiled material to build bonfires.

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But he revealed that staff in The East Region Control Centre based out of Dublin Fire Brigade HQ on Townsend Street will still be flooded with calls until the early hours of the morning. Mr. O’Dwyer told The Irish Mirror: “The phone does not stop ringing from the moment it gets dark until probably 4am, it will be going non-stop.”

The top fire officer said that in addition to all the bonfire-related calls, crews will also be dealing with run-of-the-mill blazes too. He also told how some of these are caused by people setting off fireworks in their back garden, only for it to go through their kitchen window before setting the house on fire.

Mr O’Dwyer said each bonfire will be assessed by senior officers, who will make a decision on whether or not to extinguish it. Bonfires in the middle of nowhere may be left alone if putting them out will put crews at risk. But he made clear, that if one of the flaming structures needed to be stopped because it posed a danger to life or was too close to someone’s house or car - they would enlist the help of the Gardaí to deal with a hostile crowd.

Speaking about what it’s like to be a firefighter on Halloween night, Mr O’Dwyer explained: “It’s risky but like with any other time (our) guys and girls are all very well prepared for it. They’re well trained, they’re well equipped.

“We do dynamic risk assessments… we’ll go and assess the risks at each fire. If it’s a fire that needs to be put out, we will put it out. If it’s a fire in the middle of nowhere and by putting it out will bring more volatility through an anti-social element, we might leave it aside.

“We work very closely with An Garda Síochána and their public order unit are normally on standby as well on Halloween and if we need to go into a fire which we think poses a big risk to firefighters we will wait for the guards to bring us in there.”

All Dublin firefighters are also trained paramedics who operate an ambulance service and Mr O’Dwyer said in years gone by, they’ve come across some nasty injuries. He explained that fireworks and items such as gas canisters exploding in bonfires have left people with “life-altering injuries” in the past.

Mr O’Dwyer added: “Our ambulance is really, really busy on that night as well, far busier than it would be on any other normal Saturday night.”

The top fire officer also said that Halloween isn’t as busy as it used to be. On Halloween in 2023, fire crews received 244 fire calls - 185 of which were bonfire-related, while there were also 385 times an ambulance was phoned for. He said the work local authorities do in the run-up to Halloween by removing stockpiled wood is a huge help and as a result, the fires they respond to are often much smaller nowadays.

Mr O’Dwyer added: “I would say Halloween has decreased in the volume of calls by probably almost half over 10 years. It really has. And that’s absolutely down to a combined effort from the local authorities and the communities, working together to reduce stockpiling but also organising some great community events.”

He continued: “Going back 10-15 years ago, it would be very rare if we got through a Halloween night without some of our staff getting injured or our equipment getting damaged or our fire appliances getting windscreens smashed… that doesn’t happen as regularly anymore, thankfully. Obviously, we’re going to less and less fires now so the risk is less, and those that we are going to are small in nature.

“It’s a great thing for the city, it’s a great thing for the environment because bonfires themselves are illegal… they damage the environment, particularly if the fire is set on a pitch because we’ve seen them on pitches and playgrounds and so on. It takes a full year for that grass to grow back and every year the council spends at least a million euros trying to repair the damage done to football pitches.”

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