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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
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| Blaze damages cigarette factory | Blaze damages cigarette factory |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| A three-storey high warehouse holding thousands of pounds worth of tobacco at Gallaher's cigarette factory in County Antrim has been destroyed in a fire. | |
| More than 50 firefighters and ten appliances fought the blaze at Galgorm Road, Ballymena, on Sunday evening. | More than 50 firefighters and ten appliances fought the blaze at Galgorm Road, Ballymena, on Sunday evening. |
| The building was gutted in the blaze and a significant amount of tobacco was destroyed. | |
| No-one was injured. Peter O'Reilly from the Fire and Rescue Service, said the fire proved difficult to contain. | |
| "It was very complicated and technically difficult, made so by the age and size of the building," he said. | "It was very complicated and technically difficult, made so by the age and size of the building," he said. |
| "Gallahers are in the game of producing tobacco. The storage area which was a large warehouse contained significant amounts of tobacco which proved very difficult to extinguish. | |
| "It is a very old building and is quite large - three storeys high. At the very early stages of the fire, significant parts of that building appeared to be in imminent danger of collapse." | |
| Mr O'Reilly, an area commander with the fire service, said it was too early to say how the fire started. | |
| He said the building was dangerous and he recommended that structural engineers assess that danger before anyone entered it. |