Reports have recently come in of a “significant” fire at the Bombardier Aerospace plant in Belfast, United Kingdom, suspected to have started at 20:45pm local time.
The local fire service, NIFRS, is currently still on-site (at the time of publishing) following a major incident at the main manufacturing building at Bombardier Aerospace on the Airport Road at Belfast Airport.
A spokesperson from NIFRS confirmed:
“The incident involves a factory unit on fire. NIFRS received the first call to the incident at 2045hrs with our first resource in attendance within 2 minutes.
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There are currently a total of 6 pumping appliances, one aerial appliance, a high volume pump with a total of 50 firefighters and supervisory officers engaged in firefighting operations to contain the fire.
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Members of the public are asked to avoid the area of Airport Road to enable firefighting operations to continue unhindered.”
It is believed the fire was quickly contained by crews, with a shift to damping efforts – keeping the fire at the facility compressed – shortly after 2300hrs local. The incident is believed, but unconfirmed, as having started in machinery at the facility, and the cause is thought to be accidentaL.
Bombardier Belfast – A220 Wing Factory
The Belfast based factory serves as one of Northern Ireland’s largest employment hubs, with over 3600 direct employees and the livelihoods of around 12000 reliant on the facilities operations. In a statement, it said there were no employees working in the factory at the time, but added that it would take time to assess any damaged. Despite operations at the plant resuming from 4 May 2020, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic causing suspension earlier in the year, it is thought there were no employees on site at the time of the incident.
The Belfast factory, dubbed as a vital component of the Airbus A220 aircraft, serves as the base for the manufacture of composite wings for the Airbus A220 type, as well as other manufacturing and MRO Engineering functions. With the scale, and high possibility of severe damage, it is thought the incident may lead to severe disruption for the Airbus A220 manufacturing process and thus delivery schedule.
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