A fire has broken out at the Bombardier Aerospace factory in East Belfast this evening, in one of the factors units.
Formally know as Shorts Brothers, or locally just as ‘Shorts’, Bombardier had furloughed the majority of staff up until recently, when they had started to return to work.
The company know for production of composite wings for the Airbus A220 Aircraft, is a Canadian-owned aerospace firm, but in October 2019 the US group Spirit Aero announced a £1 billion deal to acquire the Northern Ireland operations of Bombardier’s.
A Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) Spokesperson said:
“NIFRS is currently attending an incident at Bombardier Aerospace, Airport Road, Belfast. 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.
“There are currently a total of 6 pumping appliances, 1 aerial appliance, a high volume pump with a total of 50 firefighters and supervisory officers engaged in firefighting operations to contain the fire.
“Members of the public are asked to avoid the area of Airport Road to enable firefighting operations to continue unhindered.”
UPDATE 23:00
“We are pleased to report that the incident at Bombardier Aerospace is now under control. Operations are being scaled back with a small number of resources remaining at the scene to damp down.”
