The site on the Ramelton Road which went up in flames.
A FORMER Donegal councillor has revealed he raised concerns three years ago about the risk of fire at land which ignited close to a Letterkenny shopping centre.
A gorse fire swept across the Ramelton Road site on Tuesday afternoon, reaching close to the town’s Aldi car park.
Large plumes of black smoke could be seen over the town as firefighters battled to contain the flames.
Tom Crossan served as a representative on Letterkenny Town Council from 2009 to 2014.
He told the Donegal News this week that he had long held concerns about the land and the large amount of foliage growing on it.
He said he brought the risk of fire and the possible consequences up at council in 2014 but that no action was ever taken.
“I raised the issue and said the council should do something about it because I felt it could be dangerous if the grass there ever went on fire,” Mr Crossan said.
“On one side you have Tesco where I would imagine there are gas and oil tanks and on the other side you have all the cars in Aldi car park.
“When I went down on Tuesday evening about 7.30pm they had cut the grass back about three metres from the fence to stop it from getting too close to the fence.
“But I’ve always felt this was an accident waiting to happen and while on this occasion it wasn’t too bad because it happened during the day, if it had been 1am or 2am and it hadn’t been spotted as quickly, who knows what we could have been looking at here,” Mr Crossan added.
The Donegal News did contact Donegal County Council about the matter but at the time of going to press no response had been received.
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