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The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) was called to extinguish a fire at Lakeland Dairies’ LacPatrick facility at Artigarvan, Strabane, Co Tyrone, in the early hours of Monday morning.
NIFRS crews from Strabane, Crescent Link, Limavady and Newtownstewart were all in attendance at the fire, which left the overall plant undamaged.
“Fire crews had to negotiate a challenging space to access and extinguish the fire,” an NIFRS spokesperson said.
‘Small fire’
A Lakeland Dairies spokesperson described the fire as “small” and said it took place “in some machinery”.
“The fire was detected immediately on its occurrence at approximately 1.30am. The fire brigade was called and attended promptly.
“The fire was quickly brought under control by [NIFRS] on their arrival, and the fire brigade departed the site at approximately 8am,” the spokesperson explained.
They said that the plant’s safety systems all operated effectively and a number of staff onsite at the time exited immediately and safely in line with all necessary procedures.
“We are thankful that nobody was injured as a result of this occurrence.”
An investigation into the cause of the fire is currently under way, NIFRS and Lakelands confirmed.
For safety reasons, production at the LacPatrick facility was temporarily halted, but full operations will resume at some point on Monday.
The PSNI confirmed that it did not attend the scene.
Acquisition
LacPatrick Dairies was acquired by Lakelands in 2019.
LacPatrick itself had invested £30m in a new dairy technology centre in Artigarvan in 2018. The investment was supported by Danske Bank.
The 30,000sq ft centre then doubled the site’s capacity, making the firm one of the biggest producers of dairy products in the UK.
At the time, it also represented one of the single biggest investments in the Northern Ireland dairy industry in recent years.
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