Police in Antrim are appealing for information following two suspected arson incidents at Greenmount Campus last night (Wednesday, May 30, 2018).
A PSNI spokesman said a skip was set on fire which spread to a nearby oil tank. A wooden pergola covering a BBQ area was also set alight.
“Thankfully, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service was able to attend and extinguish the fires before any further damage occurred,” he said.
The damage
Two members of staff discovered the fires and called the emergency services at around 6:20pm. Firefighters arrived with three appliances to tackle the blaze – two from Antrim and one from Crumlin.
A spokeswoman for Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said the incident involved a total of two oil tanks, two storage sheds and a skip. The incident ended at 8.06pm.
Greenmount Campus (College) is part of CAFRE – Northern Ireland’s College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise.
CAFRE has around 1,500 students across its three campuses, the other two of which are based in Enniskillen and Loughry.
It follows less than two weeks after it took 48 firefighters to tackle a 1km-wide gorse fire in Co. Antrim. The blaze broke out in Craig’s Forest, Finvoy, Ballymoney, on May 17.
In an unrelated incident, a second gorse fire also broke out on Black Mountain last night.