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One point which nobody seems to have mentioned about these steel car parks - many of the multi storey car parks that have sprung up at railway stations in recent years are of the steel design - and these are locations where there will be little attendance during the day.
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This fire happened nearly 5 years ago on New Years Eve when there was the Liverpool Internation Horse Show on in the arena.
The car park was full with the ground floor being used for stables. All horses were safely rescued.
At the time the fire started, in one car, there was very few, if any, people in the car park, hence the 15 minute delay in the first 999 call. I think the car that started the fire was on floor 3 - the fire spread to adjacent cars - you can see from the fire report that after the fire brigade arrived they reported 20 cars on fire and running fuel.
The whole car park was eventually on fire. Most cars were totally burnt out but some on the top and upper floors on the side away from the start of the fire were badly smoke damaged, or water damaged (by the fire brigade) or partly fire damaged. All cars were declared write offs and it was at least 1 month before damaged cars were removed.
The car park did NOT collapse. However, due to the intense heat, there was a lot of concrete spalling to the extent that you could see through from one floor to the floor below leaving the steel reinforcing rods visible which maintained their original position.
There was no sprinkler system.
There were a lot of plastic drain pipes and gutters, so being plastic, they melted or burnt and thus helped the flow of burning fuel. It was commented somewhere that steel/iron drains and gutters would have retained the flowing and burning fuel and thus assisted considerably with not spreading the fire.
Each parking floor contained a ramped parking section which was how you drove between floors and thus fuel could flow down from one floor to the floor below and fire could follow the ceiling above to move upwards.
The fire brigade reports are (or were) in the public domain.
Car Insurance. Some useful info if you lost a car at Luton.
Some companies acted responsibly with claims but there were a lot of issues. There was only one culprit car and thus all the rest were no fault claims. So be prepared to 'fight' an insurance company.
Ensure you get it in writing from your insurance company that is it a no fault claim. Cars were undervalued - so look around at what dealers have for sale and find 3 cars for sale that are the same/similar to that which you have lost and use these to justify the amount to be paid. When you come to insure your replacement car, watch the insurance premium and there were instances of a big hike in the premium, hence you need to press the no fault button very hard. The same may happen on each renewal. And you may find if you try to move insurer, then it may prove difficult or impossible.
And this will be a 5 year blight on your car insurance as one of the questions on renewals is "Have you or anyone had a claim in the last 5 years".
Hence the importance of a letter in writing stating no fault claim.
My interest in the Liverpool fire - a member of the family lost a car and all its contents.
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Have a read of the Merseyside document. Some quick observations:
* The Liverpool car park surviced the 15 minute fire test because it was of concrete. There is a paragragh which states if steel is used (as in Luton) because of a relaxation of fire standard, i.e. no 15 minute test, then the steel structure will collapse -as happened at Luton
* Design criteria (historic) suggested there would be no great fire spead - Merseyside Fire Brigade state this is clearly incorrect.
* There are various photos including showing concrete spalling holes through to the floor below.
* The nominal capacity is 1600 which is downgraded when the ground floor is used for other purposes, in this case stable.
* The fire brigade estimate 1170 vechiles destroyed/written off.
* The fire report mentions aluminium gutters which melted at 600C.
Thanks for the update. EVs would have been much less common five years ago, suggesting that the Luton fire might have been of a similar size even without them.
One point which nobody seems to have mentioned about these steel car parks - many of the multi storey car parks that have sprung up at railway stations in recent years are of the steel design - and these are locations where there will be little attendance during the day.
They're springing up everywhere because they are presumably cheap, and certainly very quick, to build. But it does look like we're bound to have another incident one day, and whether an ICE vehicle or EV, it's going to be bad.
My concern is how people raise the alarm for people to get out. With the diesel Range Rover there seems to have been quite a bit of time, but with an EV that time might be less.
Our town car park has an alarm system but nobody takes any notice of it when it goes off perhaps once or twice a day (and stays on for hours, as no police, fire or the council attends to reset it). Kids have set fires in the stairwell a few times for s**ts and giggles, and race their cars at night on the roof. Again, nobody seems to care.
But now that nobody takes any notice of the alarm, what happens if there's a fire and you have maybe 10-15 minutes before part of the car park collapses? People will still come and go at the lower levels, and the alarm isn't accompanied by a recorded message to say to leave the building.
Would a concrete one have resisted the fire any better? Surely the fire spread upwards by going out of the open sides and up (a bit like it spread from flat to flat at Grenfell by going in the windows having melted the frames/cracked the glass and then setting the curtains on fire), and all car parks have open sides as otherwise ventilation can be expensive?
The Liverpool one was a concrete building and that was as bad.
It seems that the DART is not going to be reopening until the middle of next week. In the meantime there are 4 buses running back and forth between Parkway station and the airport - maybe sending the bendy-buses to Ukraine was a little premature!
It seems that the DART is not going to be reopening until the middle of next week. In the meantime there are 4 buses running back and forth between Parkway station and the airport - maybe sending the bendy-buses to Ukraine was a little premature!
The explanation (excuse??) for the uncomfortable, hard, 'ironing board' seats on trains is 'they have to be fire-proof'.
But the video seems to show a severe car fire started by setting fire to a seat - self evidently far from fire-proof.
Anecdotally from my own observations, car fires are not uncommon.
The explanation (excuse??) for the uncomfortable, hard, 'ironing board' seats on trains is 'they have to be fire-proof'.
But the video seems to show a severe car fire started by setting fire to a seat - self evidently far from fire-proof.
Anecdotally from my own observations, car fires are not uncommon.
It's also worth noting that even "non-flammable" materials will combust if temperatures are sufficiently high. Often that moniker really just means that they won't be the first thing to catch fire, thus allowing time for people to escape.
It seems that the DART is not going to be reopening until the middle of next week. In the meantime there are 4 buses running back and forth between Parkway station and the airport - maybe sending the bendy-buses to Ukraine was a little premature!
Is there any information on why the DART is currently suspended ? I am not second-guessing those on the ground, just curious.
Edit: Just came up on local TV news. Car park is close enough to the DART that they want to make sure nothing from the car park is liable to fall on the DART
Trying to hit any fire in an engine compartment from outside with an extinguisher is very difficult due to the engine and other large components therein obstructing the flow of the extinguishing agent (except Carbon Dioxide extinguishers). To use an extinguisher on a leak of fuel in the engine compartment it is necessary to unlock and slightly raise the bonnet to discharge the extinguisher into the engine compartment. Or if you're the fire service you use a crowbar to lift the bonnet with appropriate protection to hands and face.....
For those who have not experienced a fire within a building, even open sided, the tests done after the Stardust Disco fire was an ey opener even to those who planned the tests. This video doesn't have a timer running but I used to use one with the timer on and you would not believe how quick it spread. The Bradford City fire was also an example of a 'flashover' in an open sided building. Stardust test
Trying to hit any fire in an engine compartment from outside with an extinguisher is very difficult due to the engine and other large components therein obstructing the flow of the extinguishing agent (except Carbon Dioxide extinguishers). To use an extinguisher on a leak of fuel in the engine compartment it is necessary to unlock and slightly raise the bonnet to discharge the extinguisher into the engine compartment. Or if you're the fire service you use a crowbar to lift the bonnet with appropriate protection to hands and face.....
I can confirm that it is possible to do this but you do have to be quick. The car was a Ford Capri, in which the Pinto engine was known to flash across from the carburettor intake to the float bowl breather vent. We started the car, which coughed and died followed by the bonnet starting to blister. We popped the bonnet up onto the safety catch giving us a very small gap and squirted the extinguisher through this. Fire extinguished and very little damage. Revisited the motor factors we were outside to buy new plug leads, advance/retard pipe and air filter and happily drove home.
It seems that the DART is not going to be reopening until the middle of next week. In the meantime there are 4 buses running back and forth between Parkway station and the airport - maybe sending the bendy-buses to Ukraine was a little premature!
Yes it's chaotic. I planned to use it but all the buses jammed full and a long wait, so I walked. The roads were all congested from before the roundabout by the hotel and turning for the long stay car park. However there was also congestion on the pavement due to the number of people walking and a queue at the tunnel because there was not enough room for two pushchairs or luggage trolleys to pass with railings beside the pavement. Still at least it sounds like the train will start running again soon. I feared it might be out for months.
All 1405 of them! Here's an image of the statement lifted from X (can't find a text version to copy and paste):
Image shows wordy statement from Luton Airport saying that 1405 cars are likely to be written off and Associaition of British Insurers are working with the airport.
All 1405 of them! Here's an image of the statement lifted from X (can't find a text version to copy and paste): View attachment 144836
Image shows wordy statement from Luton Airport saying that 1405 cars are likely to be written off and Associaition of British Insurers are working with the airport.
They've been exposed to extrema heat and smoke, then there is the question of, even if salvageable, how would you retrieve them without causing further damage?
I wonder if any of the owners will be allowed access to the cars, to remove personal possessions from them, or is the structure too unsafe to ever allow public access?
Surface level car parks are a horrendous waste of space, but along with people feeling less safe in multi storeys, incidents like this fire also are show why people prefer them.
I wonder if any of the owners will be allowed access to the cars, to remove personal possessions from them, or is the structure too unsafe to ever allow public access?
Surface level car parks are a horrendous waste of space, but along with people feeling less safe in multi storeys, incidents like this fire also are show why people prefer them.
Luton does have two very large ones (Mid and Long Stay) which are considerably cheaper than the multi storeys but are a longer walk (Mid) or bus (Long), wonder if they will become more popular? The mid stay is my usual choice.
I am slightly surprised they didn't have a stop for the Dart for the mid stay, it goes right past it.
Luton does have two very large ones (Mid and Long Stay) which are considerably cheaper than the multi storeys but are a longer walk (Mid) or bus (Long), wonder if they will become more popular? The mid stay is my usual choice.
I am slightly surprised they didn't have a stop for the Dart for the mid stay, it goes right past it.
True, though the mid-stay is walkable to the terminal (just a slightly long walk) and has no bus at present other than for those with disabilities on request (which may well only be while it's being a temporary drop off location), so a choice between walking for free or £5 for the Dart (free for those parking with a blue badge) would not seem unreasonable.
Only to access the T1 car park which wasn't affected by the fire other than that it was normally accessed via the T2 car park which was the one that caught fire. That is now operating as normal, presumably with a bloke stood by the temporary entrance checking bookings.
