Fire rips through car park at Luton Airport
By Paul Homewood
All flights at Luton Airport have been suspended until the afternoon after a huge fire ripped through a terminal car park.
Flights have been halted until 15:00 BST after the fire at the multi-storey caused the building to suffer a "significant structural collapse".
About 1,500 vehicles may have been in the car park and subsequently damaged, the fire service said.
Four firefighters and an airport staff member were taken to hospital.
They had been suffering from the effects of breathing in smoke. Another patient was treated at the scene.
The airport said its priority was to support emergency services and the safety of passengers and staff, which is why flights had been suspended.
The fire, believed to have been accidental, would have started in a vehicle that arrived at about the time the fire started, shortly before 21:00 BST, the fire service said.
Footage shared online shows huge flames and billowing smoke from the top level of the car park after the fire broke out shortly before 21:00 on Tuesday.
Bedfordshire Police has asked people not to travel to the area.
Earlier, the ambulance service said a member of the public and six firefighters had suffered smoke inhalation.
Vehicle alarms and loud explosions were heard, with one witness describing the speed at which the blaze had torn through the upper floor of the car park as "incredible".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-67073446
We’ll have to wait for the facts to emerge in due course to find out what caused the fire in the first place.
But the explosions reported, the collapse of the floor and the speed at which the fire spread certainly raise the suspicion that one or more EVs were involved.
Even if not, we do know that a car park full of EVs, which will be the case in a few short years time, would be lethal in the event of a fire.
Just imagine an underground car park beneath a block of flats.
Until the full facts emerge, EVs should be banned immediately from all multi-storey car parks.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The fire brigade said it started at a recently parked diesel car. Of course, if that was parked beside an EV………..
Diesel is the least flammable of the hydrocarbon fuels. Claiming at this stage that the source of the fire is a diesel vehicle, says a lot about this fire chief.
Where eye witnesses have described shooting jets of flame and lots of explosions this is how battery cells combust not fossil fuel powered cars. Also the fact they chose not to send firefighters in is the MO for EV fires as they can’t put them out or necessarily control them plus not having sent firefighters in to have hospital admissions for smoke inhalation is another indication of how poisonous / harmful EV battery cell fire smoke and fumes are cf ICE vehicle fires.
Have you got a link to where the fire brigade claimed it was a “diesel” car? I wasn’t aware they had identified which vehicle it actually was.
BBC report online
On the DT app
I read it was a diesel range rover and there is footage of the incident in mail online. The fire chief then said he thought ev.’s exploded in a domino effect.
It is worrying that a three year old car park can disintegrate in this manner. Presumably older ones will be worse. All parking areas need some sort of fire safety measures put in place. Once ev”s catch fire either by themselves or via conventional car then putting it out is very difficult
No thanks to living in an apartment block where ev’s are charged in an underground car park
Take another look at the photo. The diesel Range rover is not parked up it is in the the one way system roadway (yellow arrow) with its brake lights on and the glow from the fire is coming from a vehicle to the front/ left of it.
Thanks David (and teaef) I hadn’t seen those.
BBC?! If it says diesel on the BBC, it was definitely a battery car
WE have now reached the stage where outright, bare-faced lying in support of any of the multiple narratives that afflict us is mandatory. They cry wolf so often that my level of trust now is such, sad to say, that I laughed when I heard it attributed to a diesel car.
Nevertheless less I tried to find stats and saw this:
“Although some reports suggest that electric car owners are less likely to experience a fire in their vehicles, at least one study that looks at figures from the Department for Trade suggests the opposite to be true. In this analysis of London figures, there is a 0.04% likelihood of a petrol or diesel car catching fire but a 0.1% incident rate with electric cars.”
https://housegrail.com/car-fire-statistics-uk/#7_Electric_vehicles_are_more_likely_to_catch_fire_than_petrol_and_diesel
I also found this, in The Conversation:
“Two electric vehicle fires have been reported in Australia this week. Five cars were destroyed after a lithium battery ignited in a car parked at Sydney Airport on Monday.
“On the same day, another vehicle caught fire after it hit debris on a road near Penrose in the New South Wales southern highlands.
“Despite these incidents, electric vehicle battery fires are rare. Indeed, the available data indicate the fire risk is between 20 and 80 times greater for petrol and diesel vehicles.”
See what they did there, with no evidence cited.
Reminded me of a clip of a US Reporter to a State Department spokesman:
“That’s not evidence, man, that’s you saying it.”
Latest news I have heard was that cameras identified the vehicle as a Range Rover Velar . Which is a hybrid with a 40 mile battery range .
Cameras also said the the driver jumped out while driving into car park .
There have been several cases of the Range Rover / Land Rover hybrids catching fire by themselves .
But no doubt the news will just keep saying it was just a diesel car .
Do you have the source for it being a Velar and the driver jumping out?
It seems almost odd that the driver has not been traced and interviewed, especially since he was apparently not hospitalised – it was only emergency services personnel who were hurt/suffered smoke inhalation.
Youtuber ‘Geoff Buys Cars’ has done an analysis of this fire.
He thinks this was a Rover Evoque Hybrid. And on that model, the battery is just behind the nearside front wheel, which is where all the flames appear to be coming from.
And if you look at the flames, they appear to be forced out under pressure, not just licking the side of the vehicle. This is the signature of an EV fire, not a diesel fire.
Ralph
Yes, those ( about EVs ) were my first thoughts when I SAW & heard abut it last night
And if you word search the BBC piece no mention of EVs and acceleration/intensity….
It was started by a battery car – we all know it, but it will be covered up by the nut zero greenerati for obvious reasons – the truth will out eventually
Battery cars are mobile crematoriums, their weight also exceeds the SWL of most multi storey car parks etc
Insurers are going to love all this BEV hazard & risk
And these insurers will find a way to penalise all vehicle owners for a risk that is limited to a minority of car ownership.
The pic in the papers of the car at the core of the fire looked like a Landrover Discovery Sport. The fire expert reported it as a Diesel model but modern ones are “mild hybrid” and do have a small battery. The fire was underneath the car, nowhere near the fuel tank as far as I could see. It’s since been reported that there were no sprinklers! Questions will be asked after that.
How does a fire start there in a modern car?
A fire in a diesel car if it involves the fuel requires a leak onto a hot surface so most likely the exhaust as a temperature of 210C is required.
Thing is Ian, I am extraordinarily sceptical of these sorts of press photos. I vividly recall the image of the speedometer from the crashed vehicle that Princess Diana died in – it wasn’t even from that particular model of car! The current photo could be of anywhere and it does seem remarkably odd any photo from CCTV would be instantly released or captured by the press.
There inevitably seems to be a lot of smoke and mirrors surrounding these events.
A pity that the shot isn’t better focused so we might have a number plate to check out. It’s clear the lights are on which you would not expect of a vehicle that had been locked. Parking lights would only show up on one side. Even so the very bright white under the vehicle seems to be from the seat of the flames and is not consistent with a diesel fire, and appears to be near the engine compartment. Much more likely to be a battery, and not a lead acid one (which is powering the lights).
Take another look at the photo. The diesel Range rover is not parked up it is in the the one way system roadway (yellow arrow) with its brake lights on and the glow from the fire is coming from a vehicle to the front/ left of it.
It really does look like the MHEV battery is the culprit. This is the Evoque, but the Sport will be little different.
https://landrover-magazine.jlrms.com/hybrid-evoque-so-what-mhev
The point is we don’t know it. Your saying stuff like that makes us no better than the hysterical alarmists.
Quite!
The vehicle pictured has its rear lights on and the number plate lit up, as if someone is still in it, which seems a bit odd.
Electrical fault, caused by fire or causing the fire
Take another look at the photo. The diesel Range rover is not parked up it is in the the one way system roadway (yellow arrow) with its brake lights on and the glow from the fire is coming from a vehicle to the front/ left of it.
The glow is coming from under the chassis at its most intense, and from flames licking up the passenger side of the car. There is a short section of video at the Mail and now elsewhere that makes this clear. The picture is a still from the video.
The lights that are on are the normal rear and headlights for night driving. Not the brake lights. The vehicle is already abandoned. In fact, I suspect the driver took the video to send to emergency services, insurers etc.
The fire started while it was being driven. These MHEVs run on battery when in car parks. This one would have already powered the vehicle up to the third story, using extra energy and higher power output to get there, and perhaps draining the battery faster than it was able to handle.
I hate to think of trying to drive such a vehicle over the Hardknott pass in the Lakes. You would have to switch the battery out of circuit, and not just for the ascent. The descent would produce a lot of autoregenerative braking output that would risk overcharging it. Much better to have the ICE engine do the job.
“Until the full facts emerge, EVs should be banned immediately from all multi-storey car parks.”
I wonder whether this report will wipe the smug satisfaction of the virtue signalling greenies off their faces?
Agree, and all ev charging stations should be in the open air
Chevy Bolts were banned from some US car parks ‘for safety purposes’…
https://insideevs.com/news/543282/parking-lots-ban-chevy-bolts/
The extra EV weight probably contributed to the ‘structural collapse’ and there’ll be a lingering suspicion that EV’s were the cause no matter what the official verdict.
I heard that the EV chargers were on the second level and that the fire started on the 4th or 5th level.
Correct – battery vehicle weights are pushing structural SWL beyond design limits – expect more in the months ahead
My parked A3 diesel recently caught fire and went up like a torch. Luckily parked outside without other cars near. Electrics in the dash somewhere caused it.
Is that you Elon?!
Diesel auto ignition temp is 210-280degC – a lit match won’t ignite it – it’s not impossible that a sufficiently hot external ignition source could ignite diesel, however, Li ion battery cars, bikes, scooters are self combusting in huge numbers burning down flats & houses in the process – imagine what the cheap, China manufactured cars will be like – they are mobile crematoriums – the truth in this case is being suppressed by putting out misinformation to protect the nut zero con
It was not the fuel that ignited, it was all the interior.
The truth may well be being suppressed, but I know what happened to MY car.
I have personal knowledge of two car fires. Both caused by electrical faults, one caused by a faulty light switch on the steering column and the other somewhere under the bonnet. The light switch was spotted early and the owner, my son, had an extinguisher I’d given him for just such an occasion. The other caused a lot of damage.
I carry a fire extinguisherand have done for 30 years
I think the majority of car fires are caused by electrical faults. EVs have as “ordinary” electrical stuff as ICE vehicles.
We know that truth does not stand much chance when policies from the political class are at stake. If n EV was involved we can assume the fact would only emerge much later and obfusticated with contradictory spin.
Is the “truth” any better when it comes from “our” side of the argument jumping to the conclusion that this just “had to be” an EV-caused fire in spite of early reports from the local fire brigade that the initiator was a diesel.
We have not as yet, as far as I know, gone so far down the road of official corruption that the emergency services will tell lies about the causes of accidents like this.
Let’s just keep a cool head until we know what the facts are, shall we.
Not true. Previous incidents have been well reported.
Agree, the nut zero cabal are all over this with deflection – the simple fact is battery cars are self combusting in greater numbers as more take to the roads – this event will become more regular
I understand that most (90%) of vehicle fires are ICE. They can be put out with water/foam. What started the Luton fire is largely irrelevant. Any EV in the region would catch fire, burn vigorously and spread the fire. The cannot be put out with water – in fact it makes the fire worse
But ICE cars don’t spontaneously burst into flames when stationary. And they don’t always catch fire even when involved in accidents with moving vehicles.
>>most vehicle fires are ICE
Mine did!
According to the Fire Brigade the diesel car had recently arrived in the car park.
Heat from exhaust on insulation is a common cause. Electrical wiring faults is a common problem.
Diesel is actually hard to ignite – Certainly cannot do it from sparks and even naked flames won’t do it unless the fuel temperature is well above ambient.
Diesel ignites at 210C – lower than petrol – so a leak onto the exhaust at the header would do it.
and most ICE fires don’t burn though concrete floors
Most vehicle fires are ICE….because most vehicles are ICE.
Yep. According to the IEA there were still less than 20m EVs worldwide at the end of 2022 compared to over 1.4 bn ICEVs
But ICE vehicles make up 99% of vehicles on the road so your stat sort of self implies – as the 1% of battery cars increases, so will the self combustion rate – you can only compare comparable data
You can standardise the fires by the population of ICE and EV cars respectively to get the rate of fires per group
I am retired and if I am not walking my dog or shopping sleeping etc, I listen to BBC Radio 2 and have done for 30+ years. Three times an hour there are a couple of minutes of daily traffic reports. There has been a steady increase in vehicle fires, the vast majority are EV’s but of course, this rarely mentioned.
Today a multi-storey car park collapsed when a parked car caught fire which quickly spread.
A video of an EV McLaren that cost £300,000+ was posted online, two ships transporting EV’s caught fire and sank, a bus depot with 24 electric busses was also destroyed by the spontaneous combustion of an EV battery.
I think that a National Enquiry into the safety of EV’s is long overdue, before there is a major tragedy!
McLaren don’t make an EV, only the hybrid Artura that was recalled for a potential fire causing leak in the fuel system.
I wrote to my MP in July as I have been concerned about EV safety for some time, particularly Thermal Runaway Inextinguishable Fires and the risk of fatal Electrocution in the event of an accident causing the chassis/body to become live. In his reply after stating he was seriously concerned with the subject, was this excerpt. ” A research project on batteries has been contracted with Warwick Manufacturing Group, part of Warwick University and a centre for innovation in science and technology. This will examine the safety of the lithium-ion batteries within Personal Light Electric Vehicles. The research will be published in due course once completed.” This research may be particularly applying to E Scooters as Personal Light Electric Vehicles, but the findings would obviously apply to larger EV’s. How long this will take is not clear …….
Probably a good idea not to put a BV in your integral garage.
Chrysler recommend not within 50 feet of anything you value. A motability Vauxhall battery van parked in front of a terraced house went up when not on charge. Sadly at the time their home was wrecked by fire it was not insured. Apparently Motability push you to battery vehicles – anyone fancy trying to get a wheelchair user out of one when it catches fire?
Or on your drive – you and the neighbours homes will combust via radiated heat – those Li ion fires are very, very fierce and explosive
If scrap yards need a 20m no go zone around BV’s probably not worth parking one in your garage
EVs should be banned immediately from all multi-storey car parks.
Or EVs should be banned immediately…
Agree
Fiat have put production of the battery 500e on hold due to lack of demand.
Don’t worry, Starmer will sort it all when he is in charge.
I see he has been spouting the usual incoherent drivel with a promise to reduce taxes but yet still going to spend £billions. When he was pushed in a GB News interview about going back into the EU he said that we wouldn’t be, nor into the Single Market, and just to show he has learnt nothing since 2016 nor into the Customs Union – the one for EU Members only.
Guessing, but it would be NO surprise if fire started by some ‘all electric’ car!
Except in this case it wasn’t. It was a diesel car but I imagine if EVs were anywhere near that will have massively worsened the incident
That so called diesel was more likely an hybrid – the video clearly shows the battery section on fire, not the fuel tank
Take another look at the photo. The diesel Range rover is not parked up it is in the the one way system roadway (yellow arrow) with its brake lights on and the glow from the fire is coming from a vehicle to the front/ left of it.
“Except in this case it wasn’t. It was a diesel car”
So now YOU have decided that YOU know the cause. Interesting given nobody else does.
Bias?
A normal battery short can cause a major fire, my brother had a tractor go up , he saw it was starting round the battery, by the time he had grabbed an extinguisher it was well alight. Lost the tractor and other implements parked nearby.
Even if the fire was started by an ice vehicle the presence of bevs will of course make the fire far, far worse.
I believe that you can charge EV’s on level 2 in the other multi story car park at Luton which is alarming in itself.
From the impartical BBC:
“Andy Hopkinson, Bedfordshire’s chief fire officer, said the service had “no intelligence than to suggest it was anything other than an accidental fire”.
He said it was thought the fire started in “diesel-powered” car and then spread through the building”.
Sorry, but if there is “no intelligence” then any comment about a diesel vehicle being the source is pure speculation and one must ask why are they speculating in a particular direction ( or away from a particular direction)? Given the collapse and the short time this is both a highly dubious and suspicious suggestion.
How many airport car park fires have there been? Well, Stavanger Airport in Norway had a similar fire about 3 years ago which cause floors to collapse and surprise surprise the claimed culprit in double quick time was a diesel car (even though the structure was too dangerous for people to enter). That airport car park strangely also did not have a sprinkler system.
Thinks…… We have had airport car parks for a lot of years and a lot of them do not have sprinkler systems because….. it it seems diesel and petrol cars did not pose a clear threat.
What changed except either very bad luck and coincidence….or the presence of electric cars. Either way as a cause or a contributing effect, electric cars are bad news in a fire.
If the BBC say it was diesel, it was definitely battery
I suppose being Luton, and in the light of events in the Eastern Mediterranean it was necessary for the fire chief to make clear it was an accidental fire rather than one that was set purposely.
The fire forensic team, who are very thorough (my dad was a firefighter) will discover that the intensity of the fire was exacerbated, if not caused, by the presence of EV’s and will duly report to the government, who will suppress the report because of their drive towards net zero. It will, alas, take a few deaths before the truth will out.
Correct
Your evidence that the report will be suppressed is?? As governments have more leaks than a leaky sieve your notion that a report like this can be surpressed is up there with the flat earth brigade.
And you, sir, if I may be so bold, live in cloud-cuckoo land.
Isn’t the definition of suppression now “Non-acknowledgement of the truth, even though everyone knows it”?
We need a special word to describe the glee evident here at the prospect of an EV related disaster. Like schadenfreude, perhaps eeveedenfreude.
Or just, told you
It seems likely this was started by a diesel car but the situation was made worse when it spread to adjacent ev’s
The car park appears to be deficient if it could collapse like that as it was only three years old and the weight and fire hazards should have been factored in.
Whether or not the ev’s Spread the fire rather than was the cause of it I would certainly be concerned if my apartment block had charging in an underground car park and the implications of a fire in the channel tunnel do not near thinking about.
On “EVs should be banned immediately from all multi-storey car parks.”, I agree. Until the safety of EV batteries developing faults, which usually result in a very rapidly developing and fierce fire, has substantially improved and tested in numerous charging and inflicted damage scenarios, EVs should not be in multi-story or underground car parks. I’ve also seen on the various social media that it’s currently not recommended to even have them inside private garages, especially when charging.
I well remember the hoo-hah when milk roundsmen switched from horses to battery floats. How the cream would accumulate at the top and what would we use to fertilise our rhubarb plants.
Well quite.
Consolidated Dairies vs Pitkin and Grimsdale.
eeveedense free report by fire service perhaps?
🤣🤣
xxx
The truth may well be being suppressed, but I know what happened to MY car.
There is now about 15 seconds of video of the burning car that is said to have started the fire. (BBC onlie, sorry online)
Take another look at the photo. The diesel Range rover is not parked up it is in the the one way system roadway (yellow arrow) with its brake lights on and the glow from the fire is coming from a vehicle to the front/ left of it.
I did not comment on the accuracy of the claim
The glow is coming from under the vehicle chassis and from the passenger side. It is most intense below the chassis. You can see no hint of the front left wheel, yet there is a continuous bright area from the left rear. Basically, it is coming from where the MHEV battery is located.
EVs should also be banned from ferries and tunnels, e.g. Eurotunnel. It’s worrying enough already going on an occasional car ferry on holiday to islands like Aran but think of the cumulative risk for locals who have to journey to and from the mainland regularly.
A lot of modern ice cars have wiring that utilizes soya in the insulation and they’re getting eaten by rats exposing the copper to shorts. They don’t have lead acid batteries either and so can go exothermic.
True, my mates VW Transporter had the veggie wiring loom eaten by mice.
Which engine should government ban, internal combustion or spontaneous combustion?
Could it have been a diesel hybrid which Range Rover have been producing since 2013?
“Until the full facts emerge, EVs should be banned immediately from all multi-storey car parks.”
Imagine if it was on a ferry.
Does anyone feel like writing to newssiteerrors@bbc.co.uk to point out to them that the evidence suggests that it was not a pure diesel, but an MHEV diesel hybrid – and that this is material, because the clip they hosted shows that the seat of the fire is precisely where the hybrid battery is located under the chassis, and that therefore the fire probably started in the battery. Moreover, these cars are not “diesel powered” when being driven in car parks. At low speed the electric drive takes over, as explained by JLR for example here
https://landrover-magazine.jlrms.com/hybrid-evoque-so-what-mhev
The battery will have taken the strain in driving the vehicle to the third floor where it caught fire.
Writing to newssiteerrors is much more likely to produce a result that trying to lodge a formal complaint.
I am super sceptical of this photography and all these initial claims. The day after the Whaley Bridge almost collapsed the head of the EA (a career diplomat) blamed headline grabbing climate change. A year later the engineering report said different but was barely reported.
The BBC instantly claimed the Stonehaven derailment was solely climate change related but the Judge and engineering report said otherwise.
This whole car park fire really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Where did this photo come from? The Fire service chief’s initial comments are actually non committal and subject to verification from detailed investigation. Who owned this alleged Range Rover – seems odd not to have come forward. Who took the footage? – if the owner surely they would have come forward or at least be referred to.
It all smacks of diversion. Is the photo even genuine? There have been numerous doctored photos in the past. Here we are discussing the photo that might be fake, who knows?
How many multi storey car parks have ever been collapsed by ICE car fires in all these decades of their existence and why are sprinklers being discussed as very few car parks actually have them?
Let’s see what time will uncover.
The Fire Service got the call at 8:47. Here’s the account in the local press of the video of the car, taken 5 minutes later:
https://www.lutontoday.co.uk/news/transport/luton-airport-video-shows-car-engulfed-in-flames-hours-before-multi-storey-car-park-partially-collapsed-4368267
Here’s the account in the Mail
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12620203/We-tried-stop-Luton-airport-fire-Eyewitness-reveals-husband-rushed-fire-extinguishers-saw-Range-Rover-ablaze-late-stop-flames-destroyed-20m-multi-storey.html
Note that the fire engines were already to be heard on their way. Still trying to find another report I read that mentioned 2 fire engines were on the 3rd floor tackling the blaze at one point – presumably on first arrival. More than one report mentions fire service personnel talking about a number of EVs nearby. Implication is that the fire spread to EVs, and became beyond what they could cope with, so they abandoned the scene and got out. Likely that this was also a stage when firemen could have suffered inhalation injury.
That famous “precautionary principle,” droned at us all the time in the context of global warming, would surely indicate that all battery cars, where ever they are in the world, must be immediately destroyed? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Youtuber ‘Geoff Buys Cars’ has done an analysis of this fire.
He thinks this was a Rover Evoque Hybrid. And on that model, the battery is just behind the nearside front wheel, which is where all the flames appear to be coming from.
And if you look at the flames, they appear to be forced out under pressure, not just licking the side of the vehicle. This is the signature of an EV fire, not a diesel fire.
Ralph