Luton Airport Car Park Fire

[Andy_Ross]

The usual thing to do is jump out, run away quick then phone in to the cops that your car has been stolen

 

[zooterkin]

Nonetheless, people who claim to know what they are talking about (for example, self-professed garages and dealers) insist that a diesel fire looks very different from a battery fire and that the Luton Airport car park fire appeared to be one emanating from a battery because of its appearance of 'exploding' and its speed of spreading.

No-one is saying that diesel cars never catch fire, they are talking about the appearance and spread of that fire.

And yet the actual experts, fire fighters who were actually there, say it was a diesel.

 

[Mojo]

Once again I am six steps ahead and am replying to what he will have posted several posts along.

You're making up stuff to respond to, and claiming to be able to second-guess other posters. Not a good look, especially for someone who posts things like:

Stop putting words into my mouth and claiming to be able to second guess me.

 

[Mojo]

Nonetheless, people who claim to know what they are talking about (for example, self-professed garages and dealers) insist that a diesel fire looks very different from a battery fire and that the Luton Airport car park fire appeared to be one emanating from a battery because of its appearance of 'exploding' and its speed of spreading.

No-one is saying that diesel cars never catch fire, they are talking about the appearance and spread of that fire.

Why would a garage mechanic or car salesman be an expert on fires?

Because they're "self-professed". That could qualify them to be an expert on anything. If they say they're an expert, they're an expert.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Why would a garage mechanic or car salesman be an expert on fires?

I think I'd avoid that garage or dealership. Now if it was Richard Hammond saying it....

 

[P.J. Denyer]

The elephant in the room is that no-one has officially denied that stolen Russian tech was being smuggled in the car.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Nonetheless, people who claim to know what they are talking about (for example, self-professed garages and dealers) insist that a diesel fire looks very different from a battery fire and that the Luton Airport car park fire appeared to be one emanating from a battery because of its appearance of 'exploding' and its speed of spreading.

No-one is saying that diesel cars never catch fire, they are talking about the appearance and spread of that fire.

What makes garage employees or a car dealers experts in the way battery and diesel fires spread respectively? How common are fires in either type of business? I worked at a car dealership in the early '90s, and I never even heard of a fire in any dealership's fleet. My cousin has been an ASE Master mechanic for about 20 years, and he's never mentioned seeing a car destroyed in a fire.

The fact is that even someone who's worked in a garage or a dealership for years is unlikely to have seen a single car fire, much less so many as to gain some expertise as to how different sorts of vehicles burn relative to one another. The internet is a Petri dish for Dunning-Kruger, and you're credulously accepting the "expertise" of anyone who supports your new pet conspiracy theory.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I am not sure that probability theory tells us anything about what type of fire it was.

That's not theory, it's just quantification.

Simply saying, well petrol combusts more easily than diesel, doesn't mean therefore it must be a petrol fire. Most commentators seem to think it was definitely an electrical/battery-source fire from the appearance in the CCTV video.

Most commentators in reply to news articles, most of whom appear to be nothing more than idiots who want to sound smart. People who say crap like what I earlier pointed out.

It matters not an iota what the probability of a diesel hybrid fire is - or any other type.

It matters enormously, because it relates to the fundamental conspiracy theory being pushed, which is that authorities are attempting to hide the fact that EVs supposedly pose a much greater danger of fire than internal combustion vehicles. If statistical evidence blows that claim out of the water, then there's nothing for said authorities to hide.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Once again I am six steps ahead and am replying to what he will have posted several posts along.

Are you also posting articles six steps ahead of the ones that actually support your position?

 

[catsmate]

There was a car park fire in Dublin, obviously the conspiracy is international.

 

[Darat]

An occasionally aside or joke is fine, but not a long sequence of them.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

 

[Andy_Ross]

GB News viewers are turning on the channel for reporting that it wasn't an EV that started the fire and their feature showing EVs are less likely to go up in flames.

They have 'sold out' and are now part of the Net Zero Woke Mob.

 

[jeremyp]

GB News viewers are turning on the channel for reporting that it wasn't an EV that started the fire and their feature showing EVs are less likely to go up in flames.

They have 'sold out' and are now part of the Net Zero Woke Mob.

Can you post a link to the story please. I like a good laugh at the expense of GB News.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

If you want to delve into some raw data, someone's FOI request led to this list of all vehicle fires attended by the London fire brigade since 2019 including fuel type when known:
https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/media/8233/79621_response.pdf

It includes a lot of 'unknown', and 'vehicles' is a pretty broad category, including stuff like pushbikes.

But of course that doesn't tell you about incidence rate as the numbers of each type vary considerably. If you include that info, it looks like electric/hybrid vehicles do suffer significantly more fires:

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/ma...re-data-suggests-higher-incident-rate-for-evs

Data obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed that in 2019 the London Fire Brigade dealt with 54 electric vehicle fires compared with 1,898 petrol and diesel fires.

Vehicle registration numbers from the Department for Transport (DfT) show there are 50,000-plus plug-in cars licensed in the capital out of a total 4.63 million licensed cars.

Looking at the London Fire Brigade data, that would suggest an incident rate of 0.04% for petrol and diesel car fires, while the rate for plug-in vehicle is more than double at 0.1%.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Can you post a link to the story please. I like a good laugh at the expense of GB News.

The comments on their link to the story on their twitter account

https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1713838161011302695

 

[zooterkin]

If you want to delve into some raw data, someone's FOI request led to this list of all vehicle fires attended by the London fire brigade since 2019 including fuel type when known:
https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/media/8233/79621_response.pdf

It includes a lot of 'unknown', and 'vehicles' is a pretty broad category, including stuff like pushbikes.

But of course that doesn't tell you about incidence rate as the numbers of each type vary considerably. If you include that info, it looks like electric/hybrid vehicles do suffer significantly more fires:

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/ma...re-data-suggests-higher-incident-rate-for-evs

I wonder why they chose 2019, for which year the vehicle type wasn't recorded, and not 2022, when it was. In 2022, there are about 35 incidents involving vehicles with electric batteries, most of which appear to be scooters or electric bikes, only a handful are identifiably a car (and my suspicion is that if it's a car, the make is more likely to be recorded, than for a scooter or bicycle).
Hybrid vehicles do have a higher rate (which would match with the figures from the insurer I linked to on the first page).

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I wonder why they chose 2019, for which year the vehicle type wasn't recorded, and not 2022, when it was.

Because they made that request in 2020.

 

[Matthew Best]

How convenient.

 

[zooterkin]

Because they made that request in 2020.

I'm confused; the data linked to goes from 2019 to practically today.

ETA: Oh, right, I only just noticed the article was published in 2020. I looked at the data you linked to, and saw the dates there, and assumed it was the same data being referred to in the article.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

How convenient.

<edit> Sorry. My post was unclear. The second link refers to a previous data request.

There are two FOI requests mentioned in my post. One was made in 2020 and the data provided covered 2019 which was the most recent complete year's data. That one was compared to numbers of registered cars of each type. You can google several mentions of it, some articles spin it as only 50-ish EV fires vs over 1800 ICE fires suggesting EVs are less likely to catch fire. Others point out the small proportion of EVs on the road means they're more than twice as likely to catch fire as ICE cars.

The second FOI request is recent and just reveals the fire brigade's records for the last few years.

I didn't arrange this to make some kind of gotcha. It's just the data I found.