Luton Airport Car Park Fire

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Vixen said:
The reason for the sloping floors is so that any leaking liquid, diesel or gasoline fuel, coolant, brake fluid, etcetera etcetera, drains away instead of pooling.
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I never gave it any thought, but my guess would have been that it allows driven rain, entering at the sides, to run off. Maybe wrongly.
 
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GlennB said:
I never gave it any thought, but my guess would have been that it allows driven rain, entering at the sides, to run off. Maybe wrongly.
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The main reason parkade floors are sloped is that it is the most efficient way to build a multi-level parking structure. The floors do double duty as the parking areas and the driving ramps. Flat floors with external entrance and exit ramps require more space for the same number of parking stalls. Drainage, for rainwater, floor washing, and spills is a real but secondary consideration. (I have designed drainage systems for a number of parking structures in my career in mechanical engineering.)

ETA - I have also designed fire suppression sprinkler/standpipe systems for said structures. I have avoided discussing them here because it would be akin to discussing quantum mechanics with a goat.
 
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GlennB said:
I never gave it any thought, but my guess would have been that it allows driven rain, entering at the sides, to run off. Maybe wrongly.
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Rainwater and snowmelt. Most viscous liquids like motor oil and hydraulic fluid won't run under the slopes we use in the U.S.: ¼″ per 1′. You want flammable fuels to pool up. They're safer that way, with a limited surface area. Then, of course, there are the ramps which facilitate access to different floors for wheeled vehicles. Those have substantial slope and can produced preferential fluid flow in gaseous combustion products.
 
Vixen said:
If you are in a crash, there is a chance your car will catch fire.
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And the chances of your vehicle catching fire if you are not in an accident? Is it zero? If you think it's zero, then say so, right now.

Link

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) says that vehicle fires account for nearly one in every eight reported fires...
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There are an average of 19 vehicle fires per hour in the U.S. alone.

The NFPA ranks the ten leading causes of vehicle fires, from most to least common, as:

1 - Fuel system leaks
2 - Electrical faults
3 - Spilled fluids
4 - Overheating engine
5 - Overheating catalytic converter
6 - Hybrid and EV batteries
7 - Arson
8 - Car crashes
9 - Poor maintenance
10 - Design flaws

So your implication that a gasoline or diesel car can't catch fire unless it's involved in a collision are seen to be completely false, and made in gross ignorance.

Note that Li-ion hybrids and EVs are definitely on the list, although well below other causes that you have attempted to dismiss. No one has claimed that EVs never catch fire, and until the official investigation announced its finding of the vehicle type, that possibility was very much on the table. But after it was reported to be a diesel, you had to keep the CT going, so you started making baseless claims about the improbably of the source of the fire described by the investigation. But we see that the causes that you laughingly dismiss as ridiculously unlikely are actually the most common.
 
Steve said:
The main reason parkade floors are sloped is that it is the most efficient way to build a multi-level parking structure. The floors do double duty as the parking areas and the driving ramps. Flat floors with external entrance and exit ramps require more space for the same number of parking stalls. Drainage, for rainwater, floor washing, and spills is a real but secondary consideration. (I have designed drainage systems for a number of parking structures in my career in mechanical engineering.)

ETA - I have also designed fire suppression sprinkler/standpipe systems for said structures. I have avoided discussing them here because it would be akin to discussing quantum mechanics with a goat.
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It might be Schrödinger's goat.
 
Vixen said:
The reason for the sloping floors is so that any leaking liquid, diesel or gasoline fuel, coolant, brake fluid, etcetera etcetera, drains away instead of pooling.
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No, it's because that's the easiest way to drive up. Can you imagine driving along a level garage floor only to have to climb a steep, space wasting ramp to get to the next?

And have you noticed ordinary parking lots having so much fluid that it would run downhill if you tilted the ground?

And you just confirmed my point about fuel from a ruptured tank flowing away from the vehicle being discussed.
 
Foster Zygote said:
No, it's because that's the easiest way to drive up. Can you imagine driving along a level garage floor only to have to climb a steep, space wasting ramp to get to the next?
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This was a common design in Las Vegas parking structures until about 2010. The ramps were in the center and the flat parking decks were at either end and to either side. A few had external ramps.

But yes, all the car parks in my downtown area are entirely ramped structures. Our old airport car park used spiral external ramps. Our new airport and its new structures are ramped.
 
Vixen said:
The reason for the sloping floors is so that any leaking liquid, diesel or gasoline fuel, coolant, brake fluid, etcetera etcetera, drains away instead of pooling.
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It's so that fires can run rampant, of course.
 
Vixen said:
Er, no! British car parks are designed to be well-ventilated. The aim is NOT to inflame fires even higher.
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Are there countries where the parking garages are not well-ventilated? Can you imagine a reason that might be a problem?
 
Vixen said:
That doesn't address the question as to why it is so desperately important to pin the cause of the fire (which of course cannot yet be confirmed until the investigation is complete) onto a diesel-fueled car?

There is absolutely one certainty here, which I can guarantee: the Fire Regulations for car parks and the concomitant building regulations WILL have to be reformed to take into consideration intense EV and HEV fires. That is a dead cert.


So, I ask again, given this absolute certainty, together with tax and death, why is it so imperative to convince the public it was a diesel car?
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Because the fire brigade pension fund is long on Tesla and short on diesel fuel suppliers. Do keep up.
 
JayUtah said:
Rainwater and snowmelt. Most viscous liquids like motor oil and hydraulic fluid won't run under the slopes we use in the U.S.: ¼″ per 1′. You want flammable fuels to pool up. They're safer that way, with a limited surface area. Then, of course, there are the ramps which facilitate access to different floors for wheeled vehicles. Those have substantial slope and can produced preferential fluid flow in gaseous combustion products.
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Probably a good idea to define your units here, or a someone will start using their 'engineering scientist expertise' to insist that (") is furlongs and (') is footpounds...
 
Vixen said:
For goodness sake, don't you recognise simplified English when you see it?

The website is a précis of what the uploader thought Hopkinson meant.

It is obvious. Recognise PR when you see it.
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It's obvious you are lying again.
 
Vixen said:
The words of the legally-advised fire chief are the party line. He was advised to word his press statement thus.
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Note that here, Vixen has manoeuvred into a position where even if the "fire chief" himself were to call a press conference and explicitly state that the car was definitely not an EV or hybrid, that would just be "the party line". There is now no source that can definitively confirm, to Vixen's satisfaction, that it was a diesel car.
 
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Vixen said:
The 'plain English' brigade. You know, the super well-educated English language graduate professional journalists who write for the DAILY STAR.

They have to simplify language for the plebs with an attention span of ten words a sentence and maybe only ever just the first paragraph.
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It's an official statement by the fire service.

It was a diesel car
 
Foster Zygote said:
If this link doesn't work,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4IObb6bGrGw&pp=ygUIY2FyIGZpcmU=

then simply search YouTube for 'KHON2 News Car erupts in flames'.

Watch the video.



You don't need it to explain the intensity, because as the above video shows, an automobile can burn with terrifying intensity.

But still the sloped levels would contribute in two ways, often referred to by the highly technical terms 'convection' and 'gravity'. The slope of the ceiling would allow byproduct gasses to move away from the car more efficiently, drawing fresh air in to help fuel the fire, and the sloped floor has the potential to help flammable fluids flow down grade toward other vehicles.
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https://youtu.be/4IObb6bGrGw

Is the correct link.

The %3D at the end of your version is an artefact. You probably copied a bit more than you should have.
 
Vixen said:
You'll find all of the quality news outlets, Sky News, BBC News, Independent, etc., all use Mr. Hopkinson's original statement, which as you know, is qualified.
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Then maybe you should read the fire service official website that has an official statement that says it was a diesel car.

Why would you use a secondary source when a primary source is available?
 
Vixen said:
Why were they so quick to tell us it was a diesel car? Scared of rioting in the streets or summat?
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Quick? Twitter's armchair army of conspiracy nuts was six steps ahead, and in the wrong direction.

Are you going to show us one example of a previous press conference held in another town which happened several minutes later and bang on for ten pages about how suspicious it is?

You keep trying to gaslight us and all it's producing is well deserved mockery.
 
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