Cont: Luton Airport Car Park Fire III

[MarkCorrigan]

I don't think anyone has suggested that that's "all" they had to do. But you didn't address the point that cloned plates are put on identical makes/models.

I will say, speaking as someone whose job sometimes includes dealing with LEZ/ULEZ/Congestion Charge camera images showing cloned plates, sometimes people clone a plate and whack it on any old vehicle.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

...
Has it occurred to you it is quite possible to be wholly objective about the cause of a fire without taking one ideological side or the other?

Clearly not an acceptable stance for you.

Your absolute desperation to find any loophole to allow you to continue to pretend your fantasy story is true is your only purpose here. You couldn't see objectivity with a telescope from where you are.

 

[Vixen]

Correction: these are not in fact the figures for false plates in Essex. It appears you didn't read your link with any care.

It says they could not provide that info and instead it lists several different number plate related offences for which they did issue notices of intended prosecution. Most are "failure to conform with regulations" which is likely people using non-standard fonts or letter spacing or using black rivets to make one character look like another to spell out a name.

I Googled and got what is probably the same 13,000 incidents figure as you found. It is not a figure for convictions as you claimed.

The probability that a randomly chosen car has a false plate is very low. If the car had had a false plate that would have been discovered almost immediately, because the registered keeper would be someone else. Charges would presumably have followed. There's no hint this happened. Are you claiming the police have hushed it up on orders from the government?

It makes zero sense that the car had a false plate and the fact that you propose it as a serious likelihood is purely your desperation to protect your fantastical conspiracy theory.

But you are assuming the driver hung around to provide that information. By all early accounts, he dashed off to catch a flight to an important meeting and didn't return for about ten days. Maybe this is urban myth and I am sure the fire was perfectly innocent. However, the police can't just take that for granted as there are a lot of criminals attracted to places like airports, easy escape route via the nearby motorway and railway station direct to London. Airport security always has to be alert for terrorists and criminal gangs. Range Rovers are amongst the most stolen vehicles of the lot, so even if the numberplates are bona fide it doesn't prove that it was driven by the licensed owner. How do you know someone driving into an airport car park - which at Luton is very close to the airport runway - with the car on fire is perfectly innocent? You cannot make that on the spot assumption until further investigation. Hence Mr. Hopkinson qualifying his words to pacify public fears.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

In a car park holding 1,500 cars, the statistics show that about 5% would be an EV of some sort, or just 75 of them. A thermal runaway is not caused by radiated heat, it is most commonly caused during charging or because of a collision, making the cells unstable. If the vehicle number zero was just an common or garden diesel car fire, even if electrical only, it wouldn't be such a big deal. As Smart Cooky says there are 19,000 such fires every year and no car park ever burnt down because of them, if caught at an early stage.

You imagine this seems like it makes sense, I suppose. It does not.

The car park burned down because hundreds of cars blazed for hours. Not because of any one car. Do you comprehend this point?

 

[MarkCorrigan]

You imagine this seems like it makes sense, I suppose. It does not.

The car park burned down because hundreds of cars blazed for hours. Not because of any one car. Do you comprehend this point?

I'm going to take a guess and say...no?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I was responding to suggestions posited by a couple of posters that all the fire brigade or police had to do was look up the ANPR or the CCTV and then check the DVLA records.

I was pointing out that in a major incident at an international airport face value information can't just be taken for granted and certainly not whilst the embers of the fire are still hot.

But since the chief fire officer stated his information was subject to confirmation, you don't appear to be making any worthwhile point.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

There has only been one press release.

So someone put Hopkinson's words into 'plain English' and people think it is an update.

You're only lying to yourself.

 

[zooterkin]

Has it occurred to you it is quite possible to be wholly objective about the cause of a fire without taking one ideological side or the other?

Perhaps you could give it a go?

 

[Vixen]

Above? I'm not sure you know how gravity works.

A problem in Liverpool was a drainage system with aluminium gutters and plastic pipes which could not contain burning fuel flowing down.

The intense heat of thirty burning vehicles and a low ceiling, combined to cause 'fire waterfalls' from off the ceiling. IOW the fire on Level 3 was so hot that the petrochemicals in the drainage runways of the level above caught fire and because the concrete was spalling, caused fire to rain downwards as well as catching hold on level four, which also was soon alight after one and a half hours of firefighting.

Once initial crews and officers were de-briefed it became apparent that the fire, prior
to evacuation and cessation of internal firefighting on Level 3, was surrounded and
confined to the second and third rows of cars. However, the fire had already spread to
Level 4. This, therefore, ruled out the ramps as the initial reason for fire spread
upwards. Although this was, no doubt, a major contributory factor in later fire spread
through the structure, acting as a chimney.
BA teams and external firefighting personnel had reported spalling or exploding
concrete, with BA teams seeing debris falling down from the ceilings on level 3. The
later BA teams also reported holes in the ceiling on level 3 and ignited fuel running
down like a waterfall from the floor above.

Liverpool Fire Report p. 18.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

No, what happens in crisis management is that a crisis management team is formed and a talking heads team is formed to decide what information they are going to give out to the press and how they are going to handle the communications side. The statement is composed and then circulated, with each member of the team suggesting edits, corrections and insertions. This team might well include a legal bod lawyer and in the case of a serious fire will have the advice of the police as to what can and cannot be said until further investigation.

The idea that Mr. Hopkinson jotted his notes whilst eating his breakfast and then ad libbed is laughable.

I gave you the link to the Incident Command manual. Show us please where it describes setting up this talking heads team and their press release procedure.

You're just making up a movie in your head as usual.

 

[zooterkin]

The intense heat of thirty burning vehicles and a low ceiling, combined to cause 'fire waterfalls' from off the ceiling. IOW the fire on Level 3 was so hot that the petrochemicals in the drainage runways of the level above caught fire and because the concrete was spalling, caused fire to rain downwards as well as catching hold on level four, which also was soon alight after one and a half hours of firefighting.

Liverpool Fire Report p. 18.

Your comprehension of the English language continues to be woeful.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

There has only been one press release.

So someone put Hopkinson's words into 'plain English' and people think it is an update.

Absolutely insane conspiracy twaddle. You're so desperate to rewrite reality, it's sad.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I gave you the link to the Incident Command manual. Show us please where it describes setting up this talking heads team and their press release procedure.

You're just making up a movie in your head as usual.

Why are the movies in Vixen's head always low grade pulp? The Estonia thread was a rubbish spy thriller, this one is a political thriller...none of it is even remotely plausible nor consistent with how those topics (spying and politics) operate in the real world.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

But you are assuming the driver hung around to provide that information.

I said that was one plausible source of information.

By all early accounts, he dashed off to catch a flight to an important meeting and didn't return for about ten days.

I haven't seen these "all early accounts". Do you have a link?

Maybe this is urban myth and I am sure the fire was perfectly innocent. However, the police can't just take that for granted as there are a lot of criminals attracted to places like airports, easy escape route via the nearby motorway and railway station direct to London. Airport security always has to be alert for terrorists and criminal gangs. Range Rovers are amongst the most stolen vehicles of the lot, so even if the numberplates are bona fide it doesn't prove that it was driven by the licensed owner. How do you know someone driving into an airport car park - which at Luton is very close to the airport runway - with the car on fire is perfectly innocent? You cannot make that on the spot assumption until further investigation. Hence Mr. Hopkinson qualifying his words to pacify public fears.

Since Hopkinson did indeed qualify his words as subject to confirmation, he did not take anything for granted so there is no anomaly. Later confirmation supported his original information as correct. It was indeed a diesel car.

 

[Vixen]

I see. And what is the incident commander supposed to ask the government minister to do, exactly?


Let me help you. Here's the handbook. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a79d06eed915d6b1deb38ac/incidentcommand.pdf


Perhaps you can show us at which point they're expected to call the Ministry to speak to Chris Philp, and what they're supposed to say they're calling him for.

Have a look at page 138 as a good example.

Philp is the Minister responsible for the policing and fire departments. The department itself is run by a bunch of civil servants.

He would expect to be briefed about any serious incident. It doesn't mean he plays an active part other than being kept updated.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The intense heat of thirty burning vehicles and a low ceiling, combined to cause 'fire waterfalls' from off the ceiling. IOW the fire on Level 3 was so hot that the petrochemicals in the drainage runways of the level above caught fire and because the concrete was spalling, caused fire to rain downwards as well as catching hold on level four, which also was soon alight after one and a half hours of firefighting.

Liverpool Fire Report p. 18.

You're really not grasping what that report is describing. Waterfalls of burning fuel were coming from fires on the floor above. The drains were not pre-filled with fuel waiting to burn. The half inch drain slot in each floor, with an aluminium gutter under it, caused fire to spread along each floor and down. The spilled fuel burning in the gutter caused a blowtorch like effect up through the drain slot which spread fire right along its length. When the gutter melted, it rained burning fuel down on the floor below.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Have a look at page 138 as a good example.

Philp is the Minister responsible for the policing and fire departments. The department itself is run by a bunch of civil servants.

He would expect to be briefed about any serious incident. It doesn't mean he plays an active part other than being kept updated.

Did you mean 138? That seems to apply to Northern Ireland specifically.

Briefed. Hmm.

So the government minister doesn't have to write the script for every post-incident press conference?

 

[Vixen]

That is not how UK number plate sizes work. The number of characters does not change the size of the plate. The plate "B7" I saw yesterday was mostly blank space.

That is what I meant, so if the B7 chap was filmed from behind and the video was blurry, it would still be apparent it was a short numberplate. So if someone then claims to have filmed from the front and announces a six-digit number plate (visible only to themself), that is when you say, well, excuse me, but that doesn't appear to match the back numberplate which looks like a short one.

 

[Vixen]

I don't think anyone has suggested that that's "all" they had to do. But you didn't address the point that cloned plates are put on identical makes/models.

Since nobody has said "you just need to look up DVLA", why do you keep banging this drum, or for that matter brought up an unrelated incident in Germany?

Airport security is a major factor, is the point being made.

 

[zooterkin]

Have a look at page 138 as a good example.

Philp is the Minister responsible for the policing and fire departments. The department itself is run by a bunch of civil servants.

He would expect to be briefed about any serious incident. It doesn't mean he plays an active part other than being kept updated.

Which is the complete opposite of what you were alleging earlier.

He reads out a ready prepared statement that the lawyers have passed through the junior minister that is responsible for the fire brigade, likewise the bods at the police.

Do you really believe he wrote all of that on the back of an envelope and ad libbed his way through?