Cont: Luton Airport Car Park Fire IV

catsmate said:
In Ye Olde Days, dropping the cigarette lighter on the flammable plastic fibre carpet....
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Ah, all the little circles on the floor of my 1974 Ford Galaxie 500...

Diesels are slightly safer in one respect since they don't have an electrical ignition system where the voltage is raised significantly to operate the spark plugs. But in another respect, some of them have block heaters which operate at mains voltages. But any reasonably modern, reasonably large diesel engine will have a bunch of auxiliary equipment and a sensor and actuator network all powered by a 12 VDC system. All that wiring and all those connectors are susceptible to a host of factors (heat, vibration, thermal cycling, mishandling, ageing) that make electrical short circuits an ongoing problem.

My experience comes largely from airplane and spacecraft electrical systems, most of which operate on a 28 VDC main bus. The design factors for these electrical systems are fanatically thorough, as are the maintenance regimes. If people inspected and maintained their car electrical systems with even a tenth the rigor of aircraft systems, I feel we'd have a lot fewer vehicle fires.

I may have told my dumbest vehicle fire story already in this thread. At one of my sites, we have an external-platform loading dock. We often leave the forklift out there when we need extra room inside to marshal pallets. So someone one day left a box out on the forklift. In the box, standing upright, was one of those fresnel panels that people with impaired vision often use to read small print. As the sun moved slowly across the sky, that panel focused a hot spot on the forklift. When the hot spot reached a patch of grease, it ignited. The forklift was half-engulfed before anyone could get a fire extinguisher on it. So you never really know what dumb set of circumstances is going to lead to an unexpected vehicle fire.
 
Vixen said:
I still think it looked like a lithium fire...
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An opinion worth no more than your opinion that diesel doesn't ignite unless subjected to high pressure, or that welding steel doesn't involve melting it. You may as well offer your opinion that someone's biopsy doesn't look like cancer to you. You don't know anything about the subject, so your opinions (which you hope will lead to the conclusion that you are too clever to be fooled like most everyone else) are worthless.

...but I accept that despite confirming the smoke was white, it was diesel-only.
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How did you confirm that? Again, what methodology did you use to correct for camera, digital compression, and video monitor artifacts? I mean we all know the answer to that, which is that you haven't. You're like an actor in a badly written police drama playing the part of the expert investigator. You have to bludgeon your way forward, never letting the facade of knowledge and qualification fall.

But I'd still like to understand why it manifested as it did and why the blaze became so completely uncontrollable within minutes, when normally. a quick squirt of fire hydrant under the bonnet should have done the trick, or at least within twenty minutes of the time the Fire Brigade arrived.
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It's really sad to watch you persistently ignore all information that contradicts your delusion of competence. Your above assertion as to the quickness with which anyone was able to even attempt to extinguish the fire has been completely destroyed. And you know that. You seem less an armchair detective than an algorithm designed solely to evade admission of error.

However, whilst this is an interesting topic for me, I get that there are people here who are only here to 'call out' and mock.

It's a shame really that there cannot be a serious discussion.
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The only serious discussion in this thread has been between people other than yourself. You can't have a serious discussion with someone who imagines evidence refuses to admit error, let alone someone who jeeps repeating the same disproved claims as though they have never been shot down. You can't participate in any of the serious discussion because you're only talking to yourself.
 
Rolfe said:
OK. I know nothing.
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To be honest, I thought I knew what they were because after walking past one every day going into my office I looked it up, but I still had it wrong, I thought it was a dry (when not in use) sprinkler system powered from the fire engine pump or attached to a hydrant/water supply when needed rather than a distribution system for hoses. TBH it's one of those things that if you don't need to know it..
 
But I'd still like to understand why it manifested as it did and why the blaze became so completely uncontrollable within minutes, ...
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Because it was a diesel fire. Many many videos available showing how quickly an ICE car can turn into a fireball, particularly once the fuel in the tank and fuel lines becomes involved in the blaze.

There are some videos of EV batteries doing some fairly spectacular things, but you'll find they are ALL the result of car crashes in which the battery was seriously damaged. An EV battery that has not been subjected to that sort of trauma simply does not turn into a raging inferno within a few minutes.
 
catsmate said:
:o I though that was the subject under discussion?
So what are they if they're outside th building but part of the structure? Other than a hazard to pedestrians that is.
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Hydrants are connected to the water mains. That's where the fire brigade get the water from to pump in to the dry risers.
In the UK they are below the surface under a manhole cover.
 
You attach hoses to a dry riser to put water into them. You attach hoses to a hydrant to take water out of them.

U.S. hydrants are still mostly above ground. I have one in my front yard. If U.K. hydrants are below ground, how do dogs pee on them?
 
Meanwhile, here in Oz.

Our 'hydrants' are typically (but not always) set below the road surface.

We used to have white posts, with a red metal cap, that had the following text moulded into it:

"F.P. 4FT" (The 4 FT explains that the metal lid, like a tiny manhole cover, is four feet away.)

I have no idea if the 'F.P.' referred to 'Fire Point' or 'Fire Plug' but distinctly remember children earnestly telling people that it meant:

"Fat Policeman, Four Foot Tall."

:D
 
Jack by the hedge said:
So the official report is out and the car was a 2014 Range Rover Sport diesel. What a vindication, nay a triumph for the people who steadfastly refused to believe any previous reports it was a 2014 Range Rover Sport diesel. Without their steadfast denialism we might never have known what we've known all along.
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As I said from the start, it is my opinion that the nature of the fire looks to me to be a lithium one. Given that some early 2014 Range Rover Sport diesel did have a lithium battery, which was on the passenger side (UK), I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was a hybrid without the owner realising it, especially if bought secondhand.

People seem not to know the difference between opinion and fact. It was always my OPINION, I never claimed it was a fact.

Whilst I'm here re Rolfe claiming 'statistics', it is irrelevant here whether 'most car fires are...[whatever]...', as here we are dealing with just one vehicle, and thus probability doesn't come into it.
 
Vixen said:
As I said from the start, it is my opinion that the nature of the fire looks to me to be a lithium one.
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And never for a moment did you reconsider this, despite being told your reasons for your opinion were completely without foundation, and despite official statements to the contrary.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Calling it "diesel-only" might be an obvious source of your misunderstanding. There was no lithium battery but that does not mean the only thing in the car which could burn was diesel fuel. As you already know, the fire probably started as an electrical fire in the 12V system. There are plenty of plastic parts and fluids other than fuel which can burn in a modern car.


I don't believe you have any basis to claim that is "normally" the case. There were 4 cars reported ablaze before the Fire Brigade even arrived and approx 25 reported involved within half an hour. You're not going to put that conflagration out with a squirt from a fire extinguisher.


If you want to have a serious discussion, maybe drop the crap about everything the fire service reported being "PR" etc.
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Re communications, it says in the report very clearly that the Fire Brigade and the Police agreed a statement limited to what was already known on 11 Oct 2023. See page 72 - 74:

Communication support was provided first from home, and then from the major incident room in the early hours of the incident before the duty communications officer attended the incident at about 06:00 to provide a media liaison service, whilst further communication support was provided virtually by another member of the team. No official photographer attended the incident. The duty communication officer didn’t attend the first SCG, but attendance by a member of the communications team did happen at every SCG after this. The communication team was also given remote access to the onsite multi-agency meeting from about 06:30, which provided valuable information on the latest operational update from the ground.

<snip>


Within a few hours of the start of the incident, Bedfordshire FRS received numerous requests for information; these were received via phone call, emails and via the online portal of the Service’s website. To date, Bedfordshire FRS has received over 50 requests for information. Most of the requests were dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, with a statement jointly agreed between Bedfordshire FRS and Bedfordshire Police being provided with limited information that was already in the public domain and advising further information would be released when the investigation had been concluded. Responses were provided in accordance with GDPR and Data Protection legislation and in liaison with the Deputy Assistant Chief Fire Officer, the Monitoring Officer and Data Protection Officer.
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Thus I was correct when I said the so-called 'updates' were simply a reiteration of what was said on Day One, and that I would await the report.

It doesn't explain the original fire in Vehicle 1, it just seems to take for granted what the AA boffin said on Day One as to 'most likely cause being an electrical fault in the engine bay', and that is what they have glibly repeated.
 
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