Luton Airport Car Park Fire

[GlennB]

Yes they have. You can read it on their official web site

Yeah, but it doesn't count until Mr Wotsisname says it.

 

[JayUtah]

It is relevant, because if it was a lithium battery fire, that explains everything, the intensity, the floor giving way, the rapid spread from projectile jets of alighted debris from the vehicle. Likewise, as would a deliberate detonation.

All these are suspicious only because you in your unbounded ignorance have declared them to be. The right answer in this case is that you and all the other armchair detectives don’t know what you’re talking about out.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Here are pictures of the two most popular cars from Ford and BMC from the late 60s.

The BMC 1100/1300 being one of the biggest selling cars of all time in the UK

See the difference between them and modern cars?
Apart from the size, where's the plastic? On the outside there's no plastic trim, bumpers, grill etc. On the inside, no plastic dash, centre console or seat fittings etc

 

[Mojo]

For heaven's sake. You are in charge of investigating and writing a report wherein you have a fire that rages out of control within under an hour of it being reported.

So all you need do is on day one say you believe it to be a diesel was accidental and then we can all go home.

I see that, yet again, you need to be reminded what the post you were replying to was about. Here it is:

It is all very well saying it is 'accidental' but it may not necessarily be so, given the Middle East conflict.

Er, what?

How is what you have just posted relevant to the Middle East conflict?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

You haven't answered the question. If it was a bog standard diesel car fire and people saw it ignite from the outset (alarm raised immediately) and it wasn't parked in a space next to other cars, how come the fire was uncontrollable in less than an hour, with the fire brigade unable to even enter the building (for example, via the stairwells as in the Liverpool fire)?


You can't.

You haven't established that it's unusual for a car fire to accelerate and spread as quickly as this one did. You've just taken one solitary example of a different fire. When you establish there is anything actually unusual you can start asking 'how come' questions about the fire. For now the point in contention is whether it was a hybrid car. It was not a hybrid car. The fire brigade say so

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It is relevant, because if it was a lithium battery fire, that explains everything

You haven't established that a diesel car fire doesn't explain everything.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

No, they haven't.

Look at their website. Stop floundering around and go look now. We'll wait.

 

[Mojo]

Look at their website. Stupid floundering around and go look now. We'll wait.

That's an excellent autocorrect you have there!

 

[Foster Zygote]

Here are pictures of the two most popular cars from Ford and BMC from the late 60s.

The BMC 1100/1300 being one of the biggest selling cars of all time in the UK

See the difference between them and modern cars?
Apart from the size, where's the plastic? On the outside there's no plastic trim, bumpers, grill etc. On the inside, no plastic dash, centre console or seat fittings etc

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=672&pictureid=13825[/qimg]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=672&pictureid=13827[/qimg]

Something about that second car makes me want to give it a damn good thrashing.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Status quo!

Incontontinencia Buttux

 

[Andy_Ross]

Was that an 1100?, yes I just googled it was lol

The 1100 was an excellent car for its day and when they upped the engine size to 1300 with the engine from the Mini Cooper S it was brilliant.
They are still usable today.
I'm a bit of a fan

Our garage was built to take a 60s car. There's no way we can get a modern one in and even try to open the door.



Here's the full lowdown on the 1100 family

 

[Jack by the hedge]

That's an excellent autocorrect you have there!

Ta. Hadn't spotted it did that.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Way back near the start of this thread I posted a link to hundreds upon hundreds of vehicle fires attended by the London fire brigade, almost all of which had bog standard 12V electrical systems. What point do you imagine you are making?

Unlike some, maybe many, here I actually have direct experience of a liquid fuel vehicle fire, and yes, it was started by an electrical fault in the 12v system. It was in vanity lights installed then removed before we bought the vehicle, both done professionally btw, and the fire closed the M42 anti-clockwise during Friday rush hour. And that was just a motorbike ('just' in respect of having a much smaller fuel tank & volume of combustables compared to a car). It was my wife's bike, and as luck would have it, it was a Virago that has a dummy tank holding only 5ltrs or so on the frame andthe real tank under the seat. We'd ridden up the M40 & had planned to fill up before Birmingham, thankfully I decided not to bother so when Jen's bike caught fire & burned through the plastic fuel hose the dummy tank was empty so she didn't get petrol sprayed over her.

I've also been as close to a couple of car fires as I have any desire to ever get.

Anyone who underestimates how energetic vehicle fires are is a fool.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Vixen what is an ad hominem?

Well vixen?

 

[Foster Zygote]

Here's an example of how a modern car can burn. At the start of the video it's still possible to make out the front of the vehicle enough to determine that it's a second generation BMW X5, which was only available with either a gasoline or diesel engine.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4IObb6bGrGw&pp=ygUIQ2FyIGZpcmU=

 

[catsmate]

Let's disregard the politics and the lobbying and look at the bare objective scientific facts.

We have a precedent in the Liverpool ECHO Arena Fire of 31 Dec 2017. We have the Fire Brigade Report into that matter. This gives us a point of comparison.

In the Liverpool car park fire, the culprit was a diesel-only Range Rover.

16:29 first signs of smoke on CCTV
16:42 first call to Fire Brigade
16:43 first fire alarm activated x 2 extinguishers applied
16:45 Event (horse show) fire-fighting team arrive
16:56 external fire-fighting begins
17:08 first BA team fire fight from stairwell 2 into level 3
17:40 BA crew reports up to 30 vehicles running rows of burning fuel between two rows of cars
17:52 CCTV shows first sign of flames from level 4 above intial level 3 fire
18:07 first BA team committed from stairwell level 1 to level 3. ‘Fire confined to two rows of vehicles, away from ramps’.
18:20 All BA crews withdrawn from stairwells 2 and 3 due to ‘untenable fire conditions’.
18:38 Emergency evacuation of all teams due to firefight safety issues.

Time taken for the Liverpool car park to develop into a major fire:

Two hours nineteen minutes from when smoke first noticed to fire teams having to withdraw. Alternatively, one hour 56 mins from when first call made to Fire Brigade (999).

Let’s call it two hours for simplicity. 1,150 vehicles lost car park full due to equestrian event. The car park had to be demolished. Structure unsafe and collapsing from the centre - safe enough for firemen to stand around the outside of each level.

Ultimate cause of Liverpool car park spread:



From a fire safety research paper of 1968:



So nota bene that the Liverpool car park fire was due to a fuel leak which due to an electric fault caused burning and this burning fuel spread from car to car along two rows, initially, but owing to the sloping floor designed for drainage, the burning fuel seeped into other floors.

So conclusion: fuel leak, burning fuel spreading to other cars then onto other floors. Firefighters able to work from the stairwells for at least two hours trying to extinguish it.

Fast forward to the Luton Fire:

First call to the Fire Brigade 999 was at 20:47

21:38 Major incident declared.

Firefighters tackling the intense blaze from outside the building, unlike at Liverpool.

'Major incident' within 51 minutes - half the time of the Liverpool fire.

As can be seen in the video posted earlier, a lithium car battery fire explodes outwards at high temperature and its contents flare out as projectiles for several metres, thus no fuel line leak required. Concrete floors collapsed quickly.

On the other hand, Luton had no sprinklers as was recommended and was made of uncoated steel that become ductible at circa 500°C, when Liverpool car park was made of concrete.

Conclusion suggests this may not be an ordinary ICE car fire involving the usual fuel leak and electrical fault.



This is why it is not possible at this stage to 'confirm' that the fire was definitely caused by a diesel-only powered car because it doesn't explain the super rapid spread and intensity of heat that kept the fire brigade external to the building.

What has this pathetic morass of lies, evasions and irrelevancies got to do with anything resembling reality?

You are fractally wrong and attempting, badly, to cover this simple fact with nonsense.

Your attempt to evade is quite obvious to everyone here.

 

[catsmate]

Romanesi eunt ite domusum.

Fīat iūstitia ruat cælum.

 

[catsmate]

In 2017, three homeless men stated a fire beneath a bridge on I-85 north of Atlanta. The fire spread to a stack of polyethylene pipes, which generated enough heat to weaken the steel in the bridge and collapse it. Just an example of what fire can do to steel and concrete.

Indeed.
To expand on my prior post, which Vixen went to such efforts to avoid responding to, the energy available in the plastic parts of a car is immense. An average vehicle holds about 180kg of plastic and though the energy density of this is varied, and the combustion efficiency is imperfect, this amounts to several tens of gigajoules for fifteen hundred vehicles.

 

[catsmate]

Next step: explain how the fire spread to become uncontrollable and only manageable from outside the building within fifty minutes.

The usual way. Heat. Fuel. Oxygen.

 

[catsmate]

As regards the 12 volt system, a car battery can easily push out 400 amps.

Even more, once.