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Luton Airport Car Park Fire

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Vixen

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Vixen
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Luton Airport Car Park No.2 was destroyed a few days ago when a Range Rover suddenly caught fire as it was driving in. Miraculously the driver managed to escape despite the rapid spread of the fire across the floors and ceiling up to the next level. Thankfully only five people were injured, mostly with smoke inhalation.


It is thought the fire started with a diesel-powered vehicle "and then that fire has quickly and rapidly spread", said Andrew Hopkinson, Bedfordshire's chief fire officer.
While the exact number of cars damaged or destroyed is not yet known, Mr Hopkinson said: "There is a substantial number [of cars] that are not damaged."
There is no suggestion the blaze happened intentionally.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-67077996

Whilst the police confirm the vehicle in question was a diesel car, there has been much speculation and arguing on social media that the car ‘must have been an EV or Hybrid’ as ‘only a lithium battery would explode like that’.

Someone else has identified the car from its number plates as being a diesel 2014 Land Rover sports model. The issue is that people do not believe that diesel is particularly combustible. Plus the flames seem to spread out from underneath the passenger side ‘indicating an EV battery issue’.

Some seem to believe that police are playing down the EV angle because they do not want to ruin the EV-car market.

For example:

“I can remember car parks exploding and bursting into flames long before electric vehicles were invented…NOT #LutonAirport” https://x.com/Iromg/status/1712093115148882169?s=20
 
We have now booked our car into an open airport car park for next year's holiday.
 
Seems about right for a conspiracy theory - the thing that proves beyond doubt that it was an EV is all the evidence to the contrary. :rolleyes:

For some reason, people find EVs scary. :confused:

The worst I have found Mrs Don's is mildly inconvenient if we have to charge on a longer journey. Clearly I'm too Woke and part of the Deep State EV lobby. :rolleyes:
 
Vixen said:
Whilst the police confirm the vehicle in question was a diesel car, there has been much speculation and arguing on social media that the car ‘must have been an EV or Hybrid’ as ‘only a lithium battery would explode like that’.

Someone else has identified the car from its number plates as being a diesel 2014 Land Rover sports model. The issue is that people do not believe that diesel is particularly combustible. Plus the flames seem to spread out from underneath the passenger side ‘indicating an EV battery issue’.
Click to expand...


Perhaps it was being used to smuggle nuclear waste, which then exploded via elementary chemistry.

Has the possibility that it was rammed by a submarine been ruled out?
 
As if cars never caught fire before lithium batteries. :rolleyes:

Electrical fires happen, unrelated to any EV or hybrid batteries.

Stuff stored in the vehicle can start a fire.

Squirrels can stuff an engine compartment full of pine cones and other material including dry leaves they might build a nest with.


Just sayin'.
 
Have we had diesel fires can't melt steel yet?

But seriously yes, there was lots of speculation it must have been an EV fire so it's good to get an update that it wasn't and a reminder that car fires do just happen and always have.
 
While the exact number of cars damaged or destroyed is not yet known, Mr Hopkinson [Bedfordshire's chief fire officer] said: "There is a substantial number [of cars] that are not damaged."
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Did he say that before or after the car park collapsed?

What surprises me is how quickly the fire spread after it started. Maybe there was a fuel leak that spread burning diesel everywhere.
 
The police and fire brigade are covering up that it was an EV and blaming it on a diesel car.
It's part of the war on the motorist apparently.
 
Next a multi-storey car park will collapse under the weight of all the EVs.
 
Nessie said:
Next a multi-storey car park will collapse under the weight of all the EVs.
Click to expand...

At least this construction was new so will (presumably) have taken modern car weights into consideration, unlike stuff built in the 1960s when everyone drove Morris Minors. But it seems to be a steel framed structure with no sprinkler system, which in hindsight looks like a mistake.
 
So the fire chief did a terrible job determining what type of vehicle it was, and why it happened?
 
Couldn't have been much of a fire, can't get very high temps outside of a laboratory.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
As if cars never caught fire before lithium batteries. :rolleyes:

Electrical fires happen, unrelated to any EV or hybrid batteries.

Stuff stored in the vehicle can start a fire.

Squirrels can stuff an engine compartment full of pine cones and other material including dry leaves they might build a nest with.


Just sayin'.
Click to expand...

One of the most common causes of car fires used to be still lit cigarette butts thrown from other cars & hitting the radiator grill of a car behind, add paper from litter or dry leaves, maybe a little oil & plenty of airflow & Bob's your Uncle.

I remember seeing a car by the side of the road smoking or on fire (or roadside grass fires, also often caused by cigarettes) being not common, but definitely something you saw from time to time. The reduction in smoking in general, and it's pretty much total banning in company & hire vehicles, not to mention general changes in vehicle design that reduce the chances of fire from this reason & the ones you mentioned do mean it's pretty rare now.

I guess people just forget, or for people who started driving more recently it's never been a thing the same way it was for us then.
 
The Don said:
Seems about right for a conspiracy theory - the thing that proves beyond doubt that it was an EV is all the evidence to the contrary. :rolleyes:

For some reason, people find EVs scary. :confused:

The worst I have found Mrs Don's is mildly inconvenient if we have to charge on a longer journey. Clearly I'm too Woke and part of the Deep State EV lobby. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

People are resistant to change. I dare say in the early part of last century, people were saying, 'I b'ain't be giving up my horse and carriage. There b'ain't be no power like horse power'.

There is a lot of ignorance amongst the public about EV's. Whilst the majority of the public are merely change-resistance, the remainder can be divided into three basic groups:

  1. Those, like yourself, eager to try out the latest gadget and with plenty of money to afford it, for reasons because it makes sense; in this case, environmental sense.
  2. Those with a wait-and-see attitude who let the early aforesaid adopters point out the flaws and need-for-improvements and for the price to come down, first, before buying, themselves.
  3. the old anti-vaxx brigade who see everything as a 'woke' campaign to force everyone to become green and conformist, and to put profits into the coffers of Bill Gates and/or Tesla. These include those who claim, 'We'll soon be overrun by Chinese EV's'.

I myself settled on a hybrid as I wanted a new car but wasn't sure about the practicalities of an EV and the substantially higher price. Plus I wanted a sporty little number that went vroom-vroom, not something with 'just one gear'. A little bit change resistant, too.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
As if cars never caught fire before lithium batteries. :rolleyes:

Electrical fires happen, unrelated to any EV or hybrid batteries.

Stuff stored in the vehicle can start a fire.

Squirrels can stuff an engine compartment full of pine cones and other material including dry leaves they might build a nest with.


Just sayin'.
Click to expand...

In the past couple of years I've seen two roadside vehicle fires. One was a car with the bonnet open and thick black smoke coming out, the other, a motorbike likewise, thick smoke.

But neither burst into flames as spectacularly as the car in the Luton CCTV video. I am guessing the guy had some kind of electrical fault and possibly a fuel leak. It'll be interesting to understand the reason for it bursting into flames like that.
 
In this case it was a diesel vehicle and it caught fire while driving into the car park. Chances are it was an electrical fire initially rather than a fuel fire. Diesels are typically less of a fire hazard than petrol models. (The warehouse at my workplace specifically bars petrol engined vehicles from entering but allows diesels.)
 
Mojo said:
Perhaps it was being used to smuggle nuclear waste, which then exploded via elementary chemistry.

Has the possibility that it was rammed by a submarine been ruled out?
Click to expand...


Do you have a citation from reliable authorities for these claims?
 
Vixen said:
People are resistant to change. I dare say in the early part of last century, people were saying, 'I b'ain't be giving up my horse and carriage. There b'ain't be no power like horse power'.

There is a lot of ignorance amongst the public about EV's. Whilst the majority of the public are merely change-resistance, the remainder can be divided into three basic groups:

  1. Those, like yourself, eager to try out the latest gadget and with plenty of money to afford it, for reasons because it makes sense; in this case, environmental sense.
  2. Those with a wait-and-see attitude who let the early aforesaid adopters point out the flaws and need-for-improvements and for the price to come down, first, before buying, themselves.
  3. the old anti-vaxx brigade who see everything as a 'woke' campaign to force everyone to become green and conformist, and to put profits into the coffers of Bill Gates and/or Tesla. These include those who claim, 'We'll soon be overrun by Chinese EV's'.

I myself settled on a hybrid as I wanted a new car but wasn't sure about the practicalities of an EV and the substantially higher price. Plus I wanted a sporty little number that went vroom-vroom, not something with 'just one gear'. A little bit change resistant, too.
Click to expand...

That's as may be, but your theory is that the fire officials are conspiring to pretend it was a diesel fire, to avoid public panic about EVs.

This might make more sense if we had any reason to believe that people who don't like the idea of EVs actually posed such a serious concern that fire officials would feel obligated to lie about their work, just to protect those feelings.

Also, writing in ethnic or class dialect is not a good look.
 
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So now, anyone who wants to understand how something in current affairs has happened, for example the Luton Airport Car Park fire must be greatly feared as a conspiracy theorist, because after all, we mustn't ask questions for fear of upsetting those who aren't particularly interested in why the Range Rover caught fire in such a way as to cause the entire multilevel car park to collapse.

Oh well, c'est la vie. So much for scepticism. Too threatening to think about.
 
theprestige said:
That's as may be, but your theory is that the fire officials are conspiring to pretend it was a diesel fire, to avoid public panic about EVs.

This might make more sense if we had any reason to believe that people who don't like the idea of EVs actually posed such a serious concern that fire officials would feel obligated to lie about their work, just to protect those feelings.

Also, writing in ethnic or class dialect is not a good look.
Click to expand...

Where did I say it was my theory?
 
theprestige said:
You're promoting it here, you own it here.

Are you rejecting the hypothesis that it was an EV fire and fire officials are lying about it?
Click to expand...

Not at all. It has been headline news in the UK. It was the no.1 trending topic on X, after the Israel-Hamas issue. Over a quarter of a million views of the tweet I quoted.

You think current news topics should be repressed and that people should not speculate as to why a car burst into flames in that manner?

But almost every single comment in the DAILY MAIL article is claiming it must have been an EV.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rk-fire-chaos-flights-cancelled.html#comments


So I am BAAAAAA-AAAAD for daring to start a topic to understand why this has aroused so much scepticism amongst the UK public.
 
JoeMorgue said:
The Parking Garage at the Hospital Where I work collapsed last month and squashed about 5 cars.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/...e-garage-collapse-latest-updates/70856694007/

Oh I'm sorry I thought you starting a "Most Mundane and Easily Explained Parking Garage Disaster Thread" and I'm competitive by nature.
Click to expand...

If you had opened a current affairs topic about it does that make it a conspiracy theory because you are interested enough to understand what happened?
 
Vixen said:
If you had opened a current affairs topic about it does that make it a conspiracy theory because you are interested enough to understand what happened?
Click to expand...

... you not understand something doesn't make it a mystery to be solved. You insisting it does is what makes it a conspiracy theory.

There's no mystery to explain here.
 
Vixen said:
Not at all. It has been headline news in the UK. It was the no.1 trending topic on X, after the Israel-Hamas issue. Over a quarter of a million views of the tweet I quoted.

You think current news topics should be repressed and that people should not speculate as to why a car burst into flames in that manner?

But almost every single comment in the DAILY MAIL article is claiming it must have been an EV.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rk-fire-chaos-flights-cancelled.html#comments


So I am BAAAAAA-AAAAD for daring to start a topic to understand why this has aroused so much scepticism amongst the UK public.
Click to expand...

Are these comments from people who know anything about car fires? I mean if the fire started on the interior of the vehicle, the interior materials would go up pretty quickly and plastics will burn pretty hot. Why is it unusual to have a diesel car fire, when they have a higher incident rate than EVs?
 
Vixen said:
Not at all. It has been headline news in the UK. It was the no.1 trending topic on X, after the Israel-Hamas issue. Over a quarter of a million views of the tweet I quoted.

You think current news topics should be repressed and that people should not speculate as to why a car burst into flames in that manner?

But almost every single comment in the DAILY MAIL article is claiming it must have been an EV.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rk-fire-chaos-flights-cancelled.html#comments


So I am BAAAAAA-AAAAD for daring to start a topic to understand why this has aroused so much scepticism amongst the UK public.
Click to expand...

Are you rejecting the hypothesis that it was an EV fire and fire officials are lying about it?
 
Vixen said:
If you had opened a current affairs topic about it does that make it a conspiracy theory because you are interested enough to understand what happened?
Click to expand...

It doesn't stop being a conspiracy theory just because the media is participating and a lot of the general public is buying into it.
 
Vixen said:
So now, anyone who wants to understand how something in current affairs has happened, for example the Luton Airport Car Park fire must be greatly feared as a conspiracy theorist, because after all, we mustn't ask questions for fear of upsetting those who aren't particularly interested in why the Range Rover caught fire in such a way as to cause the entire multilevel car park to collapse.
Oh well, c'est la vie. So much for scepticism. Too threatening to think about.
Click to expand...

It didn't. There was partial collapse, but most of it is relatively unaffected. Plenty of images online will confirm this.
 
Vixen said:
People are resistant to change. I dare say in the early part of last century, people were saying, 'I b'ain't be giving up my horse and carriage. There b'ain't be no power like horse power'.

There is a lot of ignorance amongst the public about EV's. Whilst the majority of the public are merely change-resistance, the remainder can be divided into three basic groups:

  1. Those, like yourself, eager to try out the latest gadget and with plenty of money to afford it, for reasons because it makes sense; in this case, environmental sense.
  2. Those with a wait-and-see attitude who let the early aforesaid adopters point out the flaws and need-for-improvements and for the price to come down, first, before buying, themselves.
  3. the old anti-vaxx brigade who see everything as a 'woke' campaign to force everyone to become green and conformist, and to put profits into the coffers of Bill Gates and/or Tesla. These include those who claim, 'We'll soon be overrun by Chinese EV's'.

I myself settled on a hybrid as I wanted a new car but wasn't sure about the practicalities of an EV and the substantially higher price. Plus I wanted a sporty little number that went vroom-vroom, not something with 'just one gear'. A little bit change resistant, too.
Click to expand...


Is “b’ain’t” some kind of Cockney slang?
 
How did wet get from parking garage fire to vaccines? How many Kevin Bacons even is that?
 
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