Why no sprinklers?
Luton Airport’s £20m blaze-hit car park only opened in 2019
A MULTI- STOREY car park at Luton Airport that partially collapsed after being engulfed in a massive blaze did not have any sprinklers, despite opening just three years ago.
More than 100 firefighters and 15 engines spent 12 hours battling the blaze, which began just before 9pm on Tuesday on the third floor of the terminal 2 car park.
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue service declared a major incident – with four firefighters and an airport worker taken to hospital with smoke inhalation – before the flames were extinguished just before 9am yesterday. The inferno sparked travel chaos for tens of thousands of families with the airport remaining closed until 3pm, and at least 150 flights cancelled.
Around 1,500 cars were damaged in the fire. The 600C blaze is thought to have been started by a diesel car, understood to be a Range Rover, which investigators believe suffered either an electrical fault or a leaking fuel line.
AA technical expert Greg Carter said car fires were most commonly caused by an electrical fault with the 12-volt battery system. The £20 million car park, which opened in 2019, did not appear to have sprinklers, according to chief fire officer Andrew Hopkinson. He urged the airport to install them in existing and future car parks.
Mr Hopkinson said the car park’s open sides meant the fire would have spread ‘horizontally’ before it tore upwards through the building, adding there was ‘no intelligence to suggest it was anything other than an accidental fire’.
He said up to 1,500 vehicles were in the building. Sources said it will probably have to be demolished.
Luton Airport did not respond to requests for comment as to why it did have not have sprinklers installed in the car park.
Dramatic CCTV footage shows the moment the car park’s third floor caved in as an explosion erupted, sending a fireball tearing through the complex.
The flames then spread rapidly to the lower floors as a string of electric cars caught fire in a domino-like effect, one firefighter said.
A temporary ramp was built yesterday to allow unscathed vehicles to leave.
A witness told how she saw the fire start, and tried to extinguish the flames.
She told the Mail: ‘We just parked our car and then we saw the smoke. I was like two metres away but we just couldn’t manage to come close [enough] to the car with the fire extinguisher, because already it was too hot.’
She said the vehicle was a ‘darkred, big Range Rover’.