This fire at Luton Airport car park

True enough, so back on topic. If they’d all been hydrogen powered cars would all the water created as they exploded have put the fire out before it started?

Also if the weight of cars is an issue for collapsing carparks, do hydrogen cars get heavier as you use the fuel or lighter?

Knowing jokes or genuine questions ? (Hard to tell, my judgement of sane behaviour is way off kilter after the responses from trolling the anti-EV types on Facebook last night)

put the fire out before it started?

Hydrogen may be a wonder fuel, I’m pretty sure it’s not that wonderful.

Assuming genuine.

1 – No, because the water formed would be in the form of superheated steam which rises away from the fire. It will of course eventually condense when it get to a cool surface, but doubtful it would ever be enough to make an impact on the fire
2 – The hydrogen is stored under high pressure, so density is high and the car would get lighter as the fuel is used.

One potential issues with Hydrogen – it’s actually very hard to extinguish a hydrogen fire, but if and when you could, the remaining hydrogen escaping from the pressurised tank would form an explosive atmosphere, so you’d have to stand well back unless it exploded. With something like a multi car car park fire you effectively couldn’t put it out as even if you did you’d just get a fireball when the gas reached a new ignition source and you can’t put them all out instantly together. You would just have to try and stop further cars catching fire – which is realistically the approach they take with Diesel or petrol cars in this circumstance anyway.

Hydrogen also burns a lot quicker and only goes up rather than gathering in troublesome puddles.

Its also really tricky to store. The molecules are so small that you lose a significant amount to leakage whenever a vehicle is sat idle.

No you don’t. Our hydrogen farm never really had leakage at all. Nor did it rot the pipework any more than the salty sea air did or whatever other “facts” you may have heard in passing.

Which is my point really, there are so many people who comment on this stuff that don’t have any real world experience and just regurgitate so-called common knowledge.

The bit about lower explosive limits is fair though, you would want a decent deluge system and plenty of ventilation.

the one at Luton was brand new & cost £20million, obviously they didnt have room in the budget for a sprinkler system & ignored the report into the Liverpool arena fire that recommended them being fitted

1500 cars destroyed and the structure has partially collapsed. If there wasn’t a sprinkler system, a strongly worded conversation needs to be had with whoever made the decision, probably budget based, not to include it. And slap them stupid with a month-old haddock.

Reported in Accountancy Daily that the firm behind the car park went bust last month.

Seeing as some on here like a good conspiracy theory.

Hmmmm – deliberately “allowing” a structure you own to burn down with no damage to other peoples property or risk to their lives (e.g. the Crooked House) is one thing, but a carpark with thousands of cars and potentially dozen or hundreds of people inside it is quite another, so I seriously doubt that this could reasonably be considered to be deliberate.

Its also just the company that built it as opposed to owning or indeed running it.
So would need to work hard on the conspiracy angle. I guess it could be burn it down and go “well we built it last time so just need to dust off the old plans” but a tad of a stretch.

Did I miss this?

A man in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after a fire that destroyed more than 1,400 vehicles at Luton Airport.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-67193165

1500 cars destroyed and the structure has partially collapsed. If there wasn’t a sprinkler system, a strongly worded conversation needs to be had with whoever made the decision, probably budget based, not to include it.

These things shouldn’t be down to a committee / budgetary decision, they should be mandated by law and properly enforced.

Did I miss this?

It says that he was the owner of the vehicle that started the fire and the arrest is simply a precaution.

It is believed the man was arrested as a precaution and the investigation so far suggests the fire started accidentally due to a vehicle fault.

It is believed the man was arrested as a precaution…

Eh?

Almost certainly no wrong doing but while they are still finding that out and want to ask the owner of the car that started it off some questions, better that it is done under the protections of an arrest and caution than realise they should have later.

Am I wrong to quip that the person operating the multi-storey car park without a sprinkler system is who they should probably be talking to.

Unsurprisingly there are now plenty of stories surfacing about how difficult insurance companies are being to those caught up in this.

To be fair, it’s a very complicated situation and it only just happened.

The claim the DART will be making for interruption of its service will be mahoosive…

Unsurprisingly there are now plenty of stories surfacing about how difficult insurance companies are being to those caught up in this.

I did see the one on the DM website this morning. Lady saying insurance will only offer her £7k for a car she bought for £20k new 7 years ago. I though £7k sounded about right on that basis! It’s not new for old.

I did see the one on the DM website this morning. Lady saying insurance will only offer her £7k for a car she bought for £20k new 7 years ago. I though £7k sounded about right on that basis! It’s not new for old.

Was the story about the awful insurance company or the dumb policyholder?

Unsurprisingly there are now plenty of stories surfacing about how difficult insurance companies are being to those caught up in this.

Links please?

I’ve just read some of the Daily Heil and Scum “coverage” about it. The headline screaming “Insurer is holding me at FAULT” means the insurer won’t be able to recover 100% of its costs from a third party… the common phrase for that is a “fault” incident. Tadaaa.

Next one “I’m not getting a courtesy car”. The race to the bottom on price has led to so many companies cutting out slices of cover like a car when your’s is either being repaired or written off. See that document you got with the price on it? Also tells you the cover. Not happy with it? Buy a better policy.

There will be people getting slightly stiffed on “market value” of their cars because insurers aren’t a charity and will offer low to start off with. But there’ll also be people who reckon their car is worth £20k when nearer £9k is about right.

They’re also mentioning personal items in the car – there’s usually a separate bit of cover for that. Also the car will probably be taken to a salvage yard where you’ll be able to rescue your satnav/ pet cat/ grandpa’s ashes as long as you’re quick.

There’s literally nothing new in any of the stories I’ve read apart from a bunch of people regretting that they bought cheap cover from shit companies.

Same thing would apply if you bought a pair of chinesium bars weighting 95g for £4.99 direct from the factory. And then wondered why they snapped first time out.

Apologies for the rant, it seems the Mail website has a bad effect on me 😁

It is believed the man was arrested as a precaution and the investigation so far suggests the fire started accidentally due to a vehicle fault.

Typical cop pedantry, always looking for someone to blame. His car, therefore his fault due to some unseen maintenance issue. He owned the car so his responsibility to make sure it was 100% in order.

I doubt even an mot check would locate a rubber pipe that was at the point of failing(If fuel leak was indeed the cause)

Would a sprinkler system be effective in putting out multiple burning vehicles?

A mix of petrol, diesel and batteries blazing away?

It would take a huge quantity of water and/or foam to put that lot out.

Typical cop pedantry, always looking for someone to blame

Typical ignorant keyboard bollocks.

You may want to be interviewed by the Police about something without the protection of being under arrest or caution, there’s no way that I would.

Would a sprinkler system be effective in putting out multiple burning vehicles?
A mix of petrol, diesel and batteries blazing away?
It would take a huge quantity of water and/or foam to put that lot out.

Nope but probably could have put the first one to catch fire out 🤔

It wasn’t the mail (I don’t read that) but one of the local news sites plus I think something on the BBC also caught my eye.

However, whilst its easy to say people are idiots and haven’t bought the cover they needed, I take issue with this. Buying insurance (for anything) has become an absolute minefield. Having a zillion different options, shopping around and all the other bollox touted as consumer choice just leads to an adversarial transaction where it is so easy to be tripped up if you take your eye off the ball. Yes its obvious when pointed out later that something is as plain as day in the T&Cs but sometimes you are not actually thinking that really obvious thing might not be covered – especially if it was previously included.

Then there is plain fraud – I just took out some last minute euro breakdown insurance for my wife who had to drive to Netherlands at short notice. i was literally just about to press the button on a policy when I noticed randomly that it didn’t start to cover travel for 7 days after purchase. The frickin policy was only for 6 days and she was leaving the next day!  They were quite happy to sell me a policy I couldn’t have claimed on.

These things shouldn’t be down to a committee / budgetary decision, they should be mandated by law and properly enforced.

Why?

It’s a building with inherently very low occupancy rates, fireproof construction, plenty of exit routes.

Legal obligations for things like sprinklers are there to protect people who are inherently hard to put a financial value against. Whereas destroying a few cars is easy to figure out if it was worthwhile installing one.

1500 cars x £5000 each = £7.5million

6000 multi sotrey car parks in the uk

A quick google found 3 fires in the last 6 years (Liverpool, Glasgow, Luton), so 1 in 18,000 chance.

40 year lifespan?

£7.5million * 40 / 18000 = £17,000

Cost to install sprinklers, £12/m2, 1500 cars, 2.5x5m each, and say double to allow for roads, that’s £450k.

£17k < £450k so no sprinklers (except maybe on stairwells and fire escapes).

True enough, so back on topic. If they’d all been hydrogen powered cars would all the water created as they exploded have put the fire out before it started?

Because no ones pointed it out, probably because it’s stating the bleeding obvious, burning hydrocarbons (or just about anything) produces CO2 and water. So yes it will “put the fire out” like putting a jar over a candle. But that assumes a sealed box, and it tends to re-ignite when you re-introduce oxygen.

…and that car park (like the Liverpool one from a few years ago) is a very open structure so flames won’t necessarily go up, they’ll go whichever way they’re fanned.

A fuel tank rupture will mean that if the sprinkler is activated, the (burning?) fuel will happily be transported around the building.

I think that was one of the issues in Liverpool, all the floors sloped so once the first tank popped there was an easy route for the fire to follow. Plus some drainage channels. All whipped up by winter winds up the Mersey into a very open structure.

You may want to be interviewed by the Police about something without the protection of being under arrest or caution, there’s no way that I would.

Typical STW flounce.

Me neither, but that isnt what I was referring to was it. The police need someone to blame. No accident is an act of god. The only blame that can be attributed is the vehicle was in need of maintenance, ergo it is the responsibility of its keeper.

It’s a major incident which closed an international airport and destroyed millions of pounds worth of buildings and cars. The cops have to be thorough in excluding malicious or negligent causes, and carry out interviews under caution.

Maybe the bloke wasn’t prepared to be interviewed formally, can’t see any need for an arrest otherwise unless there is proper evidence of criminality.

The car would have to be seriously unroadworthy, specifically in regard to fire risk (and the driver aware of this) to make the ‘reckless’ part of a criminal damage/arson charge stick.

Typical ignorant keyboard bollocks.

You may want to be interviewed by the Police about something without the protection of being under arrest or caution, there’s no way that I would.

I’m intrigued to hear how m3 being arrested gives me protection! You’re aware, I assume, that you can be interviewed under caution without being arrested.

I suspect the original reporting is simply mangled.

You may want to be interviewed by the Police about something without the protection of being under arrest or caution, there’s no way that I would.

Only if they asked nicely

’you are cordially invited to be arrested, you do not have to say anything but please RSPV’ something like that.

Probably turns out this & the Liverpool fire were started by owners of Jaguars/Range Rovers with duff Ingenium engines

I’m intrigued to hear how m3 being arrested gives me protection! You’re aware, I assume, that you can be interviewed under caution without being arrested.

I think in truth it doesn’t. It legally binds you to whatever answers you give in interview. It is known that the things you say are later used against you, and what initially appears as an innocuous answer to a simple question is far from it. (See Black Belt Barrister for examples)

It’s this point I most disagree with because many have received sentences because they are not aware of how their own words can be twisted.

These things shouldn’t be down to a committee / budgetary decision, they should be mandated by law and properly enforced.

I would have assumed that they were, and I would also have assumed that carparks would have sprinkler systems anyway. I’ve never bothered looking, just because I thought they would have.
What rather surprised me was how quickly the car went up, as it was a diesel – yes, I know diesel is an accelerant, but it’s an oil, with a pretty high flashpoint.
But I’m not an engineer or involved with anything to do with inflammable materials. 🤷🏼

Surely you can’t arrest someone without reasonable grounds for suspicion that a crime has (or perhaps is about to be) committed. Arrests have consequences like needing a visa for travel to USA.

I wouldn’t accept an arrest as a bureaucratic convenience for the police.

He probably just lost his parking ticket and didn’t want to pay the whole day rate.
In a fit of rage stuffed his tee shirt in the engine bay and lit it
Expecting alot of smoke and the barrier to go up.
Well, the barrier went up along with many , many cars.

Police powers of arrest

ISTR (Secret Barrister maybe) that by arresting they then also have powers of search to enable prompt gathering and preservation of evidence, etc., that otherwise can be refused if you’re voluntarily being interviewed either with or without being formally under caution.

Note too, although the word is the same being interviewed under caution is not the same as accepting a caution.

Why they arrested and then promptly bailed someone, I don’t know, but suspect there is a purpose. Maybe it makes it easier then to re-detain someone later if after the evidence gathering they decide that there may have been a crime?

So based on that link, what do we think the justification was for the arrest? Was there a court warrant?

So based on that link, what do we think the justification was for the arrest?

Because they thought that a crime may have been committed?

IDK – I have no other knowledge than anyone else reading the reports. I just wanted to set out why someone can be arrested.
But to play whatiffery. What constitutes ‘Prompt and effective investigation….’ in combination with reasonable grounds a crime may have been committed.
Suppose…just suppose…. they’ve traced the fire starting to a particular car. They ask the owner some questions, and ask to see the car’s service records. And the owner refuses to provide them. What do you as the policeman do next. Is that reasonably suspicious they’re ‘hiding’ something? Does someone’s evasiveness increase the suspicion (a copper’s ‘nose’) Does having access to these records enable prompt and effective investigation? When does failure to repair your car potentially become an offence? I assume you don’t just drop it, because they aren’t very helpful.
(btw, anyone listen to ‘It’s a Fair Cop’ on R4 – comedy show but an ex-copper playing whatiffery with a studio audience – quite thought provoking at times, because there’s a lot that isn’t simple binary decisions)

So what’re the likely culprits? Fuel leak onto the exhaust manifold?  Stuck starter motor?