A report has been released on the car park fire that happened at Luton Airport last October, confirming the fire was started accidentally.
A joint report by Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue & Bedfordshire Police was completed last week concerning a fire that broke out at Luton Airport on the evening of October 10th last year.
At its height, more than 100 firefighters tackled the fire, which was declared as a major incident. The blaze spread from a single vehicle to multiple in the Terminal 2 car park adjacent to the main Luton Airport terminal and which had to be contained to prevent it spreading to the airport terminal, adjacent planes and nearby DART transport link to Luton Airport Parkway rail station.
While a full incident report is expected to be published in summer 2024, a multi-agency investigation took place between local police and fire services, which finished this week.
In their publication of the summary, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue stated that they had concluded the fire broke out in a diesel powered vehicle, and while the owner had attempted to extinguish the blaze, the fire could not be controlled and quickly spread to be other cars.
In a statement, the fire service said, “As a result of the investigation, all evidence points to the most probable cause being an electrical fault or component failure, which started in the engine bay of the vehicle whilst it was in motion.
“The developing fire spread to other components, and whilst the owner of the vehicle attempted to fight the fire, the vehicle became overrun with flames and spread to other parked vehicles.
“The vehicle involved was diesel-powered – it was not a mild hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle.”
Demolition of the affected car park began in January, which is expected to take 16 weeks.
It is reported that over 1,400 cars were in the affected car park at the time of the blaze.
