London Luton Airport: Car Park 2 Incident Review
On 10 October 2023, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service were called to a major incident in London Luton Airport car park terminal 2 where a diesel car fire had spread to a large number of other vehicles in the building and led to the eventual partial collapse of the structure itself.
Major incident summary
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service received calls to a fire involving a car on level three of the multi-storey car park at London Luton Airport at 20:47 on 10 October 2023. Fire crews were faced with a rapidly escalating fire and declared a major incident at 21:38.
A severe fire rapidly spread through the structure and the severity of the fire has caused significant structural collapse. Firefighting operations were undertaken to control the blaze and protect nearby buildings, vehicles, aircraft, and the Luton DART.
At its peak there were 15 Rescue pumps, three aerial appliances and over 100 firefighters on scene at this incident. We would like to thank our fire colleagues from London Luton Airport Fire Service, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, and London Fire Brigade along with Bedfordshire Police and East of England Ambulance for their support.
Investigation
Following the incident, BFRS have put together a Serious Incident Response task force who are conducting a full internal and multi-agency investigation and review into the cause, response and outcome of the incident. At this time, we can confirm the vehicle involved was a diesel-powered vehicle. To further clarify it was neither a fully electric vehicle (EV) nor a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). More information on the incident and cause of the fire will be released once the investigation has been concluded.
The task force will be putting together a full report which will include a range of details about the fire and recommendations. The report is due to be released not before April 2024.
