Just reflecting on the fire at Luton Airport Multistorey Car Park which has been extensively reported.
I notice from photos that this car park appeared to be of the same light weight mainly metal construction as the Kings Dock multistorey car park in Liverpool which suffered a major fire in 2017 and had to be completely demolished.
These metal framed car parks seem to offer very little fire resistance between the decks unlike the solidly built traditional concrete ones.
If I recall from a visit there last year the multistorey at Bristol Parkway is also of similar lightweight construction.
One wonders if questions will soon be asked about the safety of these structures as the decking seems to offer no resistance to fire spreading upwards or downwards?
The Liverpool Kings Dock multi storey car park was not a steel structure. It was reinforced concrete throughout.
https://www.bafsa.org.uk/wp-content...er/2018/12/Merseyside-FRS-Car-Park-Report.pdf
Page 7, top paragragh is:
Kings Dock car park is an 8 level, open-sided construction, comprising a ground and seven upper floors, the seventh being roof top parking. The footprint is 4930m². The construction method is concrete columns and beams, with tied in reinforced pre-cast ribbed concrete floors. The building is surrounded to the south and east by blocks of serviced apartments, which lie in very close proximity (6m) to the car park, and to the north by the Staybridge Suites Hotel, which is separated from the car park by a 15m concourse. To the west, lies the Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool (ACCL). There is a service road running under the concourse between the car park and the Staybridge Suites, which leads to a loading bay and this is used for importing and exporting equipment, people and animals for shows and conventions held in the Echo Arena.
This fire happened nearly 5 years ago on New Years Eve when there was the Liverpool Internation Horse Show on in the arena.
The car park was full with the ground floor being used for stables. All horses were safely rescued.
At the time the fire started, in one car, there was very few, if any, people in the car park, hence the 15 minute delay in the first 999 call. I think the car that started the fire was on floor 3 - the fire spread to adjacent cars - you can see from the fire report that after the fire brigade arrived they reported 20 cars on fire and running fuel.
The whole car park was eventually on fire. Most cars were totally burnt out but some on the top and upper floors on the side away from the start of the fire were badly smoke damaged, or water damaged (by the fire brigade) or partly fire damaged. All cars were declared write offs and it was at least 1 month before damaged cars were removed.
The car park did NOT collapse. However, due to the intense heat, there was a lot of concrete spalling to the extent that you could see through from one floor to the floor below leaving the steel reinforcing rods visible which maintained their original position.
There was no sprinkler system.
There were a lot of plastic drain pipes and gutters, so being plastic, they melted or burnt and thus helped the flow of burning fuel. It was commented somewhere that steel/iron drains and gutters would have retained the flowing and burning fuel and thus assisted considerably with not spreading the fire.
Each parking floor contained a ramped parking section which was how you drove between floors and thus fuel could flow down from one floor to the floor below and fire could follow the ceiling above to move upwards.
The fire brigade reports are (or were) in the public domain.
Car Insurance. Some useful info if you lost a car at Luton.
Some companies acted responsibly with claims but there were a lot of issues. There was only one culprit car and thus all the rest were no fault claims. So be prepared to 'fight' an insurance company.
Ensure you get it in writing from your insurance company that is it a no fault claim. Cars were undervalued - so look around at what dealers have for sale and find 3 cars for sale that are the same/similar to that which you have lost and use these to justify the amount to be paid. When you come to insure your replacement car, watch the insurance premium and there were instances of a big hike in the premium, hence you need to press the no fault button very hard. The same may happen on each renewal. And you may find if you try to move insurer, then it may prove difficult or impossible.
And this will be a 5 year blight on your car insurance as one of the questions on renewals is "Have you or anyone had a claim in the last 5 years".
Hence the importance of a letter in writing stating no fault claim.
My interest in the Liverpool fire - a member of the family lost a car and all its contents.
Have a read of the Merseyside document. Some quick observations:
* The Liverpool car park surviced the 15 minute fire test because it was of concrete. There is a paragragh which states if steel is used (as in Luton) because of a relaxation of fire standard, i.e. no 15 minute test, then the steel structure will collapse -as happened at Luton
* Design criteria (historic) suggested there would be no great fire spead - Merseyside Fire Brigade state this is clearly incorrect.
* There are various photos including showing concrete spalling holes through to the floor below.
* The nominal capacity is 1600 which is downgraded when the ground floor is used for other purposes, in this case stable.
* The fire brigade estimate 1170 vechiles destroyed/written off.
* The fire report mentions aluminium gutters which melted at 600C.
