Liverpool Arena car park fire

[Fishy]

Some details here... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-42542556

Size of fire and extent of damage have really surprised me and my colleagues!  All the guidance suggests that fire spread across multiple vehicles is unlikely (whether sprinklered or not).  I know there have been some concerns about car 'stackers', but your common or garden open-sided car park has not really been a concern (the structure can be designed with as little as 15 mins F/R in some circumstances).  I know that a destroyed building where no-one was seriously hurt does not necessarily represent a failure of legislation or guidance, but the extent of damage (especially complete failure of the reinforced concrete decking) is worrying.  Is this perhaps a manifestation of changes in vehicle design - larger vehicles, more use of plastics (including body panels), aluminium bodies and new power sources (hybrid) becoming much more widespread?

[William 29]

Is it not simply that the design would not have taken into account 1400 cars being ignited? Also as with other buildings that the fire and rescue service has the resources to provide a PDA (pre determined attendance) and attack the fire within a reasonable time frame? what if this had been in a rural area? 12 pumps in how long?? MFRS are not a small Brigade but they still had to call on Lancs and GMCFRS?

My personal view is that this is no longer the case and this will have a major impact on future building design and evacuation strategies, OR we resource the FRS properly.

[Fishy]

Is it not simply that the design would not have taken into account 1400 cars being ignited? Also as with other buildings that the fire and rescue service has the resources to provide a PDA (pre determined attendance) and attack the fire within a reasonable time frame? what if this had been in a rural area? 12 pumps in how long?? MFRS are not a small Brigade but they still had to call on Lancs and GMCFRS?

My personal view is that this is no longer the case and this will have a major impact on future building design and evacuation strategies, OR we resource the FRS properly.

The design certainly wouldn't have taken into account that number of vehicles becoming involved - up until now the 'wisdom' regarding open-sided car park safety is that this wasn't a credible outcome.  That's the issue that (I guess) DCLG might need to revisit.

As regards fire brigade attendance - not really a big design issue, as we don't typically design these types of building to rely upon fire service intervention - we design to facilitate it, but not to rely upon it (all the occupants should be able to reach a place of safety without any intervention from the fire service at all).  Tall residential is somewhat different, of course...

[Golden]

I haven't looked at any design guidance for car parks for a while but what I have noticed is that cars have got bigger whilst parking spaces have got smaller meaning that cars are generally now a lot closer to each other. The height of the car parks in the studies would also be significant in my opinion with respect to radiated heat and I doubt previous studies have compared like with like.

Alongside all of the other issues that have been noted such as more plastic could these be a factor?

[Fire Monkey]

A new car, depending on this size, may have around 120kg of plastic. Whilst this is certainly more than cars built in the 1960's I could not say if there was a trend to more plastic in the past decade but I am sure there will be going forward and the amount may double. Certainly weight saving will demand an increased use of aluminium and we know that has a lower melting point than steel (660C as apposed to over 1,400C ish). 

In terms of the need of sprinklers is this something that is practical and needed for building protection, if not fire safety? Is the industry set up for such a massive roll out and do private or public owners of such car parks have the funds? Should we be investing in fire safety elsewhere?

In the future not only will there be more electric vehicles but these car parks will have charging points for them.

What about extinguishing electric vehicles - what is the standard procedure for putting gout a vehicle on the road side.  I understand that these high voltage batteries may give of large volume of toxic gas when the seal is breached and water is applied.

[col10]

There are more 4 x 4s which can be higher and have more ground clearance.  There was a horsey show on, so maybe more of that type of vehicle.

[Dinnertime Dave]

Operationally, I've attended dozens of car fires in MCPs - Send 2BA to the floor of origin hawl a HRJ aloft, delayed 30 minutes. Damage to car first ignited, perhaps slight damage to the cars either side. Why was this different?

All my fires in 60's and 70's built car parks, 4 open sides, well ventilated fire, probably could have got away with no BA.

Even car park design has changed, as an IO I got involved in a design for a car park enclosed on 3 sides, the AI said I only have to prove that my design is as safe as an ADB compliant car park. Yes I said. Well he produced a CFD model that showed an ADB compliant car park was smoke logged in 2.5 minutes and his in about 2 mins 25 secs. Where do you then go. Technology (CFD) says yes, my experience says hold on a minute, that can't be right.

Perhaps I'm old fashioned.

[jayjay]

Insurance payouts expected to cost over ?20 million plus rebuilding costs of car park how much would it have cost to install a sprikler system?

[AnthonyB]

With regards to fire service attendance the mayor tweeted this:

"Car Park fire was reported to me at 4.45pm and I was told it was containable,it would have been if we had enough appliances responding,Chief Fire officer confirmed my view that 2 years ago we would have had 8 fire engines from 4 stations responding instead of 2 #cutscost"

[Golden]

From the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42554975

[Username]

BRE did some work on fires in car parks back in 2009.      https://www.bre.co.uk/searchresults.jsp?q=car+park&search-button=Search


One property that I was involved with, (after the event!), lost 22 vehicles in a car park open on two sides, no sprinklers, sadly one fatality in the building above.

[John Webb]

BRE Report available at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120919204054/http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/1795610.pdf

Tests were done in the BRE burnhall, except for one test at HSE Buxton involving an LPG fuelled car.

One drawback I can see in the results within this report is that many multi-storey car parks don't have flat floors, as in the BRE burnhall, but have gradients in them which I assume would encourage flowing liquid fuel fires and faster fire spread.