The Strangest Thing About The Huge Fire At A British Airport Parking Garage Is How People Reacted To It

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I’m not sure how much you keep up with the news of the British Parking Garage community, but there was a huge fire in London’s Luton Airport, the fifth-largest airport in the UK. The fire was quite a massive conflagration; the fire resulted in the “partial structural collapse” of the parking deck, and an estimated 1,500 vehicles were damaged, with hundreds outright destroyed. It was a pretty horrific fire, but thankfully nobody was killed, and it’s been put out. What’s been especially interesting about all of this has been the online reaction to the cause of the fire, which fire officials have reported as being a diesel Land Rover. Specifically, there’s been a strange sort-of conspiracy theory that the car that started the fire was really an electric vehicle, but the media is lying. And then there’s others who claim the media has been pushing that it was an EV when it wasn’t. It’s all kind of ridiculous, but I guess that’s where society is right now. Oy.

Now, the skepticism about a diesel car starting the fire does have some roots in reality. Diesel fuel, unlike gasoline, is really difficult to combust. A lit match thrown in a puddle of diesel will go out. That’s why diesel engines have such massive compression ratios: the only way to get diesel to combust is to put it under enormous pressure. So it’s not too unexpected to find people surprised that the cause of the fire was a diesel vehicle.

That said, there is actual footage of the car, which, based on a registration plate lookup seems to be a 2014 Range Rover Sport TDV6 SE, which has a 3-liter diesel engine:

The Bedford Fire and Rescue service have confirmed that this is the car suspected to have started the fire. From The Independent:

“We don’t believe it was an electric vehicle,” Andrew Hopkinson, chief fire officer for Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said.

“It’s believed to be diesel-powered, at this stage all subject to verification. And then that fire has quickly and rapidly spread.”

For whatever reason, there’s a surprising number of people online who seem absolutely unwilling to accept this explanation, seemingly hell-bent on the idea that an EV and only an EV could have started this fire:

There’s a lot of posts like this one, with many speculating that the Range Rover had to be a hybrid with a lithium battery, and many more questioning the motives of the press, fire department, government, and pretty much anyone with a functioning metabolism who isn’t currently blaming an EV:

And, of course, everyone is now an expert on hybrids and fires and electrical engineering:

 

I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like this for something like a parking deck fire. Sure, diesel is an unlikely fuel to start a fire, but it’s not like that’s all that’s in a car that can start fires and is flammable. Even without an EV or hybrid’s lithium-ion batteries, a combustion car’s 12V electrical system can certainly start a fire, and all sorts of things inside a car – fabrics, plastics, seat foam, and more – can go up in flames if properly motivated.

Yes, EV fires are a real problem and they can be much more challenging to deal with and extinguish, no question, but it’s not like combustion cars can’t catch on fire, because of course they can. It’s not common for a parked diesel to combust, but it’s hardly impossible.

I’m not the only one to notice this strange determination to blame an EV; this guy made a whole video, which has almost 250,000 views already, and suggests that the reaction of all these people somehow spells doom for the EV market:

I think this is pretty hyperbolic thinking, and the reality is the vast majority of people either have much more rational, hypobolic thoughts or just don’t really care. What I really don’t understand is the strange eagerness that a shocking number of people have to blame this on EVs. Is everything a conspiracy now? I mean, look at some of these reactions to the fire:

 

Tweets1

 

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with us?

It’s all very strange, and, I think, this phenomenon is new in the world of cars. There’s been controversies over various other transitions of the automotive world, from people’s reluctance to wear seat belts or mistrust of airbags or similar things, but I’m not sure I’ve seen so much distrust and hostility to a particular type of car as we’re seeing here, as electric vehicles become more common.

I think we can all agree that car fires, started from whatever kind of car, are bad, and we should do all we can to minimize them. That seems like a pretty safe position. Anything beyond that and I think we’re ending up in some really strange and unsettling territories.

 

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145 thoughts on “The Strangest Thing About The Huge Fire At A British Airport Parking Garage Is How People Reacted To It”

  1. As the offspring of conspiracy theory fans, I learned early on that having weird ideas that you’re clearly wrong about is a powerful tool for feeling special about yourself in a way that cannot be meaningfully assailed. Whenever a conversation veers toward an area of discourse that’s likely to go woo-woo I start silently nope-ing out and planning an exit before someone tells me they saw lizard people in the attic of a Baltimore-area Chuck E. Cheese last week. It’s like being at a christening that gradually goes Rosemary’s Baby as Uncle Ed spouts “Hail RFK Jr.!”

    Set aside for a moment that common sense should reassure people that the class of vehicles with “combustion” in its name is dramatically more likely to catch fire than the category that does not carry around a large vessel of fluid specifically intended for burning, and consider that most studies of this concern handily confirm this. Here’s one:

    https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-electric-vehicles-involved-in-fewest-car-fires/

    Perhaps most interesting in the article linked above is a finding that should put either side of this debate at ease: Hybrid cars are much more likely to spontaneously combust than either ICE cars or full-on EVs. As the little girl in the popular meme says, ‘Why not both?”

  2. Before I watched it happen I never would have imagined that everyone carrying a device around in their pockets with the ability to access all of the world’s information could somehow make society dumber, much less to this extent.

    1. Better yet, every one of those devices contains the exact technology these folks expect to burst into flames and devour a carpark. In fact, the only way someone can post such ideas into the digital archive without risking that fiery horror is to do so on a computer without a battery.

        1. Just yesterday I was at the post office, mailing a defunct quartz watch to the manufacturer’s service center. At one point the guy behind the counter asked me to click yes or no on the PIN pad to verify that my package did not contain lithium batteries. Having discussed the problem with the lady who runs my local watchmaker, I knew that there was a ultra-perilous 1.55v button cell still buzzing away in there, and based on the replacements on her counter I was pretty sure it could be lithium. “Well,” I said, “It does have a battery but I’m not sure what kind.” The postal worker gave me a look brimming with the patience one reserves for fools, reached past me and hit the “no lithium” button. I felt a little dumb. It was a Bulova watch, not a bomb of a watch.

          1. About a year ago I mailed out an old cell phone to a friend who was in a pinch. Did so through the post office, and I had the same quandary. The agent explained they don’t care unless it’s laptop sized or larger. They let me ship it as “no battery/no lithium”.

            But that also begs another question. Some phone batteries are close to the same size as the cell packs in, say, an AirBook. So what exactly IS the line? Is it just because an AirBook has 3 batteries totaling X weight vs the cell phone’s 1?

    2. 100% this. We have never had easier access to all of the facts in the world yet I still feel like we’re marching faster towards Idiocracy every year.

      1. True but any search leads to 3 billion hits listed by who pays the most to be 1st. Also no matter search terms you get the lies with the truth and no way of successfully determining the truth. For instance Rock Auto Auto Parts. I can do a search for a trunk lid for an F150 pick-up and it will promise me they have them. But of course pick-ups do not have trunks.

        1. Very true. Just today I was searching for a part by specific part # and Google served me up a ton of results that were completely wrong and irrelevant. That didn’t used to be the case though.

      1. Queue teenage-version-of-me sneering in your general direction, “Yeah, well duh! What if I DO know everything?!? What then Mr. Sarcastic Old Dude?!?”

        Oh to be young again…

    4. I think people have alwasy been dumb, but what’s new is that every dumb person is just few button presses away from broadcasting their dumb thoughts to the world. Then add sensationalism-seeking algorithms, and presto, here we are

  3. [I shall preface this by saying that I am not trying to be funny.]

    There are similarities here with the Great Fire of London in 1666. A fire started in an innocuous way, and it was able to spread rapidly because everything was very close together (houses in 1666, cars in 2023). The materials involved in both incidents were quite flammable, and because the parking decks are open the recent fire may have been helped along by wind as it was in the earlier event.

    In 1666, personnel were able to contain the fire partially because they created large firebreaks which the flames could not traverse. I’m wondering if – in the absence of sprinklers – they should make the parking spots slightly larger and make e.g. every 11th spot a no-parking space. If the vehicle that started the Luton fire had been in a group of 10 vehicles, with fire breaks on either end, it’s possible only 10 cars and minimal structure would have been destroyed.

    Changing the parking layout will reduce the number of available spaces, but will be much less expensive than retrofitting sprinklers.

    1. Nonsense that will cost the company tens of dollars. If an auto manufacturer prefers millions in recalls to a $2 increase in a part I don’t know how you get this passed. But I agree with your premise.

    1. I went looking for the actual video, and actually found examples of electric buses catching on fire, plus a video of diesel buses burning labeled as electric, and a natural gas bus in Italy labeled as electric. Turns out, sometimes buses catch on fire. But if they’re gonna cherry-pick, you’d think they’d at least use actual examples.

  5. My first thought when I saw the headline my first thought was that ‘this was probably from an EV, and now we’ll never heard the end of it.” Then I was shocked it was a diesel, and less shocked it was a Rover.

  6. You say ‘people online’ but all the examples seem to be from X (nee Twitter) which now seems to house only the deranged, stupid, and conspiracy-minded (but I repeat myself).
    I don’t see any of this lunacy on Threads or Bluesky, so maybe it’s just another symptom of Twitter’s decline.

    2. This is the first time I have see it phrased “X (nee Twitter)” as opposed to common and boring “formerly called Twitter” etc.; I prefer it and shall henceforth use the same terminology. Thank you for your contributions to our evolving lexicon.

    3. Yes because despite the fact the owner and employees of Twitter admittedly squashing factual stories and pushing high drama to get teens addicted to their phones they weren’t doing that.

    4. Nah, there’s plenty on Facebook as well. But a lot of this is spreading on the “alternative” social networks these days. Truth Social, Bitchute, Gab, Parler, Rumble, etc.

  7. From what I can find, the hybrid engine is the SDV6, not the TDV6 that this car is registered as.
    That being said, changing the records on this car is well within the capabilities of the government, just to maintain their narrative. This happened in the USA not too long ago, remember when Jay Leno got burned by “gasoline” when working on his steam car? That was a cover up by “big steam”, obviously! Stanley Steamer ain’t just for carpets, you know? They will do anything to maintain their lucrative steam car market.
    /s

  9. Not an EV fire, but since it was a Land Rover, obviously it started as an electrical fire.*

    *Not trying to be mean to Land Rover enthusiasts. I’ve owned one and dearly loved it. But Lucas, Prince of Darkness jokes are always gold. 😀

  10. The anti EV BS stories in the UK media have got so bad. The Sun, a terrible tabloid rag, took two Telsabjorn stories and merged them to make EV’s look bad

    The fullycharged show, along with Quentin Wilson (ex Top Gear) have join together to try and get rebuttals out in the press and try to educate people.

    headline – EV bus burns to the ground – no mention of it was the brakes that overheated. Anything negative with EV to grab a headline and a click.

    Fear mongering churnalism rules the day. I think it’s how nearly all the press operates these days alas.

  13. Everybody wants to be right. I personally embrace my ignorance. There’s a monologue in a Hal Hartley movie I don’t have at hand right now, but I’ll paraphrase…

    People who murder other people think they’re right. People write angry letters because they think they’re right. People blow up school buses, because they’re pretty sure they’re right. Me, I would rather not think I’m right.

    1. The more I think of this, I’m pretty sure it was a discussion about faith with a theology student, and instead of “knowing” Jude was talking about believing in things. And everyone does terrible things because they believe in what they think is truth, and he’d rather not believe in anything. I still think it applies.

  15. Glad you’ve realised us Brits can be morons too!

    The EV debate is heavily politicised here at the moment, thanks to the right wing sections of the press really ramping up the lies, disinformation and general BS. Which is being believed by lots of people who want to be angry at anything. Nuance and sensible discourse is almost completely absent. It’s all absolutely infuriating.

    Last week the right wing press was stirring up a storm about a political pledge to create ‘15 minute cities’, where all amenities- shops, schools, train station etc would be within 15 minutes walk of your home. Which seems completely reasonable right?

    NO! This apparently is a BAD THING (get angry folks!!!) because it’s impinging on our freedom and ‘they’ just want to stop us travelling around and we’d be restricted to ONLY being able to travel within 15 minutes of home.
    People are absolutely mad.

    1. As an American, I take great comfort in remembering that the Brits (and by extension the rest of the world) are morons like us. It’s not a national trait so much as a humanity-wide flaw.

    2. That’s weird the right wing press do the lieing in the UK, and the left wing controls the lies in the press in the US. I wonder if this has anything to do with the coreolus effect that makes toilets flush clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter clockwise in the southern hemisphere? S:/

      1. The explanation is that much of what the US considers “left wing” is considered “mildly right wing” in most of the rest of the world. But Murdoch’s empire is definitely right wing, and pollutes most of the |English speaking world.

  17. Looking forward to a spate of movies and TV in which the villain is a car bent on world destruction. Bond battles SPECTREV! Good news, the missles only travel 300 miles.

    1. But I would travel 300 miles
      And I would charge for 300 more
      Just to be the missile who travels 600 miles
      To explode at your door

      *With apologies to The Proclaimers

  18. The anti-EV backlash is just another piece of data demonstrating that large swaths of humans have brains that simply weren’t ready for the internet, and never will be.

  20. Speaking from experience: an oil leak dripping on a hot exhaust manifold will definitely start a fire. Add in an engine bay full of plastic and this absolutely tracks how a diesel powered vehicle could catch on fire and get toasty right quick.

    1. Oh great. Another sheep. Are you getting paid by the government or something? Everyone knows Range Rovers don’t leak.

      (I don’t want to but I better add that this is sarcasm)

  21. I’m just imagining the impact of all this.

    Obviously you have the fire damaged vehicles and the garage. That’s big and affects a ton of people immediately. However it also immediately affects the airport itself, and surrounding businesses, as it can no long accommodate as many travelers as easily. That weight is going to be around that airport’s neck for quite a few years.

    Luton is apparently the better part of a century old, and obviously has been modernized throughout the years. Though my understanding is this garage/car park wasn’t all that old, so older fire suppression standards weren’t grandfathered in. I guess I’m surprised that a large parking structure built in recent enough times didn’t at least have a dry pipe sprinkler system. Once a bunch of vehicles go up, a fire gets harder to knock out.

    1. Our building regs are really very lax on sprinkler requirements. Car parks are specifically exempted from needing them and very generally only for buildings above 30m.

  22. There’s a lot of combustible stuff in a car besides the liquid fuel, I don’t know why people find it hard to believe an electrical fault could ignite plastic, upholstery, carpet, insulation, etc etc, plus whatever personal effects are left inside

  23. As I am reading the article, all I am thinking about is ” But it doesn’t have to be diesel fuel that started the fire, and electrical short in a seat could easily do this” Then the author said this and I felt better about myself.

  24. This is unfortunately the way the internet is used in 2023. If there is news of any kind, it will be used for an agenda, no matter how much mental gymnastics is needed to keep people irritated.

    But hey, at least we have the Autopian!

    3. Very true. Politicians also got very efficient at turning factual issues into “political issues” at will.

      Of course, we all remember how Reagan made saving cabrios a cornerstone of his presidential campaign, leading to the 911 and other targa vehicles to become heavily taxed in some conservative states, and to NRA members all over the county proudly replacing their trucks with cherry red Volkswagen Rabbit Convertibles.

      (this did not happen)

  25. The weirdest part of all this if the blue check marks are actually bashing EVs now. This entire story has made me uncertain of reality in this moment. The only thing I know for sure right now is Phillies in 4!

    1. If I was a 15-Dimensional chess wizard and I owned an EV company and a Space company, I would not buy a social media company and use it to promote fringe thinkers to the top, since those kinds of people might have wacky ideas about the roundness of our planet and the impact of climate change on our future. That would directly affect my other businesses!

      I guess that proves that I’m not as galaxy-brained as Elmo though, since capitalism is completely merit-based and the person with the most money is also the smartest.

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