Luton Airport fire: 'Cause' of horror blaze revealed after 1,500 holidaymakers' cars destroyed and five in hospital | The Sun

THE horror blaze at Luton Airport started in a vehicle with a diesel engine that had just arrived at the car park, a fire chief has revealed.

All flights have been suspended after flames ripped through the Terminal Car Park 2 in Luton causing it to collapse on Tuesday night.

As many as 1,500 vehicles parked in the car park, which is a five-minute walk from the terminal entrance, could have been damaged.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, the airport said emergency services remain at the scene and flights would be suspended until 3pm, having initially been paused until noon.

Four firefighters and a member of airport staff were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and another firefighter was treated at the scene.

Now Andrew Hopkinson, chief fire officer for Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, has explained how the fire started.

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He said: "We have no intelligence at this stage to suggest that this was anything other than an accidental fire that started in one of the vehicles that had not long arrived at the airport.

"It was not an EV. This was a diesel powered vehicle."

"Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service's fire control received an initial 999 call at 8.47pm yesterday evening, reporting a car on fire on the third floor of the Terminal car park two behind me here at London Luton Airport," he added.

"Our first two fire appliances arrived on scene just a shade under 10 minutes later to work alongside firefighters from Luton Airport Fire Service.

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"On arrival my officers were faced with a severe and rapidly spreading fire involving a large number of vehicles that ultimately spread to multiple floors and involved a partial collapse of the car park.

"The incident was declared a major incident at 9.38pm. The car park has a capacity of just over 1,900 cars and we estimate up to 1,500 cars are in the affected car park.

"At its peak we had 15 fire appliances, over 100 firefighters and a number of specialist resources including the one you will see over my right-hand shoulder, with resources provided by neighbouring fire and rescue services."

Footage posted on social media showed flames and smoke tearing through cars parked at the newly-built airport car park.

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