Big fire in Albert dock in a car park apparently

Tonight's International Horse of the Year Show has been cancelled. All people and horses are safe. Some nearby flats have been evacuated. On this Wirral webcam the plume of smoke can just be seen (9.30pm) to the right. An hour ago flames were also visible. I imagine it is under control now.
http://www.wirralcam.org/wirralcam2016/waterfront2.shtml

Just saw it on the news looks very bad, hope nobody was hurt.

That n.e.w.s link is to Amazon. Strange. Try the http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/ instead.

Happy New Year

Another fail at all stages.

Design of car park - wrong.
Safety requirements of multi-storey car parks - wrong.
Fire fighting - fail (probably because of the above).

I remember getting taught about fire-breaks at primary school, this building had no protection between floors, the ramps are open sided with parked cars on the ramps very close to parked cars on the levels. You could literally jump from car to car right from the bottom to the top.

We seem to be a country that almost got on top of fire control to have slid to near rock bottom again. I'm sure the developers will still have a good wad in their pockets.

Who ends up paying for this - everybody that pays council tax and everybody that has insurance. The outcome of a public enquiry will be interesting.

Latest report, at 23.04 says it has destroyed all vehicles.

Capacity 1,600

https://news.sky.com/story/fire-has...e-liverpool-car-park-police-say-11191272

Surely that can't be as we read it ?

Happy New Year Norton

There were some cars on the roof that survived untouched Some had dogs in them which have now been reunited with their loving owners. How loving they will be when they discover the dog has chosen to relieve itself on the upholstery remains to be seen.

Recovering the car itself from the roof may be more difficult than recovering the dog though.

Midnight last night had the Liverpool skyline a line of fireworks, except for a great black plume from the Albert dock obscuring the show.

Our poor dog is exhibiting PTSD after it all, however.

Two dogs rescued from second floor and four dogs from seventh floor.

Was it luck that there were no dogs in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th floors?

We used to have sprinkler systems in multi-storey car parks but as usual vandalism put an end to them. I'm sure its not beyond our capacity to create vandal-proof sprinklers that are manually operated.

Saying that, water sprinklers would produce unpredictable results once a fuel tank ruptures.

A £30,000 1960s classic Ford mustang was destroyed in this fire, that Vauxhall motor company should foot the bill for every bit of damage.
What about sentimental valuables?
They cannot be replaced and neither can that Ford Mustang!
Also it's illegal to leave dogs in your car, let that be a lesson.

Quote DD
"Was it luck that there were no dogs in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th floors?"

Are you suggesting that maybe there was the odd dog died in cars on other floors and owners (or authorities)just arent letting on?

Probably !

I wonder who will cough the bill for that lot,does it come under the landlords Insurance or the motorist.

Don't understand why sprinklers in buildings seem to have stopped. Seem to remember years ago everyplace had them?

The owners who left their dogs in the cars should be prosecuted regardless of whether they survived or not. They'll all be protesting that they loved their dogs . Well NO they didn't !

Sprinklers spraying water everywhere aren't the best idea in car parks or places with liquid fuel all over the place.

- If there is already a pool of burning fuel then water sprinklers can cause a pool of burning fuel to be carried to other places e.g. underneath other cars that aren't yet alight;

- Water droplets tend to be heavy enough to drop through the surface of the burning fuel where they get heated up and then turn rapidly to steam from underneath the burning fuel; causing the burning fuel to "explode", and the fire spread further.

In aircraft hangars for example they use foam based fire suppression so I guess car parks could use that, but it's a lot more expensive than just running water pipes and fitting automatic sprinkler heads every few metres, so they don't.

Yes, echo arena were very quick with their response of "Owners of vehicles should contact their insurance providers".

Quick enough to charge extortionate rates for parking but dont want to foot the bill when it goes wrong!

One of the problems with sprinklers in multi-storey car parks is that they freeze up in winter.

I was shocked to see that the fire had actually destroyed the concrete so that the rebars were all that was left of the floor in places. I'm not familiar with this particular one, but they are usually built with what appears to be very thick concrete, and I would have expected - perhaps naively - it to withstand fire a lot better.

If all multi-storey parks are built to the same standard, we may well find they have to be rebuilt! A single car fire - not all that unusual an event - could destroy the lot as it did in this case.

How long will it take insurance companies to amend the small print so you are not covered if you use a multi-storey car park I wonder?

I was surprised at the concrete disappearing as well, I wonder if the concrete had some sort of artificial filler mixed in it? You wouldn't expect it to be holding much moisture in those locations which is sometimes the reason for bursting.

The rebars seemed a bit sparse as well, which reminds me of the Birmingham multi-storey that had the overhanging side collapse off without any signs of re-enforcement at all despite being unsupported.

There was the multi-storey carpark in London a couple of years ago that flooded, the insulation under the parking surface expanded and lifted the cars crushing them against the ceiling.

AM sure the design of concrete beams and columns allow for concrete spalling away from the rebar as its quite a common thing in certain circumstances. The only heat that could seriously damage concrete is from accelerants like Thermite which is used for cutting steel and concrete in demolition work (and a derivative of which was found at all 3 world trade centre collapses ..one reason of many why some architects and engineers around the world question the official collapse theories.
Shoddy workmanship might get the rebar too near the surface if wrong spacers were used or it was tied up wrongly.

DD I remember that expanding insulation one..quite amazing at the power in it.

Where was this car park exactly? I can't find it on google maps.

It is HERE with two blocks of apartments jammed up right against it.

Very sad, this car was destroyed in the fire

And no, it cannot be replaced.

https://classiccars.com/listings/find/1965/ford/mustang

Get one from here.

They produced 2 1/2 million of those 1st generation Mustangs, there's still many thousands of them. It's still sad though.

The carpark was new then - will they demolish it?

you cannot replace something that has sentimental value.

What a shame, that looks beautiful .

well said ste

In which case there will have been numerous items in those cars that had sentimental value to the owners.

Probably more so than a mass produced car.