Investigation of Massive Fire in a Multi-Storey Car Park in Norway

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Investigation of massive fire in a multi-storey car park in Norway The fire at Stavanger airport Sola, 7 January 2020, Fire spread and contribution from electrical vehicles K. Storesund, C. Sesseng, A. S. Bøe & R. F. Mikalsen* RISE Fire Research, Norway RISE Fire Research

• Norwegian fire resource centre, located in Trondheim, est. 1934

• Accredited test lab and inspection body

• Owners 70% RISE, 30% SINTEF

• Centre director of FRIC – Fire Research and Innovation Centre

STAVANGER AIRPORT, SOLA

Stavanger airport is located 15 km South-West of Stavanger.

International airport.

Heliport for transportation to and from offshore platforms.

82 000 arrivals/departures (2011)

4.1 million passengers (2011)

4 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden C

A 6 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden 7 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden Mitigation effort

15:25 15:33 15:34 15:36-37 15:37 15:44,48 Manual alarm First 2 trucks Alarm centre First fire trucks Car starts Fire service button from fire receivces leave stations burning dipatched activated in the service are in alarm parking place 11min 23sec building. 0 min 9min 29sec 8min 39sec 12 min 7sec Alarmbells activated 19-22min 12min 50sec

Response time appr. 10-11 min

15:34 Aiport control centre receives 15:36 call from 15:44 Heliport Vehicle type Airport fire 15:35 identified: Opel truck in place, Zafira Airport fire and 19 min accident service 10min 57sec dispatched 9-10 min Mitigation effort

8 jan 7 jan 9 jan 2020 2020 2020

15:25 15:52 15:57 16:41 16:47 17:02 17:20 01:27 18:13 12:03 14:33 All units Smoke Message via the Still fire in 15:52 told to Parts of from 3rd 15:57 police; building the Incidents is exit the the Fire floor; heat Car starts All people can collapse Building 3 building, terminated Considerable building building is service from burning are after 1-1,5 hrs collapses plenty of by the fire smoke starting to return to collapsed reported at high All units smoke service production collapse station part evacuated temperatures told to 0 min exit the 1h 56min 10h 2min 47h 32 min building 1h 37 min 26h 44h 38 27 min 1h 16min 50min min 1h 22min

Incident duration: 47 hours

Wind: 11 – 19 m/s wind during fire. Extent of damage, fire spread pattern

RISE10 — Research Institutes of Sweden Mitigation effort: vehicles

Response time appr. 10-11 min

15:41 15:36 15:40 15:25 Observed flames, bangs 15:43 Notification Bang from EV, danger of Car starts burning are heard, several cars 10 cars on fire ”Car on fire” fire spread to 3-4 cars 0 min on fire 18:17 15:40 11:18 (min:sec) 16-18 min

10× Mitigation effort: vehicles

Response time appr. 10-11 min

10×

Fuel tank leakages Foam vs water Photos: Nordic Unmanned Mitigation effort: vehicles

Response time appr. 10-11 min

10×

Electric vehicles: - Impact on the fire - Further technical studies Handling early phase

• Challenging starting conditions for the fire service:

– No direct alarm to the alarm central. 8 minutes before alarm central notified

– No active fire safety measures (e.g. extinguishing system)

– Handheld extinguishers were not used during the initial phase of the vehicle fire

• Lacking incident action plan for the specific object:

– Challenging access for large vehicles

– Challenging to find the fire hydrants; Foto: krimteknisk Sør-Vest Politidistrikt, hentet fra Rogaland Brann og redning, Evaluering av connected to private system brann i parkeringshus, Stavanger Lufthavn Sola ver1

– Long distance to the fire within the building

14 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden Sparsely populated

Solastranden nature reservoir Densely Outlet populated

Water cleaning park

Environmental15 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden impacts Environmental impacts – electrical vehicles

• Water analyses of selected metals relevant for batteries in electric vehicles did not show any lithium, and only low concentrations of cobalt.

• This indicates that batteries in electric vehicles did not contribute to pollution of nearby water resources.

16 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden Fire safety design and Norwegian building regulations

• Norway has performance-based building regulations.

• Parking garages with more than one floor is placed The Planning and Building Act in risk class 2 (of 6)

• Fire class 1-4 Buildling code (TEK) – This building was placed in Fire class 3

– Regulations: Fire class 4 if particularly large fire consequence for life, health, environment Guidance to TEK (VTEK) or society (incl infrastructure - airports)

Standard Standard Standard 17 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden C 2014 TEK 10 B 2001 TEK 97 A 1991 Building regulation 87 Different construction, despite same/similar fire safety design

Building step B Building step C

19 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden Loadbearing capacities

• Pre-accepted performance level for the main loadbearing system was R 90.

• For some circumstances, the performance level may be reduced to R 15.

– Unapplicable for the Sola case

• Fire strategy deviated from pre-accepted performance: R 10.

20 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden Sectioning

Specific fire Maximum area per floor (m2) without sectioning load MJ/m2 Normally With fire With With smoke alarm sprinkler ventilation Over 400 800 1 200 5 000 Unsuitable 50-400 1 200 1 800 10 000 4 000 Under 50 1 800 2 700 Unlimited 10 000

21 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden C 6 000 m2

B 7 800 m2

A 4 700 m2 Conclusions and learning points: Fire safety design

• The fire design has shortcomings, wrt loadbearing capacities, sectioning (evt extinguishing systems)

• Holistic safety philosophy is important

• Should avoid uncritical reuse of content from older fire engineering concepts

• Regulations regading wall openings need to be revised, and there is a need for an evaluation of how the degree of and geometry of openings affect the fire development

• The consequences for adajacent infrastructure and buildings should be considered

• The multi-storey car park should have been placed in Fire class 4 (“brannklasse 4”), since it was adjacent to important infrastructure for society

• When regulation changes are made, the changes should be emphasized

23 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden Conclusions and learning points: Other aspects

• Learning points from the fire fighting efforts are identified

• Electric vehicles: Observations during the fire indicate that electric vehicles did not contribute to the fire development beyond what is expected from conventional vehicles.

• Limited environmental impact from the fire: extinguishing foam and smoke

24 RISE — Research Institutes of Sweden https://risefr.com/publications

Thank you!

Karolina Storesund Christian Sesseng Andreas S. Bøe Ragni Fjellgaard Mikalsen

[email protected] @ragniragniragni (+47) 99 69 31 21

This presentationRISE isFire a part Research of FRIC Project AS 1·- 2post Learning@ri fromsefr fire.no investigations.· risefr.no FRIC is funded by the Research Council of Norway, program BRANNSIKKERHET, project number 294649, as well as by industry partners and authorities. The project is coordinated by RISE Fire Research in Trondheim, Norway.