– Should have had better fire safety – VG

This is stated by the Construction Quality Directorate (DiBK) in a press release.

200 to 300 cars were destroyed and parts of the building collapsed when several cars began to burn in the Stavanger airport parking lot on January 7.

RISE Fire Research has conducted an assessment of the fire on behalf of DiBK and the Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergency Planning (DSB). They claim that construction stages two and three in the parking lot were not designed in accordance with building regulations. Also, the building should have had better fire safety.

The parking lot should have been considered a building where fire can pose a great danger to important social interests and was therefore designed with increased fire safety, they write in the press release.

– Due to the large area, the parking lot at Stavanger airport should have been sectioned off and have sprinkler systems installed. If this had been in place, it would have helped reduce the scale of the fire. In addition, the supporting structure in the last phase of construction should have had a greater resistance to fire, so that it did not collapse in the fire, says director Per-Arne Horne at DiBK.

– Explain why the fire became so extensive.

In the report, RISE writes that if an independent inspection of the parking lot design had been carried out, the probability is greater that deficiencies in the technical fire design would have been discovered and corrected.

The purpose of the evaluation has been to assess whether current regulations are working as intended and whether there are learning points that can help prevent similar fires in the future.

– The fire assessment explains why the fire became so extensive. We don’t see the need to make building regulations more stringent based on evaluation. However, based on RISE’s recommendations, we will take a closer look at the need to change our guidelines on how fire resistance can be reduced by using open wall surfaces in parking lots, Horne says.

– A challenging fire

Additionally, RISE has evaluated fire management. These findings are not considered decisive for the outcome of the fire.

– This was a challenging fire and DSB will ensure that the driving experiences are disseminated to the 110 stations and the fire service. Additionally, we will look at the possibilities of developing courses that address some of the challenges the report points to, says Director Elisabeth S. Aarsæther at DSB.

They add that at the start of the fire a lot of attention was paid to the role of electric cars, but they emphasize that the fire did not start in an electric car and there is no indication that electric cars have affected the development of the fire more than gasoline cars and diesel.