Wickham's musings from Chalke

The largest blaze in peacetime Europe is still burning this morning. It started yesterday morning at about 6 am and firemen have been assembling foam from all over the UK with the intention of smothering the blaze today. It involved many huge tanks of petrol, diesel, kerosene, aviation fuel and paraffin. Only seven out of twenty tanks remain intact.

Since it happened when only a few maintenance men were there and nearby residents were in bed there have been few casualties and none have life-threatening injuries although many homes had windows and doors blown in and structural damage.

The cause is unknown but terrorism is ruled out. The most likely scenario is that fuel vapour was ignited somehow. The weather on Saturday night was extremely calm. There was only one isobar on the weather chart and that was a single ring right around the UK meaning high pressure and no wind. In addition the temperature was below freezing which caused fog. This meant that fuel vapour that always exists around fuel depots and airports (Luton Airport is very close) was held down and built up around the plant. Any spark could have ignited it. However, this is still speculation.