The Fire In An Underground Car Park Has Been Treated As Suspicious By London Police

A fire broke out in the parking lot next to their building.
“It was like boom, boom, boom,” said Arwa Almardy who lives in the building.  “I woke up and then I saw a lot of smoke coming through my window, and then there were like ten big booms.”
Almardy described the black smoke as “terrible” and says it made her niece cough when it passed through her window.
A fire broke out in the underground garage of an apartment complex located on Capulet Lane and Beaverbrook Avenue on the morning of July 2, 2022. (Source: London Fire Department/Twitter) “I don’t recognize what an explosion sounds like, but it was very loud,” added Patricia Pigott , who could see smoke pouring from the garage.
What they heard was a car catching fire and then spreading to the two adjacent vehicles.
“They heard the tires exploding, popping, and it scared a lot of people, of course,” said District Commander Kevin Culbertson of the London Fire Brigade.
“With the building right next to it, the smoke was coming right up the side of the building on the west side.  So yeah, definitely probably [looked] to these people as if their building was on fire,” he added.
London Fire Station Six, which is very close to Oxford Street, responded within minutes.  But with so much smoke and cars parked below, it was difficult to spot.
“There is no ventilation readily available,” Culbertson said.  “So we used the laser cameras, found the heat sources and it worked well.  We had to use AFFF foam in there because of the gasoline from the cars in it.”
Cars were parked in the spaces outside the garage, which also made entry difficult.
London Police along with the Fire Brigade of London and the Office of the Fire Marshal are investigating a suspicious car fire in a garage at 50 Capulet Lane, July 2, 2022 (Brent Lale/CTV News London) “We were lucky to find close access.  Culbertson added.  “Normally, you go down several levels of pipes trying to find where we’re going, but we were lucky it was right there.  We hit it hard and we hit it fast and luckily there were no electric cars there.”
Fire London is calling on a structural engineer to determine when it will be safe for tenants to access their vehicles.
Meanwhile, London police have treated the fire as suspicious and the investigation has been handed over to the Road Crime Unit, with the assistance of the London Fire Brigade and the Fire Marshal’s Office.
Police said there are no reports of injuries or damage estimates at this time.