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By Burak Bir
LONDON (AA) - All flights have been suspended at London’s Luton Airport due to a large fire in the terminal car park that caused significant damage.
The damage is to Terminal Car Park 2, where it is believed that up to 1,200 vehicles may have been when the fire started late Tuesday.
The airport said that they decided to suspend all flights until 3 pm (1400GMT) on Wednesday to support emergency services and passenger safety.
Bedfordshire Police asked people to not travel to the airport, as access is still restricted.
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said in a statement that they faced a major incident at 21:38 (2038GMT) on Tuesday some 50 minutes after they received calls to a fire involving a car on level three of the airport’s multi-story car park.
At its peak, 15 rescue pumps, three aerial appliances, and over 100 firefighters were battling the fires on scene. The service announced early Wednesday that the fire had been controlled and extinguished at the airport while four crews and an aerial appliance remain at the scene.
"A severe fire rapidly spread through the structure and the severity of the fire has caused significant structural collapse. It is believed that up to 1,200 vehicles may have been in the car park at the time of the fire and subsequently damaged," it added.
Four firefighters and a member of airport staff were taken to Luton & Dunstable Hospital and one other patient was discharged at-scene, East of England Ambulance Service said on X.
In its latest update, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said the efforts are still ongoing to extinguish the blaze.
"We are continuing to protect surrounding airport infrastructure, vehicles and the Luton DART (Direct Air-Rail Transit)," it added.
Luton, located some 56 kilometers (35 miles) north of Central London, is the fourth-largest airport serving the capital, after Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted.
Last year, it handled over 13.3 million passengers.