Smoke development in multi-storey car park causes major fire brigade operation at Dortmund Airport

At around 6:50 pm on Saturday evening, the Dortmund fire brigade was alerted by the airport’s fire alarm system. In multi-storey car park 1 at the terminal, a smoke aspiration system had detected smoke on one of the lower levels and triggered the alarm. The airport fire brigade, which was the first to arrive at the terminal building, was able to confirm that smoke was coming from the car park, whereupon the control centre immediately raised the alarm level. At the same time, other detectors in the multi-storey car park went off, which usually indicates the spread of fire. The investigation in the affected parking level confirmed a fog-like smoke, but no source of fire could be localised right away. The extensive and intensive search of all reported areas as well as the neighbouring areas did not yield any further results. The fire brigade could not find a cause for the smoke. Thanks to the well-functioning smoke extraction system, all areas were smoke-free again after a short time and the building could be reopened for use. Flight operations were not affected by the operation. No one was injured.