November 18: On This Day in World History … briefly

Shortly after the fire, it was incorrectly assumed that the song ‘King’s Cross’, recorded by synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys as part of their 1987 album ‘Actually’ was written in reference to the fire. In fact, the album was released two months before the fire. Duo frontman Neil Tennant clarified that the song had been written as ‘a hymn to the people getting left out of Thatcherism’

November 18, 2019

South Coast Herald 1 minute read

A police car, three fire engines and an ambulance outside King's Cross - Wikipedia

1987: King’s Cross underground inferno

On 18 November 1987, at approximately 19:30, a fire broke out at King’s Cross St Pancras tube station, a major interchange on the London Underground. As well as the mainline railway stations above ground and subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines, there were platforms deeper underground for the Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines. The fire started under a wooden escalator serving the Piccadilly line and, at 19:45, erupted in a flashover into the underground ticket hall, killing 31 people and injuring 100.

The now-decommissioned wooden escalator at Greenford, similar to the one that caught fire at King’s Cross – Wikipedia

A public inquiry was conducted from February to June 1988. The investigators reproduced the fire twice, once to determine whether grease under the escalator was ignitable, and the other to determine whether a computer simulation of the fire—which would have determined the cause of the flashover—was accurate. The inquiry determined that the fire had started due to a lit match being dropped onto the escalator. The fire seemed minor until it suddenly increased in intensity, and shot a violent, prolonged tongue of fire, and billowing smoke, up into the ticket hall. This sudden transition in intensity, and the spout of fire, was due to the previously unknown trench effect, discovered by the computer simulation of the fire, and confirmed in two scale model tests.

Memorial plaque with the clock to the 1987 fire in the station – Wikipedia

London Underground were strongly criticised for their attitude toward fires. Staff were complacent because there had never been a fatal fire on the Underground, and had been given little or no training to deal with fires or evacuation. A report was published on the inquiry, leading to resignations of senior management in both London Underground and London Regional Transport and to the introduction of new fire safety regulations. Wooden escalators were gradually replaced with metal escalators on the London Underground.