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/t is more than two years since the Channel Tunnel fire damaged 29 trucks and, due to the bad publicity, threatened to push its troubled owner Eurotunnel over the brink. Since then, the tunnel has come back strongly, grabbing the major share of crossChannel traffic for both freight and passengers. That's thanks to its main attractions: speed just a 35minute crossing—and simplicity by allowing drivers to clear customs and passport control before going on the shuttle.
But critics claim questions remain unanswered about the tunnel's safety. There are particular concerns about the open-sided freight wagons, designed to be light enough to carry 44-tonne trucks but condemned as a fire risk by the Fire Brigades Union and the Kent Fire Brigade. Despite a lengthy investigation, there is no definitive answer to how the fire
started and critics claim insufficient changes have been made to prevent a further similar incident.
But that is not the way Eurotunnel sees it. It insists lessons have been learnt from the fire, which broke out overnight on 18 November 1996 and was thought by a French Judicial report to have been caused deliberately. It has changed its fire safety procedure; is planning to introduce 24-hour fire patrols of the tunnel; and is running trials on an on-wagon sprinkler which it hopes to have in operation later this year. In addition, the front three trucks on each shuttle now always carry low-risk loads.
The emergency procedure has been changed so that, if a fire alarm sounds, the freight shuttle stops immediately and drivers are transferred to the service tunnel.
Before, guidelines required the shuttle to continue its journey so that the blaze could be dealt with in the open. But the 1996 fire showed that the priority should be to move truck drivers off the shuttle to a point of safety Eurotunnel has simplified the specification of three shuttles it plans to put into service this year, including doing away with plug-in points for reefers in a bid to make the wagons "simpler and safer"—it says the facility was rarely used anyway. Meanwhile, existing wagons and the tunnel have been made safer by making fire detection systems more sensitive.
In all, Eurotunnel says about 95% of more than 100 recommendations from the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority, the regulator for the safe running of the tunnel, have been put in place since the fire.
Certainly it appears the suggestions were needed. The Safety Authority's inquiry into the fire, published last May, highlights a series of operational weaknesses and makes chilling reading. Drivers were reported as suffering from shock and the effects of smoke after being left in a fume-filled club car for about 20 minutes. And those suffering most were left in the tunnel for more than oneand-a-half hours after the train stopped. However, no one spent more than a night in hospital.
The Fire Brigades Union believes Eurotunnel's efforts to improve safety have missed the vital point. The union is still concerned that the lattice design of the wagons could be a safety risk. It says contained units would be the most effective way to slow the spread of fire, and would offer the best prospect of avoiding a re-run or even nastier version of the 1996 incident. The union's Kent secretary, Ernie Thornton, warns that another Channel Tunnel fire is a possibility and is concerned that next time people may die.
"In any fire there is always a possibility that lives will be lost and when you are tens of metres under the sea, perhaps the possibility is increased," he says. Critics accuse Eurotunnel of putting commercial considerations above safety by choosing the lighter open-sided wagons. Eurotunnel admits it would be difficult to design an enclosed heavy goods vehicle shuttle light enough to carry 44-tonners.
But it slams suggestions that the wagons represent a risk, arguing that they actually make it easier to detect and deal with a fire. The FBU is also concerned that Eurotunnel may stop using adequately trained firefighters if it goes ahead with a proposal to take the first line of response (FLOR) team in-house.
This team is the first to reach an incident in the tunnel. Under existing arrangements, Kent Fire Brigade's main responsibility is to rescue passengers and then, when necessary, take initial action against a fire before back-up arrives. Currently, it patrols the service tunnel during the daytime only. But Eurotunnel says its plans for 24-hour patrols would enable the FLOR team to reach any incident in the tunnel within 15 minutes; on the night of the fire it took about half an hour.
Eurotunnel says it would prefer to continue using Kent Fire Brigade as the FLOR team. But if it cannot come to an agreement with the fire service, it will run it in-house or contract another party It will not com ment on the level of fire-fighting training that a non-Kent Fire Brigade team would have.
What is not in doubt is the faith held by those hauliers who use the crossing in Eurotunnel's efforts to make the journey as safe as possible. Eurotunnel had a record finish to 1998 for freight, with 62,500 trucks using the service in the last quarter, up 62% on the previous year. Even firms which had vehicles in the 1996 emergency have not deserted. Taylors of Martley, Worcestershire, which had four trucks damaged in the fire, and Dockspeed in Hythe, Kent, are among them. Dockspeed puts about two-thirds of its international traffic-75 round trips a week—through the tunnel.
Its managing director, Andy Inglestm, believes Eurotunnel is doing all it can to ensure the safety of the tunnel. "There's a lot of rubbish talked about the safety of the tunnel. A lot of water has gone over it since the incident and Eurotunnel has worked very hard on the lessons that have been learnt," he says.