The Oxford Circus fire occurred on Friday 23 November 1984 at 9.50pm at
Oxford Circus station
Oxford Circus is a London Underground station serving Oxford Circus at the junction of Regent Street and Oxford Street, with entrances on all four corners of the intersection. The station is an interchange between the Bakerloo, Central and Vic ...
on
the
London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...
. Oxford Circus station is in the heart of
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
's shopping district and is served by three deep-level tube lines: the
Bakerloo line
The Bakerloo line () is a London Underground line that goes from in suburban north-west London to in south London, via the West End. Printed in brown on the Tube map, it serves 25 stations, 15 of which are underground, over . It runs partly ...
,
Central line and
Victoria line
The Victoria line is a London Underground line that runs between in south London and in the north-east, via the West End. It is printed in light blue on the Tube map and is one of the only two lines on the network to run completely undergr ...
. The three lines are linked by a complex network of tunnels and cross-passages which all converge to a common booking hall situated beneath the junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street.
The fire started in a materials store at the south end of the northbound Victoria line platform, which was being used by contractors working on the modernisation of the station. It gutted the northbound Victoria line platform tunnel and the passages leading off it. The adjacent northbound Bakerloo line platform suffered smoke damage, as did the escalator tunnel and the booking hall. Other areas of the station were undamaged. The most likely cause of the fire was a
smoker discarding smoking materials through a ventilation grille into the materials store, which ignited rags or paint thinner.
Discovery
At 9.50pm, a station inspector, on duty in the mezzanine level, was told by a passenger of smoke on the northbound Victoria line platform. He took a piece of wood with him down to the platform, expecting to deal with something smouldering on the track. When he saw that it was the contractors' storage area on fire, he tried to use a telephone in a kiosk nearby, but opening the door of the kiosk released thick smoke that drove him back. He then retreated and started the evacuation.
Evacuation
Oxford Circus station was rapidly evacuated when the fire was discovered, and the
London Fire Brigade
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) is the fire and rescue service for London, the capital of the United Kingdom. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act 1865, under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. It has 5,992staff, in ...
conducted a sweep of the station which confirmed that all passengers were clear. The fire alert disrupted the routes of 10 trains on the three lines: passengers on six of the trains were evacuated at stations and passengers on four trains were escorted down the running tunnels to adjacent stations. The last passenger evacuated from these trains left the track at 12:45 a.m.. 30 pumps attended the fire, which was declared extinguished just before 3 a.m. the next day.
Injuries
No one was killed as a result of the fire; 14 people (four passengers, one police officer and nine members of London Underground staff) were taken to hospital for
smoke inhalation
Smoke inhalation is the breathing in of harmful fumes (produced as by-products of combusting substances) through the respiratory tract. This can cause smoke inhalation injury (subtype of acute inhalation injury) which is damage to the respirator ...
, of whom all but one were released next day.
Reconstruction
The gutted areas of the station had to be completely reconstructed, which in the case of the Victoria line platform tunnel involved sealing the ends so that the waterproof lining of the platform tunnel could be removed without releasing
asbestos
Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...
fibres into the atmosphere of the Underground. The removal took just over three weeks. Passenger services were restarted on the Central line the following morning. Northbound Bakerloo line trains were not permitted to stop at the station until 30 November, by which time the access tunnels to the Bakerloo northbound platform had been cleared of fire damage.
Effects on services
Victoria line service through central London and to the station recommenced on 17 December, with the platform tunnel having been stripped of all fittings down to the tunnel segment rings. Wooden hoardings were erected at the rear of the platform and the entire platform tunnel was whitewashed. Reconstruction of the decorative fittings on the platform was not completed until early 1986.
Smoking bans
Whilst
smoking
Smoking is a practice in which a substance is burned and the resulting smoke is typically breathed in to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have bee ...
had been banned on London Underground trains since July 1984, at the time of the Oxford Circus fire it was still allowed in stations. In response to the fire, a complete
ban on smoking in all sub-surface stations was introduced in February 1985.
[D. Fennell]
''Investigation into the King's Cross Underground Fire, (Appendix J).'' The Stationery Office Books, 1988 (6.8 MB pdf)
. p. 14.
Nonetheless, a
similar incident occurred on 18 November 1987 at
King's Cross St Pancras tube station
King's Cross St Pancras (also known as King's Cross & St Pancras International) is a London Underground station on Euston Road in the Borough of Camden, Central London. It serves King's Cross and main line stations in fare zone 1, and is an ...
when it was concluded as probable that a passenger had dropped a lit match onto an escalator. The resulting fire killed 31 people. After the King's Cross fire, staff training was increased and the smoking ban was enforced much more strictly with fines being introduced for offenders.
References
* T. Ridley, ''Oxford Circus - the Fire and its Implications'' Mechanical Engineering Technology, Autumn 1985
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oxford Circus Fire
Disasters on the London Underground
Fires in London
Railway accidents in 1984
1984 in London
1980s in the City of Westminster
Transport in the City of Westminster
Train and rapid transit fires
Chimney effect fires
1980s fires in the United Kingdom
1984 disasters in the United Kingdom
1984 fires
November 1984 events in the United Kingdom