Eurotunnel engineers install first anti-fire system

The system incorporates a series of ‘safe stations’ equipped with novel water-mist pumps.

‘There are fibre-optic heat detectors that localise exactly where the seat of the fire is and within seconds the water-mist system is set off to target it,’ said Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe.

The specially designed nozzles achieve a dispersal rate of around of 200m³ of water per hour, all in micro-droplet form.

‘There is so much water in the air that it stifles the access of any oxygen from the rest of the tunnel, so any sort of chimney effect that might have happened in the past is prevented,’ added Keefe. ’It has this double-dampening effect.’

Research and development on a new system started around four years ago, before a fire broke out on a Folkestone-to-Calais train about seven miles from the French end in September 2008.

Based on that experience, engineers built a prototype in 2009 and then took it to a rail-testing tunnel in Spain the following year. They created a very significant palette-based fire reaching temperatures of up to 1,000^oC in an identical array to the Channel Tunnel itself. Analysis revealed that the system was able to reduce the temperature of the fire from around 900°C to 250°C in less than three minutes, leaving only embers and minimal damage to equipment.