Oxford Circus fire

The Oxford Circus fire occurred on Friday November 23, 1984 at 9:50 p.m. at the London Underground Oxford Circus station. Oxford Circus station is in the heart of London's shopping district and is served by three deep-level tube lines; the Bakerloo Line, Central Line and Victoria Lines. The three lines are linked by a complex network of tunnels and cross-passages and come 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 probable cause of the fire was smoker's materials being pushed through a ventilation grille into the materials store. This ignited rags or paint thinner within the store.

Evacuation

Oxford Circus station was rapidly evacuated when the fire was discovered, and the fire brigade conducted a sweep of the station which confirmed that all passengers were clear. The fire alert disrupted the routes of ten 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. Thirty 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, 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 fibres into the atmosphere of the Underground. The removal took just over three weeks. Passenger services were re-started on the Central Line the following morning. Northbound Bakerloo Line trains were not permitted to stop at the station until November 30, 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 December 17, 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

Smoking had been banned on London Underground trains since July 1984: in response to the Oxford Circus fire, a complete ban on smoking in all sub-surface stations was introduced in February 1985. Nonetheless a similar incident occurred in 1987 at King's Cross St. Pancras tube station when a passenger on their way out of the station lit a cigarette and dropped the match onto an escalator. The resulting fire claimed 31 lives.

References

• T. Ridley, Oxford Circus - the Fire and its Implications Mechanical Engineering Technology, Autumn 1985
• D. Fennell, Investigation into the King's Cross Underground Fire, (Appendix J). The Stationery Office Books, 1988; ISBN 0-10-104992-7 (6.8 MB pdf)