The case in summary A 21-year-old man from Fredrikstad experienced his car catching fire outside Hvalertunnelen on 23 December. He and his brother tried to retrieve a fire extinguisher from an emergency control cabinet, but the cabinet was locked with a code they did not have. The 21-year-old expresses frustration at the situation, and believes that it would have been better if he had stopped in the tunnel where there were several fire extinguishers. Viken County Council owns the tunnel. They will consider separating the fire extinguisher from the rest of the cabinet. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. – I drove out of the tunnel, because I realized that there was something wrong with the ignition system on the car, explains a 21-year-old man from Fredrikstad. He wants to talk about what happened after his car caught fire when he drove through Hvalertunnelen on 23 December, but does not want to give his name. The 21-year-old and his family were on their way from Kirkøy on Hvaler to Fredrikstad when the car suddenly started to slow down inside the tunnel. – My family was driving in front in another car, so I called them and said we had to stop to check. Then drove into the nearest bus pocket on the outside of the tunnel. When he opened the hood of the car, he saw a small flame. The 21-year-old stopped at the bus stop on the right. The emergency control cabinet was directly across the road, to the left of the picture. Photo: Google Maps Couldn’t get the code for the cabinet While the father called the fire service, the 21-year-old and his brother ran across the road to get hold of a fire extinguisher that was placed in an emergency cabinet. – I started rummaging in the door, before I saw that there was a code lock on it. When the father contacted the fire service, he asked to get the code for the locker. He didn’t get that. As time went on, the fire also developed. Eventually a firefighter arrived at the scene. Nor should he have known what the code was, but got it from the fire service’s operations centre, according to the 21-year-old. – It was absolutely terrible. Especially when you know how easy it would have been to put it out, considering how small it started. So instead we had to wait a long time for someone to open the door, for something that could be solved straight away. This is what you should do in the event of a fire in a tunnel Get out If possible, drive out of the tunnel, alert oncoming traffic and call the road traffic centers from an emergency phone when you get out. Is it not possible to drive out? Leave the car on the side of the road with emergency lights on and evacuate on foot. Use the emergency telephone The tunnel is equipped with red cupboards with telephones and fire extinguishers. Use the emergency telephone rather than the mobile, then the road traffic center automatically knows which tunnel you are in and where in the tunnel you are calling from. The fire extinguisher alerts When you use a fire extinguisher installed in the tunnel, a fire alarm will automatically go off at the road traffic centre. Then the tunnel will also be closed, and the ventilation system will start. Do not drive into a closed tunnel If the barrier is down or a red light is flashing outside the tunnel, an event has occurred which means that the tunnel is closed. Never drive into a closed tunnel. Pay attention and listen to the radio When driving in tunnels, it is important to notice safety equipment and escape routes, follow traffic rules and keep a good distance from the vehicle in front. Remember that heavy vehicles can create higher air pressure when they pass you. Listen to the radio, there you will get useful information should an incident occur. Source: Norwegian Road Administration. – Getting a little frustrated At the end of the tunnel there was a fire extinguisher that the 21-year-old could use. But it was 200 meters to go there. He thought it was not safe because of the traffic along the road. – I get a little frustrated when I’ve driven through that tunnel many times afterwards, and see how many fire extinguishers there are. It would have been better for both me and the car if I had stopped in the tunnel, he concludes. This is what the emergency board looks like. Inside it is a fire extinguisher that the driver of the car could not access due to the code lock. Photo: Google Maps The fire brigade at Hvaler is primarily glad that he did not stop inside the tunnel. – We want to praise the driver of the car for the decision to wait to stop the car until he came out of the tunnel. It was well rated. A fire in a tunnel is not desirable, says emergency manager Robert Holt. Tunnel owner: Will consider sorting it out Holt was at work himself and passed the code on to the employee on site over the connection. – There is a code on the cabinet because only we should have access to it, in case everything crashes at the exchange in Oslo, and we have to manually close the tunnel due to incidents, says Holt. The fire service does not have a clear answer as to whether the fire extinguisher should have been separated from the rest of the cabinet. The fire brigade and police at the scene where the car caught fire on Christmas Eve outside Hvalertunnelen in Østfold. Photo: news tips – It might have been good to have the device separated from each other. We would have liked to see that there had been appliances everywhere, but it is not up to us to judge. That must be decided by the tunnel owner, says Holt. Viken county council currently owns the Hvaler tunnel. They are now considering setting up fire extinguishers for the public at the first stop after the tunnel. – There is no requirement for extinguishing equipment outside the tunnel. We can consider changing this, but as far as I know, such a situation has not arisen before, says fire protection manager in Viken county municipality, Hans Runar Kynningsrud.
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Couldn’t get out fire extinguisher – news Oslo og Viken – Local news, TV and radio
