Heathrow Airport Fire: Why Fire Safety Really Matters
On March 21, 2025, a fire broke out at an electrical substation in Hayes, West London. The fire did not start inside Heathrow Airport - but within hours, the UK’s busiest airport came to a complete standstill. More than 1,300 flights were cancelled or delayed, and thousands of passengers were stranded. This was not just a travel disruption, but was also a stark reminder of why fire safety matters.
Lessons from the Heathrow Incident
The fire at a substation near Heathrow exposed major weaknesses in fire resilience. It also showed how fire safety failures, even outside of a main site, can trigger widespread disruption.
Here’s a deeper look at the fire safety issues this raises:
1. Fire safety is about thinking ahead
Most people think fire safety is about alarms, extinguishers, and evacuation plans. And yes - those matter, but they are only part of the story. This incident shows that fire safety is much broader. It is not just about flames or smoke, but instead about what happens when a fire - or even a small fire related event - disrupts the critical systems and the entire business operations.
Often, fire safety is seen as separate from the wider business, however fire safety and business continuity must work together. Business continuity plans should always include fire risk, and fire risk assessments should be embedded into organisational resilience plans, and must consider the operational impact when something happens.
Fire safety planning must include:
Emergency lighting
Communication systems
Life safety systems
Access control and security
Critical infrastructure such as baggage handling, IT networks, and check-in systems.
Key questions to consider:
If a fire knocks out power in your business, what happens to your operation?
If your IT systems go down, how do you keep people moving?
If thousands of people are stuck, how do you manage that safely?
2. Importance of back-up systems
One of the most important lessons from the Heathrow incident is that fire safety also includes how you keep critical systems running when things go wrong. When the substation fire knocked out the power, Heathrow struggled to respond. Their back-up systems did not kick in properly or were not enough to keep the airport functioning.
Key questions to consider:
Can emergency systems still function?
Are our back-up systems automatic, or do they need manual activation?
How long can we run on back-up before safety is compromised?
3. Maintenance and inspection gaps can cost millions
Substations do not often make the news, however when something goes wrong, the fallout can have disastrous consequences. This incident shows how a fire in a single location - offsite and away from the main Heathrow terminals - can shut down the operations of a major airport.
Fires in substations and other high-risk technical areas are often caused by:
Electrical faults due to poor installation or aging equipment
Overloaded circuits or overheating components
Lack of airflow or cooling
Dust, corrosion or water ingress
Missed or delayed maintenance routines.
Regular inspections, must be scheduled, logged and acted on. For certain areas or equipment, more detailed or technical inspections need to be undertaken, such as thermal imaging to detect hot spots before components fail, arc fault detection for early warning of dangerous surges, or automated monitoring for voltage fluctuations and equipment stress. In high risk areas, such as substations or plant rooms, which are generally unmanned, an individual fire detection and suppression system should be installed, such as clean agent suppression or gas system.
Key questions to consider:
Are any high-risk areas within your buildings protected with dedicated suppression?
Do you treat your critical systems as part of your fire strategy - or just your operations plan?
If something failed right now, how would you know? And how would you respond?
4. Clear Communication in Fire Safety
One of the worst things during any emergency is not knowing what is going on. Passengers at Heathrow were left in the dark - both literally and figuratively.
Where fire safety is concerned, it is not enough to evacuate people - you need to lead them. Clear, accurate, and timely communication can prevent panic, reduce confusion, and keep people moving safely. That means having:
Pre-written announcements ready to go
Multilingual instructions for diverse groups
Staff trained to deliver calm, direct messages
Alternative communication systems if screens and speakers fail
In addition to communication to the public, staff members should also:
Know their role in an emergency
Be confident helping others evacuate
Understand where safe exits and assembly points are
Be trained to communicate under pressure
5. Fire risk is not a one-time assessment
Many organisations conduct a fire risk assessment and forget about it. However, organisations do not remain static - staff members change, new equipment is installed or upgraded, layouts are reconfigured, and increased capacity. Each one of these changes can affect fire safety.
Fire risk assessments should be reviewed regularly, and this is generally considered as annually. They should also be reviewed immediately after any change to infrastructure, layout or usage, or where there has been a fire or a ‘near miss’.
The takeaway
The Heathrow substation fire was a sharp reminder that fire safety is more than just having alarms and extinguishers. It is about protecting people, systems, and operations from unexpected disruption - whether the fire happens on your site or nearby. This incident revealed key gaps in back-up power, maintenance, communication, and risk planning. It showed how quickly things can fall apart when fire safety isn’t fully integrated into the wider operation. Every organisation - no matter the size or sector - should consider the impact of this incident. Fire safety must be active, ongoing, and built into the core of how you manage risk and run your business. The Heathrow fire may not have started inside the airport, but its consequences reached every corner of it. That is why fire safety can not be seen as a formality and is a critical part of keeping people safe, systems running, and business moving forward.