page_title: King's Cross St Pancras tube station
section_title: Fire
hierarchical_section_title: King's Cross St Pancras tube station / History / Fire
caption_attribution_description: English: Memorial plaque with clock, King's Cross St. Pancras tube station, London. 31 people died in afire, at the King's Cross St. Pancras tube station, London on November 18, 1987.
context_page_description: King's Cross St. Pancras is a London Underground station on Euston Road in the Borough of Camden, Central London. It serves King's Cross and St Pancras main line stations in fare zone 1, and is an interchange between six Underground lines. The station was one of the first to open on the network; as of 2018, it is the most used station on the network for passenger entrances and exits combined.
  The station opened in 1863 along with the Metropolitan line, subsequently catering for the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines. It was expanded in 1868 with the opening of the City Widened Lines, and the Northern and Piccadilly platforms opened in the early 20th century. During the 1930s and 1940s, the station was restructured and partially rebuilt to cater for expanded traffic. The Victoria line connection opened in 1968. The 1987 King's Cross fire that killed 31 people is the deadliest accident to occur on the Underground and resulted in widespread safety improvements and changes throughout the network. The station was extensively rebuilt in the early 21st century to cater for Eurostar services that moved from Waterloo to St Pancras, reopening in 2007.
context_section_description: The underground network had been at risk of fire since opening, and the limited amount of space and means of escape increased the possibility of fatalities. Following a serious fire at Finsbury Park in February 1976, staff had been trained to be alert for any possible causes of ignition or smouldering.
  At around 7:30 p.m. on 18 November 1987, a passenger reported a small fire on the Northern / Piccadilly up escalator and alerted staff. The incident was judged as relatively minor, and the Fire Brigade arrived at 7:43 p.m. with four pumps and a ladder. By this time, the ticket hall had filled with smoke, trains passed through the station without stopping, and passengers were being evacuated. At around 7:45 p.m., a fireball erupted from the Northern / Piccadilly escalators and set the ticket hall ablaze. The fire burned for several hours and was not properly contained until around 1:46 a.m. the following morning. It killed 31 people, including a fire officer.
  The then-unknown fire phenomenon of the trench effect made the fire develop upwards and finally caused it to explode into the station. As a result, fire safety procedures on the Underground were tightened, staff training was improved and wooden steps on escalators were replaced with metal ones. Smoking had already been banned on subsurface areas of the Underground in February 1985; following the King's Cross fire, it was banned throughout the entire network. The fire caused extensive damage, particularly to the old wooden escalators where it had started. Repairs and rebuilding took over a year; the Northern line platforms and the escalators from the ticket hall to the Piccadilly line remained closed until 5 March 1989.
caption: Memorial plaque with the clock to the 1987 fire in the station
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2448", "Image ImageLength": "3264", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone 4S", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2017:05:09 05:16:12", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "300", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[51, 31, 2417/50]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[0, 7, 329/10]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "28097/1412", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[14, 44, 1097/100]", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "T", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "8081/55", "Image GPSInfo": "836", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1134", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4044", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15", "EXIF FNumber": "12/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:08:05 15:44:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:08:05 15:44:15", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6337/1622", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4845/1918", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-368/32651", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "107/25", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[1631, 1223, 881, 881]", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "984", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "984", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2179", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2612", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[107/25, 107/25, 12/5, 12/5]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone 4S back camera 4.28mm f/2.4"}