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Discarded cigarette probable cause of BoomTown fire

The blaze began in a car park Credit: ITV

Hampshire Fire and Rescue has identified lessons to be learned following an investigation into a blaze involving more than 90 vehicles at last year's BoomTown Festival.

It has published a report on their response to the incident at The Matterley Bowl in August last year, where a huge fire began in a car park.

The fire involved 92 vehicles, 80 of which were totally destroyed.

The report outlines how the fire began in stubble alongside a red Volkswagen Polo and was most likely caused by a discarded cigarette.

It states that the west gate car park, which had not been used before, was added to the event late on, but that critically no one realised that this field was stubble and not grass.

The report recommends that there should be some method of checking late additions and changes to the event and ensuring the risk assessment is updated if needed.

It also highlights that the event risk assessment should have been reviewed in July 2016, but it appears this was not done.

Although some recommendations have been outlined in the report, many of which Boomtown has already acted upon, the overall findings of the HFRS investigation are that there was no contravention of the Regulatory Reform Order by Boomtown with regards to the fire, the cause of which was deemed by HRFS to be a discarded cigarette.

We continue to work closely alongside Hampshire Fire and Rescue and our new fire safety contractor on the lessons learned and, as with every aspect of the event, ensure that we endeavour to streamline systems and make improvements year on year.

– BoomTown organisers