Big Yellow fire

I am not so lucky in that all my wine is in Section B, including some (but not the majority) in a room right next to the room where the fire broke out. Worse I only have a nominal amount of insurance on the wine stored there.
We'll have to see how bad it is - it could take as long as three weeks to open Section B - and I've been warned that nothing may be recoverable. But the messages are not nuanced, as everyone in Section A got a very blunt message at the weekend.

After a few days of worry, and even wondering whether I should stop bothering with this wine thing full stop (I would probably be quite happy with a Eurocave of decent Champagne and a few reasonably priced table wines bought from wine shops as needed), I am now prepared for the worst, and still have quite a lot of wine in storage elsewhere (younger on the whole, but most of the very top old Madeiras too). I was also cheered up greatly by a wonderful meal with good friends last night. But sorry if I can't supply every old bottle promised for future offlines.
That’s terrible especially as I’m sure you had some unique, old and expensive items in there.
Where is section A and B?
if you go down lifts, turn right through the sliding doors there are a few banks of storage right in front. I had a unit straight ahead about 10 metres in. I pulled my stock and bought a third climadiff a little while back.

Do they know how fire started and if it was down in the wine section ? who would be storing anything that could cause an issue, or was it a building problem.

Sorry for all who have wines there, especially in the section with real issues.
 
Do they know how fire started and if it was down in the wine section ? who would be storing anything that could cause an issue, or was it a building problem.
No information that I’ve seen / heard has given an indication. From the sound of it the fire brigade were combing through things over the weekend to work out what happened. The manager - who to be fair to him was responding to emails over the weekend even if there wasn’t much he could say - didn’t seem to have a clue at that time. Does seem odd that it would start in the wine section unless it was a failure of some kind of electrical equipment.
 
Paul, you are obviously very depressed by this dreadful situation but it may not be as bad as you fear. Many years ago we had a fire at home in the cellar started by my younger son playing with matches with one of his pals.
I came home at lunch time from my surgery to find two fire engines, a fire examination unit, smoke pouring out of the windows and my wife sitting on the front doorstep crying. The next day, friends came to help us clear up the mess and we had a sort of picnic on the terrace in our back garden. I opened quite a few of the affected bottles and found that if the corks had shifted (expanded upwards out of the bottle) then the wine was too badly damaged by the heat. However, if the corks had not moved then almost every bottle was OK. So please wait until you can actually see the damage and can check the corks before making any hasty decisions.
Hoping that the damage has not been too bad just as mine was.
 
Paul, you are obviously very depressed by this dreadful situation but it may not be as bad as you fear. Many years ago we had a fire at home in the cellar started by my younger son playing with matches with one of his pals.
I came home at lunch time from my surgery to find two fire engines, a fire examination unit, smoke pouring out of the windows and my wife sitting on the front doorstep crying. The next day, friends came to help us clear up the mess and we had a sort of picnic on the terrace in our back garden. I opened quite a few of the affected bottles and found that if the corks had shifted (expanded upwards out of the bottle) then the wine was too badly damaged by the heat. However, if the corks had not moved then almost every bottle was OK. So please wait until you can actually see the damage and can check the corks before making any hasty decisions.
Hoping that the damage has not been too bad just as mine was.
That's very interesting Howard. Do I take it from what you have said that there weren't any issues with smoke damage? Or that perhaps there were but only in bottles affected by the heat too?
 
Do I take it from what you have said that there weren't any issues with smoke damage?
Tom,

From a technical point of view, there would be no way for the smoke to enter the bottle and affect the wine. You will almost certainly smell the smoke on the bottle itself, as it would have infused the label and the top of the cork, but the wine will be fine.
 
Thank you for everyone's concern. As I said, I am now prepared for the worst, and a friend who is one of the most expert people to deal with this kind of situation has offered to help me assess the impact once the Section B is opened, which is likely to be two weeks. He has already said words that echo what Howard has shared with us. However, even when the wines are intact after such an event, he added that people tend to find smoke on the nose or say it's heat damaged even when it's not there! And of course old wine under cork is always pretty variable at the best of times.
 
(PSA in case anyone potentially affected checks the forum more often than they check their email - I mean, it has to be possible... Anyway...)

I've received an email from BY saying that they are opening "parts of the basement floor" for visits by appointment only from 8am on Monday. Appointments to be made by email with the store. I've made an appointment for 10:30am on Monday.
 
I have some wines in Section A and asked BY some information regarding the temperature. They have been very useful and sent me a chart of the temperatures in the middle of Section A .
My reading of the chart tells me that the max temperature reached was 41.6C for a very short period of time, was more than 28C for about 1 hour, more than 24C for roughly 2 hours, and more than 20C for 3h44. It then fluctuated between 16C and 20C for roughly 2 days (12th & 13th) and then came back to normal on the 14th.
I just wanted to share with people who have wines in Section A there.
Good luck to everyone who was impacted.
 
That’s really helpful Eric, thank you. Given that was presumably the air temperature I would hope that given the mass of stuff in that area and the relatively short periods of time involved that that shouldn’t be a big problem. Do you have a way of sharing the chart itself?
 
Agree with Howard, I am no expert but from the temperature data offered it looks positive to me at least for sec A. The higher volume liquid is, the longer it takes to have temperature raise or fall; although bottles are separate but there is supposedly quite a lot of liquid in sum, bottles are tightly packed together, there is very limited air flow among them. I would guess even there are bottles influenced they will be at the side facing the heat.

Depends on temp, even in sec B there still might be a good amont of bottles in the middle of case or cases inside case pile to be fine.
 
Gosh, this is terrible news. My heart goes out to everyone affected. The loss of years of selection, collecting, and anticipation, must be heart-rending.

Hopefully the relatively short temperature spikes and the insulation provided by the walls, boxes, and tightly packed bottles will mitigate things.
 
Not only do we want to find out what caused this fire, we want to know what steps they propose to put in place to ensure it does not happen again. If not to minimise, to greatest extent possible, the chances of it happening again.

I have an appointment there on Friday morning ahead of SA wimps.
 
Interestingly, though my usual direct debit was due to come out (and indeed did come out) on Wednesday just past - something which I slightly resented in the circumstances for obvious reasons but felt I had to let go out if only just for the insurance premium element of the payment - it has now been refunded.

I find the notion that the fire started in one of the units utterly mystifying. What was in there? I assumed the fire would be down to some kind of electrical problem that would fall to BY. Hopefully we can see the LFB report at some stage. Did a bottle of wine spontaneously combust? What wine is that volatile? Musar??
 
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