Airport car park fire shuts down airport (guess why?)
 

VIDEO: Luton airport plunged into chaos as massive fire suspends all flights -

However, turns out that it was a range rover hybrid charging. Lithium ion not the best to leave charging

From a Reuters article:

"The fire service can confirm the initial vehicle involved in the fire was a diesel car," the local fire authority said, adding that it would investigate the exact cause.

Though maybe Range Rover has a plug-in diesel hybrid

I have a Tesla UpNorth, and left it plugged in for 5.5 months while in TV last winter. Tesla recommends the charge be set to 50% during extended absences. Did not have any issues. Obviously anecdotal, but if you read the Tesla forums, people do this all the time.

diesel flashpoint is in the 130 degree+ range.
if you have a cup of diesel at 70 degrees, you can put a match out in it.

diesel has to be hot to burn /

gasoline flashpoint below zero, gasoline ignites very easily

so diesel doesn't spontaneously combust,
but a hybrid with a battery, diesel might be irrelevant

Are you attempting to dispute the statement from the local fire authority or agree that Range Rover might have a plugin diesel hybrid (the Land Rover site implies they do not)?

Odd, but not impossible, that the local fire authority would not mention that a lithium battery might have been involved.

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2023...car-park-fire#

AA technical expert Greg Carter said the most common cause of car fires is an electrical fault with the 12-volt battery system.
.

I'm aware of a car fire traced to a USB lithium charging pack left connected in a car, overheating and causing a fire. You've probably heard of similar events on aircraft.

Plus, diesel is nearly identical to home heating oil. Many people in the North have tanks full of it in their basements.

They're saying maybe 1,500 cars have been damaged. What a nightmare. Also, I saw they said some perhaps undamaged cars may be lost due to the parking garage needing to be demolished & recovering the cars might be too dangerous.

Yep.

Back UpNort, 50-odd years ago now, I spent some time as a logger. Not uncommon to go to work in January when the temp. was -30 and even lower. Our equipment was all diesel, and often as not it didn't want to start in those temps, so we'd have to warm them up before starting them. One accepted way was to build a little fire under the oil pan. Took maybe 1/2 hour at most and they'd start right up. You'd NEVER want to do that with a gasoline engine.

Good grief

I have to plug in my tractor to heat up the engine block when the temperature drops below 10 degrees to prevent the diesel fuel from gelling up when I need to fire her up to plow the snow. Or should I say, I used to have to. Now I hope to be in the Villages when it’s anywhere near that cold outside up north, swimming laps in a heated outside pool and playing golf.

Many moons ago when I was working in farming, we used to hold burning paper roll over air intake on freezing days when starting diesel tractors.
Used to put some gas in diesel as well, to stop it turning to gel when freezing.
Both 'tricks' worked well.

Fuel additive to prevent gelling, way better than putting gas in the diesel. Gas can damage a diesel engine.

They do produce a mild-hybrid diesel for the UK/European market.

But that doesn’t plug in (though there have been fires in “plain” hybrids too)