Fire on the New Little Belt Bridge

Abstract

One of the main cables on The New Little Belt Bridge was in the summer 2013 exposed by direct fire from a burning truck parked right beside its lowest point. The fire was fully defeated within 30 minutes but the fire exposure had lasted for around 45 minutes. The main cable capacity was luckily not violated by the heating but one suspender had to be replaced. Many other repair works, on bridge elements with minor or no impact on the structural integrity of the bridge, was carried out in the coming weeks and it took in total 4 month before the traffic on the bridge was fully restored, except for special heavy transports. The owner of the bridge, The Danish Road Directorate, has based on the experiences from the fire, started up a revision of the existing risk analyses study in order to support a decision on possible future actions in order to reduce the risk for fire related damages. For the responsible engineers it is recommended to be prepared with information and knowledge that makes it possible to carry out immediate assessment of the remaining structural integrity of the bridge.