Driver slams BMW into Dutch e-Bike warehouse, starts large fire

Dutch bicycle media site NieuwsFiets.Nu has reported on a bizarre incident where a driver of a BMW appears to have purposely ploughed into Ebike Netherlands’ building, resulting in a large fire breaking out.

Starting at around 4.20AM, the incident resulted in part of the building being demolished to give fire crews greater access to what quickly became a major incident; three tanks sprayers and an aerial platform were deployed to handle the blaze. The fire was not fully extinguished until late evening.

Luckily for the business the car crashed into the building’s lobby, s no batteries were in the immediate vicinity. For this reason the fire service were able to make progress on extinguishing the blaze. As documented in various education articles on the storage of e-Bike batteries, once on fire they can be exceedingly hard to put out.

The Cujik business park on which the blaze took place was closed off while crews investigated. Police have reportedly started a search for the driver, with the mayor of Cujik Wim Hillenaar describing the breach as an ‘attack’. As an aside to this incident, the Dutch news portal reports that recently four cars have been set ablaze on the business park, including one owned by the co-owner of E-bike Nederland Ad Dalhuisen.

The building is owned by Arno Cup, director of Ebike Nederland and an active participant in Nijmegen’s new Dutch Bicycle Centre.

NiewsFiets has since tracked down Arno and got his account of events within which he seeks to shut down rumours.