![\"Vehicles](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/JLPVRG22T9UMTCNVRF6M.jpg\")
Vehicles stuck in the Dartford Crossing tunnel at the time of the fire<\/p>\nA woman has told of how she had to flee the Dartford Tunnel with her baby grandson, along with hundreds of other people, after a fire broke out.<\/p>\n
The driver, who did not want to be named, said her family were among those forced to evacuate at around 4pm today (Thursday), in an incident which caused huge tailbacks.<\/p>\n
Vehicles stuck in the Dartford Crossing tunnel at the time of the fire<\/p>\n
The woman, who is in her 40s and from the Maidstone area, told KentOnline: \u201cIt was very, very scary – really frightening. Especially as we had a newborn baby<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were all sorts of people, such as elderly trying to get out this tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group – two women and two men, plus the baby – were on their way to a family birthday celebration in Lakeside in Essex. But they were snarled up in a mass of rush-hour traffic because of a vehicle fire further ahead, close to the exit.<\/p>\n
The family’s ordeal began after their car entered the 0.8-mile-long tunnel at about 4pm.<\/p>\n
The woman said: \u201cThe traffic all slowed down. The next minute, nobody was moving, and people were getting out of their vehicles. We were all standing there, not knowing what to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we just heard people shouting that everyone had to evacuate the tunnel. There were so many people trying to get out.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone had evacuated their vehicles, and we all had to walk right the way down the other end of the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family were separated from their car for 60 to 90 minutes, but say they were well cared for by National Highways officials who were keeping people safe.<\/p>\n
The woman said: \u201cThey were ever so kind. They even got a van and took us back to their base, where we could have a cup of tea.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman estimates that around 50 cars were stuck and a couple of hundred people.<\/p>\n
![\"Congestion](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GNFQS0B9SHVLI7JGIRR8.jpg\")
Congestion on the M25 near the Dartford tunnel after today\u2019s fire. Picture: National Highways<\/p>\n
She says: \u201cThe main thing is everybody was safe, and we all got out safe, and I presume whoever was driving the burning vehicle got out safely too.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Kent Fire and Rescue Service said: \u201cWe were called to assist following reports of a van alight on the Dartford Crossing.<\/p>\n
\u201cFive fire engines attended, and on arrival, a van was found to be heavily smoking due to an engine fault.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo injuries were reported.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman says her car was undamaged and the family were eventually able to drive to Lakeside that evening for the celebration.<\/p>\n
Traffic was held until around 6.30pm, but long queues persisted for several hours after the tunnel reopened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman has told of how she had to flee the Dartford Tunnel with her baby grandson, along…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[1085,308,309,1082,1118,5,6],"class_list":["post-66203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-dartford","tag-fire","tag-kent","tag-maidstone","tag-syndicate","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116775058357118895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}