\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tU.S. airmen work on a B-1 bomber parked on the apron at RAF Fairford, England, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (Alastair Grant\/AP)
\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
No one was injured when a fire broke out at a storage building on RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom early Sunday, according to British officials.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The base in Gloucestershire, in the west of England, hosts a small permanent U.S. Air Force presence and in recent months has been used by the U.S. in operations against Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Early indications suggest the cause of the fire was \u201cnothing other than accidental,\u201d according to a statement by the Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Firefighters arrived at the scene shortly after getting a call just before 2 a.m. local time, the rescue service said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fire involved a single-story industrial storage building. It was brought under control safely and there were no casualties,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n
Crews remained at the scene throughout the morning as a precaution, the service said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
United States Air Forces in Europe confirmed in an email Sunday morning that RAF Fairford emergency services and \u201cpartners from surrounding communities,\u201d were responding to the incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, we ensure the safety of our personnel, families and the surrounding community remains our top priority,\u201d USAFE said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Residents had been advised by local authorities to keep their doors and windows closed due to the smoke.<\/p>\n
The U.S.\u2019s 420th\u00a0Air Base Squadron, part of the 501st\u00a0Combat Support Wing, is based at RAF Fairford, USAFE\u2019s only bomber forward operating location.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because of its long runway, the base can host long-range B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers and has been used by the U.S. Air Force nearly continuously since it was first built for D-Day operations in 1944.<\/p>\n
In March, shortly after the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran, the U.K. government announced that it had agreed to allow the U.S. to use British military bases for \u201cdefensive operations\u201d in the campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
U.S. bombers were spotted at RAF Fairfield shortly after the announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Saturday, some 200 people gathered outside the base to protest the war in Iran, some holding placards and pictures of children killed in the conflict, the BBC reported.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The war is deeply unpopular in the U.K. Sixty-five percent of Britons disapprove of the U.S. strikes and roughly 86% of the population is worried about the conflict\u2019s impact on gas and energy prices, according to IPSOS polling published earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The International Monetary Fund this month predicted that the energy shock wave from the Iran war will hit the U.K. the hardest of the world\u2019s advanced economies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF cut its estimate for U.K. growth this year to 0.8%, from the 1.3% prediction made in January before the war began.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Svan contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. airmen work on a B-1 bomber parked on the apron at RAF Fairford, England, Tuesday, March 10,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[257940,257941,748,257939,393,4884,1144,257936,257937,712,257942,16,15,257938,1764],"class_list":["post-919584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-420th-air-base-squadron","tag-501st-combat-support-wing","tag-britain","tag-commissary-fire-fairford","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-northern-ireland","tag-raf-fairford-uk","tag-raf-fairford-us-bombers","tag-scotland","tag-u-s-air-forces-europe","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-us-air-force-uk","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116470713521101835","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}