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Andover CFC destroyed by fire after robot battery-charger fault

S4 · · Ocado Intelligent Automation · Andover, England, UK

Record

CompanyOcado Intelligent Automation
Categorywarehouse automation
Typefire
Date
Time of day01:41 GMT
LocationAndover, England, UK · Ocado Andover CFC
SeverityS4 (serious injury, total loss, or grounding)
Scale1 full customer fulfilment centre destroyed; facility handled ~30,000 deliveries/week
Confidencehigh
VerificationYes - adversarially checked against the cited source
SourceHampshire Fire and Rescue Service (also Euronews, Reuters coverage)

What happened

An electrical fault in a first-generation battery charging unit at the edge of the ambient storage grid ignited the plastic lid of a grocery-picking robot, and the resulting blaze destroyed the majority of Ocado's Andover, UK customer fulfilment centre. Around 200 firefighters and 20 engines fought the fire, with damages estimated above £100 million.

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