Fires in road vehicles are common, but a large part is associated with crashes. Of all vehicle fires registered in the USA between 2013 and 2017, 16% have occurred in a parking area and only a fraction of these involved vehicles parked in car parks. Furthermore, car park fires often involve few cars only and do not lead to fatalities. However, major car park fire incidents in the last years have shown that fires can lead to significant property and environmental damage if the fire can spread to a large enough number of adjacent vehicles. Large-scale experiments conducted in the 2000-10s have shown that it can take between 10 to 20 minutes before a car fire spreads to an adjacent car. Essential factors for the fire development are ventilation conditions within the car park, air supply to the burning car’s interior (i.e., breaking windows), and fuel involvement (i.e., breaking fuel tanks, a thermal runaway in lithium-ion batteries or gas releases from pressure release devices). Recent large-scale experiments involving a battery electric vehicle showed fire spreading 5 minutes after the first car was ignited. Thus, early detection and a quick response to the fire are essential to prevent a fire from spreading to multiple cars. Modern cars have become bigger, are thus parked closer to adjacent cars and contain more combustible material, especially plastics. A larger plastic content can increase the fire size of car fires, while an increased share of combustible material on the exterior and a decreased distance between cars may aid a faster fire spread. The increasing share of alternative fuel cars introduces new fire and explosion hazards and poses challenges for extinguishing efforts. However, early detection and quick response time still play an essential role in mitigating the associated risks