text: Fire King's Cross St Pancras tube station has subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan, Circle, and Hammersmith & City lines. Deeper underground are the platforms for the Northern line City branch and the Piccadilly and Victoria lines. An escalator shaft led down to the Victoria line and another led down to the Piccadilly line, and from that to the Northern line. Stairs connected the Piccadilly and Victoria line platforms and from these there was a subway to King's Cross Thameslink railway station platforms used by British Rail Midland City (later Thameslink) trains to  and an entrance in Pentonville Road.
  At approximately 19:30, several passengers reported seeing a fire on a Piccadilly line escalator. Officers of the British Transport Police (BTP) and station staff went to investigate and on confirming the fire one of the policemen went to the surface to radio for the London Fire Brigade (LFB), which sent four fire appliances and a turntable ladder at 19:36. The fire was beneath the escalator and was impossible to reach by use of a fire extinguisher. There was water fog equipment, but staff had not been trained in its use. At 19:39, BTP officers made the decision to evacuate the station using the Victoria line escalators. The LFB arrived a few minutes later, and several firemen went down to the escalator to assess the fire. They saw a fire about the size of a large cardboard box, and planned to fight it with a water jet and men with breathing apparatus.