On Thursday, April 11, 1996, a fire in anoccupied passenger terminal at the airportin Düsseldorf, Germany, killed 17 people and injured 62.

The second level of the terminal contained airline ticket desks, shops, restaurants, and seating areas. Like the ground floor, the second level was 1,850 feet (564 m) long and approximately 30 feet (9.1 m) from floor to ceiling. Overlooking the second level was the third, or mezzanine, level containing the VIP lounges, conference rooms, and various administrative offices. The fourth level contained a restaurant and the observation deck, and the fifth level contained another restaurant. A train station was located below the terminal, and a vehicle service tunnel ran the length of the building. A five-level garage was adjacent to the terminal area on the south side, and two vehicle bridges connected the roof of the terminal's third level with the third level of the garage.

The west end of the structure was partially equipped with sprinklers, but the fire occurred on the east end of the structure, which was built in 1972 and was not equipped with sprinklers. The dry standpipes on the curb side of the building in the stairwells were not connected to a municipal water supply and had to be pumped by fire department apparatus. Smoke detectors were observed in the office areas of the second floor but not at the ceiling level in the main concourse area.

The terminal was equipped with a fire alarm system that transmitted alarms to a command center in a remote building on the airport grounds and to the Airport Fire Brigade. It did not transmit signals to the Dusseldorf Fire Brigade. This alarm system used an emergency voice/alarm communication system using pre-recorded messages.
The terminal's ground floor could be divided into two separate fire areas by a rolldown fire door, which could be activated either by smoke detectors at the ceiling on either side of the door or by manual pull stations next to the door.

The exit doors on the south side of the terminal were predominantly of two types: power-actuated swinging doors and power-actuated glass sliding doors. The ground level, through which arriving passengers passed, had 12 sets of doors, while the departure area on the floor above had 10 sets of doors. According to the Dusseldorf Fire Brigade, the doors would not open automatically when power was lost. It was observed during the on-site investigations and during subsequent conversation with authorities that the sliding doors could not be opened outward by applying pressure to them.

Several enclosed stairwells on the curb side of the building provided egress from the mezzanine, second, and ground floors directly to the exterior of the building. Investigators, who saw no such stairwells on the air side, could not document the means of egress on the air side of the terminal.
The Dusseldorf Airport Fire Brigade is a full-time fire brigade with an on-duty strength of 24 fire fighters and officers who staff five pieces of aircraft rescue and fire fighting (ARFF) apparatus. The station is located approximately 1,700 feet (518 m) from the terminal.
The Dusseldorf City Fire Brigade is composed of a combination of paid and volunteer fire fighters who staff seven full-time stations and ten volunteer stations, as well as a fireboat that provides protection on the Rhine River. Each shift is staffed by 120 permanent fire fighters and 250 volunteers.

In the case of the smoke detectors, airflow and sensor pollution, as well as possible electronic faults, are monitored. At the same time, the point at which the fire damper reaches its stop position is registered. An alarm is set off if the stop position is reached only after a delay or not at all. In this way, faulty dampers can be identified easily and quickly and routine maintenance checks can thus be reduced. For the activation of the smoke detectors and the fire dampers, H has been implemented.