Deliberate Arson at a Vacant Building: Lessons from the Crewe Printworks Fire
On 21 May 2025, at Chester Crown Court, two young men were sentenced for setting fire to a derelict printworks in Crewe town centre on the afternoon of 9 August 2024. James Evans, aged 19, received 56 months in prison, and Justin Keeling, aged 18, received 52 months for arson together with a further 238 days, to run consecutively, for perverting the course of justice after he attempted to deceive police by fabricating a false sighting of other suspects. The fire they started, by igniting a large pile of cardboard inside the former Communisis building at the junction of Catherine Street and Frances Street, required fifteen fire engines and a range of specialist appliances from across Cheshire, displaced more than 350 residents from five surrounding streets, caused structural damage to a number of neighbouring terraced houses, and kept firefighters on site for several days before the last hotspots were brought under control.
We work with a number of clients in Crewe, and the events of that Friday afternoon are not ones that anyone involved in fire safety in this part of Cheshire is likely to forget. The scale of the emergency response, the displacement of hundreds of local residents to leisure centres and the homes of family and friends, the damage to properties that had nothing to do with the building at the centre of the incident, and the discovery that one of the two perpetrators had given a television interview to the BBC in the immediate aftermath, presenting himself as a shocked and aggrieved neighbour while the building he had helped to set alight was still smoking behind him, combined to make this one of the more striking arson cases Cheshire has seen in recent years. The sentencing in May 2025 brought a measure of closure, but the fire itself and its consequences for the surrounding community had already run their course long before anyone stood in the dock at Chester Crown Court.
This article looks at what happened, at the specific risk that vacant and derelict buildings present to the people and properties around them, and at what responsible persons managing premises in Crewe and across the wider region can do to reduce the likelihood of a comparable incident on or near their own sites.
What happened on 9 August 2024
The former Communisis building on Frances Street had been vacant since January 2024, when the printing company that had last occupied it fell into administration. The site had a history stretching back well over a century, having housed, at various points, the Crewe Stationery Company, McCorquodale Printers, and the northern edition of the Daily Express, and at the time of the fire it was in the process of being considered for demolition, with plans submitted to Cheshire East Council in June 2024. In that same month, Cheshire Police had also discovered the building had been used as a large-scale cannabis farm, containing well over 2,000 plants at various stages of growth, all of which were destroyed in the subsequent fire. The demolition works that had been scheduled to begin on 22 July 2024 had not yet commenced when Evans and Keeling entered the building on the afternoon of 9 August.
The two men entered the building and set fire to a large pile of cardboard inside. The fire took hold quickly, spreading through the derelict structure, and a major incident was declared as it became clear that the blaze was developing in a way that threatened the densely packed terraced streets immediately surrounding the site. At its peak, fifteen fire engines attended, along with specialist appliances including a high-reach extending turret from Macclesfield, an aerial ladder platform, a high-volume pump, and a water bowser. Roads across the surrounding area were closed, and five streets, including Catherine Street and Frances Street themselves, were subject to a full evacuation, with residents directed to Crewe Alexandra FC and the Crewe Lifestyle Centre as emergency rest centres. An electrical substation adjacent to the building was also affected, causing further disruption to neighbouring properties beyond those directly threatened by the fire itself.
The Crewe printworks fire — 9 August 2024
More than 350 people were displaced from their homes, with some residents unable to return for an extended period because of the structural damage the fire caused to adjoining properties. A cat belonging to a local resident went missing during the evacuation and was later found with burnt paws, requiring veterinary treatment. Firefighters remained on site for several days, working with a demolition contractor to expose remaining hotspots and extinguish them fully. Cheshire East Council issued an advisory to local residents about the possibility of asbestos being disturbed during the fire and the subsequent demolition works, which added a further layer of concern for those living in the immediate vicinity.
The investigation that followed moved quickly. Keeling had filmed part of the fire on his mobile phone while still inside the building, and that footage, discovered on his seized handset, provided the evidence that underpinned the prosecution after both men had initially denied involvement. Keeling, in an attempt to deflect suspicion, told police during door-to-door enquiries that he had seen some youths near the building, leading to the arrest of a twelve-year-old boy who was subsequently released without charge, and Keeling's admission to a friend that he had in fact been inside the building eventually brought both men back into the frame. The audacity of his BBC interview, delivered from Catherine Street while the fire was still visibly burning, became one of the more widely reported details of the case when it emerged at the trial stage.
The sentencing, 21 May 2025: James Evans received 56 months in prison. Justin Keeling received 52 months for arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered, with a further 238 days to run consecutively for perverting the course of justice. Assistant Chief Fire Officer Steve Barnes of Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service said after sentencing that the fire had put lives at risk, not only those of firefighters but also the residents who were forced to leave their homes, and Detective Sergeant Ryan Ogden noted that some families had still not been able to return home as a result of the fire damage caused to their properties.
Why vacant buildings carry a disproportionate arson risk
The Crewe printworks fire is a particularly stark illustration of something that fire safety professionals and insurers have documented consistently for decades: vacant and derelict buildings carry a significantly elevated arson risk compared with occupied premises, and when a fire does take hold in an unoccupied building of any size, the consequences for the surrounding area are frequently out of proportion to anything that the building's own value or contents would suggest. The reasons for this are well understood and worth setting out clearly, because they have direct implications for how responsible persons managing vacant or temporarily unoccupied premises should be approaching the fire risk.
An occupied building is, in effect, its own first line of defence against arson and against fire development generally. Staff notice unauthorised access. Routine activity creates a presence that deters opportunistic entry. A fire that starts, whether accidentally or deliberately, is likely to be discovered quickly and the alarm raised while it is still small and manageable. None of those defences apply in a vacant building, and in a large industrial structure of the kind that the former Communisis site represented, a fire that starts in one part of the building can develop to a fully involved, multi-compartment blaze before anyone outside the building has any indication that anything is wrong. The cardboard that Evans and Keeling ignited was not a sophisticated incendiary device; it was ordinary packaging material lying in a derelict building with no one watching it, and the speed with which the fire developed from that starting point to a fifteen-engine major incident reflects exactly the dynamic that vacant building fire statistics consistently describe.
In our earlier article on how to protect commercial premises from arson, we covered the general principles of arson risk reduction for occupied and operational buildings. The specific challenge of vacant premises demands a somewhat different emphasis, because the risk profile changes materially the moment a building becomes empty, and the control measures that work well for an occupied site need to be supplemented or replaced with arrangements that address the absence of natural surveillance and the access vulnerabilities that vacancy creates. We have also written about this risk in the context of Wigan, where the Whelley Labour Club illustrates the same pattern of arson risk accumulating in a derelict town-centre building over an extended period.
Access control and perimeter security
Evans and Keeling entered the former Communisis building without apparent difficulty on a Friday afternoon in a town centre location, which illustrates that even well-located and publicly visible vacant buildings are penetrable if access control is inadequate. For industrial premises of any scale, the perimeter security arrangements that are satisfactory when a building is occupied and staffed will typically be insufficient once the building becomes vacant, because those arrangements relied on the deterrent effect of human presence rather than on physical barriers alone. A vacant building's fire risk assessment, or the review of that assessment that should be triggered by a change to vacant status, ought to address access control specifically, examining every point of potential entry and considering whether the physical barriers, lighting, and monitoring arrangements in place are sufficient to deter and detect unauthorised access by someone motivated to cause harm rather than merely to steal.
Perimeter fencing, secured doors and windows, security lighting covering all elevations, and where the risk profile warrants it, intruder detection linked to a monitored alarm receiving centre, are the standard components of a vacant building security regime. None of them is infallible, and a determined individual will find ways around physical barriers that a casual opportunist would not, but the evidence on deliberate fires in vacant buildings consistently shows that a large proportion of incidents involve access through obvious or easily identified weak points, and that improving those weak points measurably reduces the incidence of unauthorised entry and the fires that follow from it.
Combustible material management
The fire at the Communisis building was started by igniting cardboard that was already present inside. This is an extremely common pattern in deliberate fires in vacant industrial premises, and it reflects the fact that buildings vacated in a hurry, or left unmanaged for extended periods, tend to accumulate combustible material that functions as ready-made fuel for anyone who gains access and wants to start a fire. Packaging, paper, timber pallets, insulation offcuts, abandoned furniture, and the general detritus of a business that has ceased trading are all materials that present minimal hazard in a functioning, managed building and a significant hazard in an empty one.
The responsible person for a vacant building should treat the removal of all combustible material from the interior as a priority task in the immediate period after the building becomes vacant, and should establish an ongoing arrangement to ensure that the building does not reaccumulate combustibles through fly-tipping, illegal occupation, or the gradual deterioration of fabric that introduces new fuel sources over time. A building that contains no readily ignitable material is a considerably less attractive target for arson than one that presents an obvious starting point for a fire, and the effort required to clear a building of combustibles is typically far less than the cost of the incident that results when that effort is not made.
External combustible loading
The arson risk to a vacant building does not come only from within. Waste bins, skips, timber stored against the building, overgrown vegetation in contact with the structure, and combustible materials left in external areas immediately adjacent to the walls all represent ignition points that can be exploited by someone who either cannot or does not want to gain access to the building itself. A fire started against the outside of a building can develop into a structural fire with considerable speed, particularly where cladding, roof overhangs, or other combustible external elements are present, and the proximity of the former Communisis site to densely packed residential streets meant that the consequences of even a modest external fire would have been serious. Clearing external combustible loading and ensuring that bins, skips, and stored materials are kept away from the building's fabric are among the simplest and most cost-effective arson risk reduction measures available, and ones that we highlight consistently in our arson guidance for both industrial and commercial premises.
Monitoring and regular inspection
A vacant building that is not inspected regularly is a building whose condition is unknown, and whose deteriorating access controls, accumulating combustibles, or evidence of unauthorised entry may go unnoticed for weeks or months. Regular physical inspection, carried out on a documented schedule by a competent person who knows what to look for, is the mechanism by which the responsible person maintains awareness of the building's condition and identifies emerging risks before they become serious problems. An inspection regime does not need to be elaborate to be effective, but it does need to be consistent, it needs to be recorded, and it needs to be backed by a commitment to act on what the inspections find rather than simply noting concerns and moving on.
Where a building is of sufficient value or risk to warrant it, remote monitoring through CCTV linked to a monitored alarm system can provide a level of detection capability that physical inspection alone cannot match, particularly outside normal working hours when the majority of deliberate fires in vacant buildings actually occur. The Communisis fire started on a Friday afternoon, which is not typical of the overnight and weekend pattern that characterises most vacant building arson, but it serves as a reminder that the risk is not confined to hours of darkness and that daytime visibility is not the same thing as daytime surveillance.
The obligation on responsible persons managing vacant premises
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to non-domestic premises regardless of whether they are occupied, and the responsible person's duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and to implement appropriate fire precautions does not cease when a building becomes vacant. What changes is the risk profile, and with it the appropriate precautions, and a responsible person who continues to manage a vacant building against the assessment that was carried out when it was in active use is not meeting the standard that the Order requires. As we set out in our article on how often a fire risk assessment should be reviewed, a material change in the way a building is used — and vacancy is as material a change as there is — is an explicit trigger for review, and the review should happen before the building becomes vacant if that is foreseeable, or as soon as possible after if the vacancy is unplanned.
The specific duties that apply to a vacant building under the Order are the same as for any other non-domestic premises, but their practical expression is different. There are no staff to train, no evacuation drills to run, and no occupants whose safety in the event of fire needs to be managed directly. What remains is the duty to prevent fire so far as is reasonably practicable, to limit fire spread through the maintenance of passive fire protection, and to ensure that the fire service can access the building and operate effectively if a fire does occur. For a vacant building in a town centre location, surrounded by residential properties, the last of those is particularly important, because a fire in an unoccupied industrial building in that kind of setting has the potential to affect a great many people who have no connection with the building and no ability to influence the fire risk it presents to them.
A note on insurance: Most commercial property insurance policies contain specific conditions relating to vacant premises, including requirements to notify the insurer when a building becomes vacant, to maintain certain security and inspection standards, and in some cases to implement additional measures such as isolating utilities or removing combustibles within a defined period. Failure to comply with vacant premises conditions is one of the most common grounds on which insurers decline to meet claims following a fire in an empty building, and the financial consequences of an uninsured loss of a substantial commercial property are significant. Responsible persons managing vacant premises should review their insurance policy conditions carefully and ensure they understand what is required of them, quite apart from their duties under fire safety law.
What the Crewe case adds to our understanding of deliberate fire risk
There is a tendency, in discussions of arson risk, to focus on the motivated, premeditated offender, whether that is a competitor seeking to damage a rival business, a tenant in dispute with a landlord, or a politically motivated actor targeting a particular type of premises. Those types of deliberate fire do occur, and our article on protecting commercial premises from arson covers the management of that risk in detail. What the Crewe printworks case illustrates, with an unusual degree of clarity given the level of detail that emerged during the criminal proceedings, is the opportunistic end of the deliberate fire spectrum: two young men who entered an accessible, combustible, and unmonitored building and set fire to what they found inside, apparently without any particular motive beyond the act itself, and with a degree of indifference to the consequences that the footage on Keeling's phone and his subsequent BBC interview together serve to underline.
Opportunistic arson of this kind is not easier to prevent than motivated arson, but the prevention measures are in some respects more straightforward to implement, because they are largely a matter of removing the conditions that make the target attractive rather than identifying and managing a specific threat. A building that cannot be easily entered, that contains no readily ignitable material, that is well-lit and monitored, and that shows visible evidence of active management is a considerably less attractive target for opportunistic fire-raising than one that presents as abandoned, accessible, and full of combustible material. The Communisis building, in August 2024, presented as all of those things, and the fire that resulted displaced a community and consumed the resources of the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service for the better part of a week.
We work with clients in Crewe and across the wider Cheshire area who manage premises at various stages of occupancy, including buildings that are between tenancies, undergoing refurbishment, or being held pending sale or redevelopment, and the fire risk management of those properties in their vacant or transitional state is something we take seriously. The Communisis case is a reminder that the fire risk to a vacant building is not a theoretical future risk to be managed when the building is eventually brought back into use, but a present and specific risk that demands active management from the moment the building becomes empty. If you manage vacant or partially occupied commercial premises in Crewe, across Cheshire, or in the wider North West, we would be glad to discuss your current arrangements with you.
Practical steps for responsible persons managing vacant premises
- Commission a vacant premises fire risk assessment immediately As soon as a building becomes vacant, the existing fire risk assessment should be reviewed and updated to reflect the changed risk profile, with particular attention to access control vulnerabilities, the combustible loading inside and around the building, the condition of passive fire protection elements such as fire doors and compartment walls, and the arrangements for monitoring and inspection. A building that was last assessed while it was occupied and fully staffed is being managed against the wrong assessment the moment it becomes vacant, and the gap between what the assessment assumes and what the building's actual risk profile is becomes wider with every week that passes.
- Secure all access points to a standard appropriate for a building with no natural surveillance Every door, window, roof access point, and boundary gap that could provide entry to an unauthorised person should be assessed and secured to a standard that reflects the absence of occupancy rather than the arrangements that worked when staff were present. Boarding, robust padlocking, perimeter fencing, and security lighting across all elevations are the basic components of a vacant building security regime, and their adequacy should be checked on every physical inspection rather than assumed to remain constant between visits.
- Remove all combustible material from the interior Cardboard, timber, paper, packaging, abandoned furniture, insulation, and any other readily ignitable material should be cleared from the building as a priority task, because combustible material inside a vacant building is both a resource for anyone who gains access with the intent to start a fire and a hazard that can turn a small ignition into a large and rapidly developing blaze before anyone outside is aware of it. This is not a one-time task, since derelict buildings tend to reaccumulate material through various means over time, and it should be repeated as part of each scheduled inspection.
- Manage external combustible loading with the same rigour as internal Bins, skips, timber, overgrown vegetation, and any other combustible material immediately adjacent to the building's external walls should be removed or relocated, because a fire started against the outside of a building can develop into a structural fire without requiring anyone to enter the building at all, and the proximity of most town centre industrial sites to residential streets means that the consequences of an external fire spreading to the building are not limited to the building itself.
- Establish a documented inspection regime and stick to it Regular physical inspection of the building, carried out on a defined schedule and recorded in a form that demonstrates the responsible person's active engagement with the property's condition, is the mechanism by which deteriorating access controls, accumulating combustibles, and evidence of unauthorised entry are identified and addressed before they result in a fire. The frequency of inspection should be proportionate to the risk profile of the building and its surroundings, and the record of inspections should be maintained as part of the fire safety documentation that would need to be produced if the responsible person's management of the property were ever scrutinised.
- Review your insurance policy conditions and comply with them Vacant premises conditions in commercial property insurance policies vary considerably between insurers and policy types, but they commonly require notification of vacancy, maintenance of specific security standards, isolation of utilities, and regular inspection, and failure to comply with those conditions is a common ground for claim refusal following a fire in an empty building. Understanding what your policy requires and ensuring that your management of the vacant building actually meets those requirements is an essential step that is frequently overlooked in the period immediately following a building becoming vacant, when operational priorities tend to dominate attention.
The sentencing of Evans and Keeling at Chester Crown Court in May 2025 brought a degree of accountability for what happened on Catherine Street on 9 August 2024, and the sentences they received reflect the seriousness with which the courts regard deliberate fire in circumstances where life is put at risk. But criminal accountability after the event, however appropriate, does not restore the properties that were damaged, return the weeks that displaced residents spent away from their homes, or undo the impact on the firefighters who attended what the Assistant Chief Fire Officer described as a scene that continued to affect some of those involved long after the flames were out. The better outcome, as it always is with deliberate fire, is the one where the conditions that made the incident possible are not allowed to develop in the first place.
If you are responsible for vacant or transitional commercial premises in Crewe, across Cheshire, or anywhere in our coverage area across the North West and North Wales, and you would like to discuss the fire risk arrangements for those properties, please get in touch. We carry out fire risk assessments for vacant and transitional premises, and we can help you understand what your current arrangements do and do not cover.
Managing a vacant or transitional commercial building?
We carry out fire risk assessments for vacant premises, properties between tenancies, and buildings undergoing refurbishment across Cheshire, the Wirral, and the North West. If you would like to discuss the fire risk arrangements for a building you manage, please get in touch.
Get in touch Fire Risk Assessments Offices & Commercial Arson PreventionThis article draws on publicly reported information about the Crewe printworks fire of 9 August 2024 and the subsequent criminal proceedings, including reporting by Crewe Nub News, the Chester Standard, and Cheshire Constabulary. The fire risk management commentary is general guidance and does not constitute legal advice. Fletcher Risk Management Ltd is based in Chester and provides fire risk assessments, fire door inspections, and fire safety training across the North West and North Wales.