A fire breaks out overnight in a rear yard. There is no obvious electrical fault. No cooking equipment, no accidental ignition source. The investigation finds burn marks in two separate locations — and accelerant residue near the bins. The building is significantly damaged, the business is closed for six weeks, and the fire investigation report records a verdict of "deliberate ignition by a person or persons unknown."
This scenario plays out across the UK every single day. According to Home Office data, between 45 and 50% of all fires attended by UK fire and rescue services involve deliberate fire-setting. In the year to March 2024, nearly 1,100 deliberate fires were recorded across commercial sectors in England alone — hospitality, healthcare, industrial premises, retail and education. The hospitality sector saw close to 400 arson incidents; retail premises suffered 196 attacks; and industrial sites are among the most frequently targeted of all.
Unlike accidental fires, arson does not respect your detection systems, your housekeeping standards or your maintenance schedule. It exploits the gaps in how your site is managed — and it is, in most cases, entirely preventable.
Who Sets Fires Deliberately, and Why
This is the question that trips most responsible persons up. The assumption is that arson means a targeted attack — someone with a grievance, a rival, an act of revenge. In reality, the majority of arson attacks on commercial premises are opportunistic. An unlit rear yard. Bins left out overnight against a building wall. An unsecured gate. A blind spot with no camera coverage. Someone passing — drunk, bored, or simply presented with an easy opportunity — and acting on impulse.
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service puts it plainly: arson is the most common cause of fire in commercial and retail premises, and most attacks are unplanned and opportunistic.
That said, the landscape of deliberate fire-setting is broader than many commercial occupiers appreciate. Motivations include vandalism and antisocial behaviour; personal grievances against a business, its owner or its staff; insurance fraud — fires deliberately set to generate a claim; covering up a separate crime such as a burglary or theft; and, at the more serious end of the spectrum, ideologically or politically motivated attacks. The Leyton warehouse case below illustrates just how far that last category can extend.
Warning Signs You Should Not Ignore
Many serious arson attacks are preceded by smaller incidents that were not followed up. Responsible persons should treat the following as active warning signs warranting police contact and a review of site security: unexplained small fires or scorch marks, particularly in rear yards, service areas or bin compounds; evidence of attempted forced entry; graffiti or vandalism, which often signals a pattern of escalating antisocial behaviour; reports from staff of suspicious loitering, particularly outside normal hours; and fly-tipping of combustible waste on or adjacent to your site.
The principle here is straightforward: arsonists frequently reconnoitre before they act. They identify weak points in access, lighting and visibility. If something feels wrong, it probably is — and acting on that instinct before an incident is always preferable to acting after one.
Why Arson Risk Must Sit Inside Your Fire Risk Assessment
There is no specific legal requirement for a separate arson prevention plan, but the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires responsible persons to identify all credible ignition sources in their premises — and arson is a credible ignition source in virtually every commercial building in the UK. PAS 79-1, the code of practice for fire risk assessments in non-domestic premises, explicitly lists "malicious ignition" as a source of fire that must be considered.
In practice, this means your fire risk assessment should assess the probability of deliberate fire-setting at your specific premises based on factors including: your location and the crime profile of the surrounding area; the nature of your business and whether it could attract hostile attention; the accessibility of your site and the ease with which someone could approach undetected; and the quantity and positioning of combustible materials, particularly waste.
If your FRA does not address arson, it is incomplete. Our post on how often a fire risk assessment should be reviewed covers when a reassessment is triggered — a change in local crime patterns or antisocial behaviour should prompt a review just as much as a change to the building itself.
The Leyton Warehouse Fire: A Reminder That Arson Can Come from Anywhere
On 20 March 2024, a warehouse on an industrial estate in Leyton, east London, was deliberately set alight by a group of men who had been recruited — via Telegram — by operatives acting on behalf of Russia's Wagner Group. The warehouse belonged to a Ukrainian couple and was being used to store Starlink satellite terminals and humanitarian aid bound for Ukraine. Sixty firefighters from eight fire crews attended. The damage ran to approximately £1 million.
What makes this case instructive for commercial property managers is not the geopolitical dimension — it is the mechanics. The perpetrators were not professional operatives. They were young men recruited online, motivated largely by the promise of cash. They arrived by car, climbed over a wall, used a jerry can of petrol, and were gone in minutes. The warehouse owners had no reason to believe they were a target. Their site had no particular security vulnerability. They were caught — eventually — because of CCTV on surrounding streets and phone data. But the building was already destroyed.
In October 2025, Dylan Earl, the ringleader, was sentenced to 17 years in prison. His co-conspirators received sentences ranging from seven to twelve years. The judge described the plot as a "planned campaign of terrorism and sabotage in the interests of the Russian state."
Five men — Jake Reeves, Dylan Earl, Nii Mensah, Jakeem Rose and Ugnius Asmena — were jailed for a combined total of 53 years for their roles in a Russian state-directed arson attack on a warehouse in east London storing humanitarian aid and equipment destined for Ukraine. Recruited through encrypted messaging apps and directed from overseas, the gang was traced back to the Wagner Group by Counter Terrorism Policing investigators. Earl and Reeves were the first people convicted under the National Security Act 2023. Full details at counterterrorism.police.uk.
The point is not that every commercial premises faces a state-sponsored arson threat. The vast majority do not. But the Leyton case is a useful corrective to the assumption that arson is always random, always low-level, and always about opportunism. Deliberate fires can be planned, targeted and sophisticated — and the fact that most are not does not mean yours won't be.
What Good Arson Prevention Looks Like in Practice
After a Fire: If You Suspect Arson
If a fire occurs on your premises and you have any reason to suspect it was deliberate — multiple ignition points, accelerant smells, absence of any accidental cause, suspicious activity reported beforehand — you have a responsibility to report it to the police, not just the fire service. The fire investigation officer will make their own assessment, but your information matters and should be provided promptly.
Preserve evidence where it is safe to do so. Do not allow the site to be cleaned up before investigators have attended. And review your CCTV footage immediately — it deteriorates or is overwritten quickly, and it is often the most valuable piece of evidence available.
Our post on what to do after a small fire covers the immediate steps in more detail. Even a fire that appears minor should be treated seriously — as noted above, small fires are frequently a precursor to more serious attacks.
Arson and Your Fire Risk Assessment
The practical measures above are only as effective as the framework they sit within. Arson prevention should not be a standalone policy document that gets reviewed once and filed away — it should be a live component of your fire risk assessment, updated whenever your circumstances change.
That means revisiting arson risk when: your site's occupancy or use changes; there is a change in the local crime profile or a pattern of nearby incidents; you carry out significant works on the building (which typically increase vulnerability — see our post on fire safety during refurbishments); or when your existing controls are found to be inadequate following an incident or near-miss.
Our post on Swiss Cheese Theory and fire safety is relevant here — arson incidents almost always succeed because several small vulnerabilities align simultaneously. A broken gate, an unmaintained light, bins left out, no CCTV coverage. Each on its own is manageable. Together, they provide everything an opportunist needs.
We work with commercial property owners, offices and commercial premises, warehouses and industrial sites, and hotels and hospitality venues across Chester, the North West and North Wales. If arson has not been properly assessed within your current fire risk assessment, or if you are unsure whether your controls remain appropriate, we can help.
Is arson risk properly covered in your fire risk assessment?
We carry out thorough, professionally qualified fire risk assessments for commercial premises across Chester, the North West and North Wales — with arson assessed as a live, site-specific risk, not a boilerplate afterthought.