E Bike and E Scooter Fire Risks: What Building Owners Need to Know in 2026
E-bikes and e-scooters have become a normal part of daily life in residential buildings across Chester and the wider region. They are also now one of the fastest-growing causes of serious fire incidents in those same buildings, and the risk is not particularly complex to understand — it comes down to batteries, charging habits, and where people store things overnight.
For building owners and responsible persons managing blocks of flats, HMOs, and other residential premises, e-bike and e-scooter fires represent a relatively new category of risk that has moved quickly from occasional news story to routine fire safety consideration. The London Fire Brigade attended hundreds of e-bike and e-scooter fires in 2023 alone, and the pattern across the country has been broadly consistent: fires that start quickly, spread aggressively, and generate toxic smoke volumes that make escape difficult. Understanding why this happens, and what practical steps can be taken to manage the risk in a residential building, is increasingly a core part of responsible fire safety management.
1. Lithium batteries fail in unpredictable ways
The lithium-ion batteries used in e-bikes and e-scooters store a significant amount of energy in a compact form, which is what makes them useful. It is also what makes them dangerous when something goes wrong. A battery that is damaged, overcharged, exposed to heat, or simply manufactured to a poor standard can enter a condition known as thermal runaway, in which internal temperature rises rapidly and uncontrollably, generating heat, flammable gas, and eventually fire. The process, once started, is very difficult to interrupt: the battery effectively feeds its own combustion, and the resulting fire is intense, fast-spreading, and produces large volumes of highly toxic smoke.
What makes this particularly relevant for building owners is that the fire does not behave like most fires in residential settings. It can develop from apparently normal conditions very quickly, and it can do so overnight while residents are asleep. Conventional fire extinguishers have limited effect on a lithium battery fire in thermal runaway. The practical implication is that the focus for responsible persons needs to be on prevention, storage, and early detection rather than on the expectation that the fire can be effectively fought once it has started.
This footage illustrates how rapidly a lithium battery fire can develop and spread. Shared for information only — inclusion does not imply endorsement.
2. Improvised charging is a leading cause of fires
A significant proportion of e-bike and e-scooter fires are linked to charging rather than to use, and improvised or inappropriate charging arrangements are a consistent factor. Residents charge batteries in bedrooms, corridors, kitchens, and shared escape routes — often overnight and unattended — using damaged chargers, cheap replacement batteries bought online, or multi-socket adaptors that were not designed to handle the sustained load of battery charging. Each of these behaviours increases the probability of a thermal event, and the combination of overnight charging in an escape route with a poor-quality charger represents about as unfavourable a set of conditions as it is possible to create in a residential building.
Building owners cannot fully control resident behaviour, but they can shape it. Clear, visible guidance on where charging is and is not permitted, communicated as part of tenancy documentation and reinforced with signage in communal areas, makes a meaningful difference. Residents who understand why the guidance exists, rather than simply receiving a prohibition, are more likely to follow it. The risk of a lithium battery fire, explained plainly, tends to be persuasive.
3. Storage location is often the most immediate problem
Even where residents are not actively charging, the storage of e-bikes and e-scooters in communal areas presents a significant risk. Hallways, lobbies, cupboards under stairs, and bin rooms are among the most common storage locations we encounter in buildings across the region, and they are also among the most problematic, because they sit directly within or adjacent to the escape routes that residents depend on in an emergency. A battery fire in a ground-floor hallway at two in the morning does not need to be a large fire to make the building's primary escape route impassable.
Where it is practicable, creating designated storage arrangements away from escape routes is the preferred approach. In some buildings the most defensible position is a clear policy prohibiting storage of e-bikes and e-scooters in communal areas altogether, particularly where the building's layout makes safe alternative storage difficult to provide. Whatever the arrangement, it should be reflected in the fire risk assessment and communicated clearly to residents, and communal areas should be checked regularly to ensure the policy is being observed.
Escape routes and e-bike storage: under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the responsible person has a duty to ensure that escape routes are kept clear and available for use at all times. An e-bike stored in a communal hallway is not simply a management inconvenience — it is a potential breach of that duty, and one that could attract enforcement attention if identified during an inspection.
4. Purpose-built charging and storage facilities
A growing number of residential buildings are now installing dedicated charging or storage facilities for e-bikes and e-scooters, and in buildings with significant numbers of cyclists this is increasingly sensible practice. A well-designed facility will typically incorporate fire-resisting construction to contain any incident, smoke or heat detection, automatic isolation of charging points, and secure racking to keep batteries stable and separated. None of this needs to be elaborate or expensive in proportion to the building, but it does need to be thought through properly rather than retrofitted as an afterthought.
For buildings where dedicated facilities are not currently feasible, the priority remains ensuring that whatever informal storage arrangements exist are as far removed from escape routes and sleeping areas as possible, and that residents are actively discouraged from charging batteries unattended overnight.
5. Resident communication
Many residents who own e-bikes and e-scooters are genuinely unaware of the severity of lithium battery fires, and straightforward information provided at the right moment — as part of a welcome pack, a tenancy update, or a brief communal notice — can shift behaviour in ways that enforcement-style notices rarely do. The key points to communicate are that batteries should not be charged in escape routes or left unattended while charging; that a battery which appears swollen, is running unusually hot, or has been physically damaged should not be charged or stored inside the building; and that only manufacturer-approved chargers and replacement parts should be used. These are not complex messages, but they need to be delivered clearly and repeated periodically rather than communicated once and forgotten.
6. Including e-bike risks in your fire risk assessment
E-bike and e-scooter use has changed the risk profile of many residential buildings over the past few years, and a fire risk assessment that was written before this became a common feature of building life may not adequately address it. A current assessment should consider the extent of e-bike and e-scooter use in the building, the storage and charging arrangements in place, the condition and location of escape routes, and what mitigating controls have been implemented. Documenting this clearly is also useful for insurers, a number of whom are now asking specific questions about lithium battery management in residential buildings, and for demonstrating to enforcing authorities that the risk has been actively managed rather than overlooked.
If your fire risk assessment is due for review, or if e-bike and e-scooter use in your building has increased significantly since it was last carried out, that review is worth prioritising. We work with building owners, managing agents, and landlords across Chester, the Wirral, Cheshire, North Wales, and the wider North West, and we are glad to help — please get in touch.
Concerned about e-bike fire risks in your building?
We carry out fire risk assessments for residential buildings, HMOs, and managed blocks across Chester, the Wirral, Cheshire, North Wales, and the wider North West.
This article is for general information only. It does not constitute legal advice or replace a formal fire risk assessment. Every building is different and responsible persons should seek professional guidance tailored to their specific property. Fletcher Risk Management Ltd accepts no liability for actions taken on the basis of this article without a full assessment of the premises.