E-bikes in communal corridors. Delivery scooters charged in stairwells. Power tools left on charge in plant rooms. Residents' laptops and devices running through the night in flats above yours. These are not hypothetical scenarios — they are daily realities in managed properties across the UK, and each one represents a fire risk that most fire risk assessments have not yet properly addressed.
UK fire services attended 1,330 lithium-ion battery fires in 2024, up from 690 in 2022 — a 93% increase in two years, according to FOI data compiled by insurer QBE. That is at least three lithium-ion battery fires every single day. And a separate survey by Aviva found that 71% of organisations had not updated their fire risk assessments to account for lithium-ion battery risks at all.
If you manage residential or commercial property, the question is no longer whether lithium-ion batteries present a risk in your building. They do. The question is whether you have done anything about it.
Why Lithium-Ion Fires Are Different
Most fires behave in ways that conventional fire safety measures are designed to handle. Lithium-ion battery fires do not. When a lithium-ion battery fails — through physical damage, overcharging, manufacturing defects, or simply age — it can enter a process called thermal runaway. The battery generates heat faster than it can dissipate it, releasing flammable and toxic gases, which then ignite. The fire burns extremely hot, spreads rapidly, and can reignite after appearing to be extinguished — sometimes hours later.
This is not a theoretical concern. It is why the National Fire Chiefs Council has flagged lithium-ion batteries as a priority risk, and why insurers are increasingly scrutinising how properties manage charging and storage of these devices.
Where the Risk Sits in Managed Properties
For property managers, the sources of lithium-ion battery risk are varied and, in many cases, largely outside your direct control — which makes managing them more demanding, not less.
E-bikes and e-scooters are the single biggest contributor, accounting for 27% of all lithium-ion battery fires recorded in 2024. Residents charging e-bikes in hallways, stairwells or communal cycle stores — particularly using non-original chargers or batteries converted from cheaper components — represent a significant and growing hazard. A single e-bike fire in a communal corridor can make an entire building's escape route impassable in minutes.
Electric vehicles parked in car parks and undercrofts introduce a different order of risk. EV fires increased by 77% between 2022 and 2024. They are extremely difficult to extinguish, can burn for extended periods, and the heat output can compromise the structural integrity of a car park or basement in ways that a conventional vehicle fire would not.
Personal devices — laptops, phones, tablets, power tools — are present in virtually every flat and office in your portfolio. Individually the risk from any one device is low, but the cumulative risk across a building, and the difficulty of managing resident behaviour, makes this a category that cannot be ignored in a well-structured fire risk assessment.
Mobility scooters deserve particular attention in buildings with older or disabled residents. Scooter fires rose 20% between 2022 and 2024, and the users most at risk are often the same people who would struggle to evacuate quickly in the event of a fire — a direct intersection with your PEEP obligations under the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025.
The Glasgow Union Street Fire: A Recent and Stark Example
On 8 March 2026, a fire broke out in a vape shop on Union Street in Glasgow city centre, directly adjacent to Glasgow Central Station — Scotland's busiest railway hub. What began as a small fire, with witnesses describing what appeared to be a charging unit under the counter as the likely starting point, escalated with devastating speed. Eyewitnesses and bystanders attempted to tackle the initial blaze with extinguishers and were forced back by explosions. The fire spread through the adjoining B-listed Victorian building — a structure that had stood since 1851 — causing partial collapse and blanketing the city in thick smoke. More than 200 firefighters attended. Glasgow Central Station was closed for several days.
The cause is still under formal investigation by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, but the fire is widely believed to have involved lithium-ion batteries from the vape stock and charging equipment held on the premises. Professor Guillermo Rein, Professor of Fire Science at Imperial College London, commented that if batteries were materially involved, it may not have been a conventional shop fire — noting that lithium-ion battery fires are unusually resistant to suppression, reignite readily, and in large numbers can create fire conditions that are extremely difficult to bring under control.
The video below captures the fire in its early stages on Union Street. Note how quickly the situation escalates and how little conventional suppression achieves once the fire takes hold.
The Union Street vape shop fire, Glasgow, 8 March 2026. A fire believed to involve lithium-ion batteries engulfed a historic five-storey Victorian building next to Glasgow Central Station, closing the station for several days and requiring over 200 firefighters to attend.
Your Obligations as a Responsible Person
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, you are required to ensure your fire risk assessment reflects the actual risks present in your building. Lithium-ion batteries are now a recognised risk — not an emerging one — and a survey finding that 71% of organisations have not updated their FRA to cover them is, frankly, a liability waiting to materialise.
An FRA that does not address lithium-ion battery storage and charging in your building is out of date. That is not a minor gap. It is the kind of gap that a fire investigation, an enforcement visit, or a civil claim will find. Our post on how often a fire risk assessment should be reviewed sets out when a review is triggered and what that process should involve.
Beyond the FRA, the practical steps available to property managers are more straightforward than many assume.
What Good Management Looks Like
Detection and Suppression: Know the Limits
Standard smoke detection may not respond quickly enough to a lithium-ion battery fire, particularly in storage areas or plant rooms where charging happens unattended. Heat detectors and specialist lithium-ion detection systems are worth considering in higher-risk areas such as cycle stores and EV charging bays. Our post on managing long-term fire alarm faults is relevant here — detection systems in charging areas need to be fully operational and regularly tested.
On suppression: conventional extinguishers have very limited effect once a battery enters full thermal runaway. Specialist lithium-ion suppression agents — such as encapsulating agents and specialist coolants — are increasingly available, but the more important point for most property managers is prevention. A battery fire that is caught early, before thermal runaway has taken hold, can be managed. One that has progressed cannot. Our post on what to do after a small fire covers the immediate steps and why even a contained incident needs to be taken seriously.
Our post on Swiss Cheese Theory and fire safety is relevant here — lithium-ion risk is exactly the kind of issue where a series of individually minor oversights can combine to create something catastrophic.
A Note on Insurance
Insurers are paying close attention to how property managers handle lithium-ion battery risk. If your buildings insurance does not explicitly address this, or if your policy contains conditions around fire risk assessment currency that your current FRA does not satisfy, you may find yourself in a difficult position following a claim. It is worth checking your policy wording and confirming with your broker that your current arrangements are adequate.
We work with property managers, HMO landlords and managing agents across Chester, the North West and North Wales to ensure their fire risk assessments reflect the risks that are actually present in their buildings — including the fast-changing picture around lithium-ion batteries. If your FRA has not been reviewed recently, or if you are unsure whether it adequately addresses this risk, get in touch.
Is your fire risk assessment up to date on lithium-ion battery risk?
We carry out thorough, professionally qualified fire risk assessments for managed residential and commercial properties across Chester, the North West and North Wales. If your current FRA doesn't reflect the lithium-ion risk in your building, we can help.