Roof-space fire involving a solar inverter at a house in Ferndown
Mar 2023Published 28 Sept 2026
- Where
- property on Westwood Avenue in Ferndown
- What
- roof-space fire involving solar inverter
- Injuries
- None reported
- Response
- firefighters from Ferndown, Redhill Park, Poole and Ringwood extinguished fire
- Cause
- Not reported
What happened
On 27 March 2023, on-call firefighters from Ferndown and wholetime firefighters from Redhill Park attended a fire at a property on Westwood Avenue in Ferndown. On arrival the property was well alight, and two further fire engines were requested from Poole and Ringwood. The fire in the roof space involved the inverter for the property's rooftop solar PV panels. Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus extinguished it with a hose-reel jet and a main line. No injuries were reported. A building control officer from Dorset Council was requested to inspect the integrity of the roof structure.
Contributing factors
The fire service reported that the roof-space fire involved the inverter. It did not report how the fire started, or whether the inverter failed.
Lessons learned
- A roof-space fire involving a solar inverter can be well developed on arrival, so operators should fit clear rooftop PV isolation points.
- An inverter in a roof void is hard to reach, so crews may need breathing apparatus plus hose-reel and main line.
- After a roof fire involving solar equipment a building control officer must inspect roof structure integrity before re-use.
Not yet known
- How the fire started
- Inverter model and age
- Cost of damage and downtime
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Source
Other entries that name Ferndown
Published 2026-09-28. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.