Solar panel fires in England: the official count against the fire services' own records
England's only national statistics on fires involving solar panels count a fraction of the fires the fire services themselves record, and ten of the 44 services, London among them, are not in the count at all. The reason is in the method: no question in the national incident system offers a solar panel as an answer, so the count is a word search of a free-text box that some services leave empty.
The official series
MHCLG's table A37 counts fires in England whose Incident Recording System report mentions a solar or photovoltaic panel in its free-text box. Published 29 January 2026, consistent with records received by 15 August 2025. The 2025 bar covers January to June only.
Bars: the official count by calendar year (MHCLG table A37). Dots: the fire services' own counts for 2022, 2023 and 2024 from QBE's round of Freedom of Information requests, answered by 37 of the 49 UK services (QBE, 3 November 2025).
Service by service
For each service that has published its own answer to a Freedom of Information request covering every kind of property for a whole calendar year: the official count for that service, then the service's own count. "Not in table" means the service does not appear in the official file at all. The 2025 official figure covers January to June; the service figures for 2025 are the full year where given.
| Service | 2022 official | 2022 service | 2023 official | 2023 service | 2024 official | 2024 service | 2025 official (Jan to Jun) | 2025 service | The service's answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London Fire Brigade | not in table | 10 | not in table | 13 | not in table | 23 | not in table | no answer | FOIA 8993.1 (second response) |
| Essex County Fire and Rescue Service | 3 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | EIR 1806 |
| Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service | not in table | 2 | not in table | 2 | not in table | 3 | not in table | 2 | FOI 1633 |
| West Midlands Fire Service | not in table | 1 | not in table | no answer | not in table | no answer | not in table | no answer | FOI 23086 |
| Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 511 02 26 |
| Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | FOI 7155 |
| Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service | 0 | 2 | 2 | no answer | 0 | no answer | 1 | no answer | FOI 1888 |
| North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | no answer | 0091.2025-26 |
| Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service | 1 | 2 | 1 | no answer | 1 | no answer | 6 | no answer | NFRS 2023 40 |
| Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue (Lincolnshire County Council) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 10 | FOI 15568025 |
| Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service | 0 | 2 | 1 | no answer | 6 | no answer | 1 | no answer | FOI 054 23-24 |
| Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service | not in table | 0 | not in table | 3 | not in table | 2 | not in table | no answer | 2025-0076 |
| Bedfordshire FRS | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | FOI 4133 (KB 322, Solar Panel Fires, QBE questionnaire) |
| Suffolk FRS | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | FOI 26950 |
| Cornwall FRS | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 0 | no answer | FOI IAQ1Q741-101007793799 ('Solar Panels' + 'Solar Panels Data') |
| Dorset and Wiltshire FRS | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 11 | FOI 26 54 (Solar panel fires 2022 - 2025, QBE questionnaire) |
| Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (not England) | n/a | 1 | n/a | 3 | n/a | 0 | n/a | 5 | FOI 207-25-26 |
For the 9 services that are in the official file and have published an answer for each of 2022, 2023 and 2024, the services count 18, 23 and 35 fires. The official table counts 9, 10 and 13 for the same services.
Download the comparison as CSV. The official file as published: MHCLG table A37 (Excel).
The ten services missing from the official count
- Cleveland
- Greater London (London Fire Brigade)
- Isles of Scilly
- Kent
- Northamptonshire
- Royal Berkshire
- Shropshire
- Staffordshire
- Warwickshire
- West Midlands
MHCLG's own note explains the absences: "We are aware that some Fire and Rescue Services do not supply any information in the additional information box to the Home Office, so would not be included in these figures." London Fire Brigade's own answer counts 23 fires started by solar panels in 2024 up to the date of its response, 7 October 2024, and 72 since 2018. On the official figures, London has had none since 2010.
Why the two counts differ
Both count fires involving solar panels, not fires caused by them. The difference is where the words are looked for.
- No question in the national Incident Recording System has a solar or photovoltaic panel as an option. MHCLG's note: "Neither solar or photovoltaic panels are options in any of the questions in the IRS."
- The official count searches one free-text box for a fixed list of phrases. A misspelling is missed, and a service that sends nothing in that box sends nothing to count.
- The services' own answers search their own incident systems, which hold more than the box sent to the national system: the narrative, the ignition source, the equipment involved.
- Two answers from the same service can differ for the same year, because each is a different search of the same records. Dorset and Wiltshire's two answers give 11 and 12 for 2025. Where that happens the table shows the latest answer that covers every property type for the whole year.
- A mention is not involvement. MHCLG's note gives the example of a report saying the fire did not reach the solar panel. The services' answers carry the same limit unless they say otherwise.
What this means
The official statistics cannot say how many fires involve solar panels in England, where they happen, or whether they are rising. The fire services can, one answer at a time, and their answers show a rise in most of the areas that have published one. A single question in the incident recording system, asking whether a solar PV system was involved, would turn a word search into a count.
The services' answers also say where the fires start, which the official count cannot. In QBE's round, the 2024 fires with a recorded origin began in the inverter (21), on the panel (20), in the DC cabling (16) or in a battery bank (12): more in the electrical parts of the system than in the panels. 97 of the 171 were at residential buildings, 27 at commercial properties, 17 at solar farms and 10 at industrial buildings.
The register records the incidents behind these numbers where they were reported in public: solar PV incidents in the United Kingdom, each with its sources. That is a register of reported incidents, not a count of all fires, and it is never used as one here.
Sources and method
- MHCLG, Fire and rescue incident statistics, ad hoc table A37: Number of fires in England with "solar panel" or "photovoltaic panel" mentioned in the additional information free text, published 29 January 2026 (first published 26 October 2023). The "Data" sheet gives the count by fire and rescue service and calendar year, 2010 to June 2025.
- The fire services' answers: each is linked in the table. They were collected from the services' own published disclosure logs on 29 September 2026; nothing was requested from any service for this page. Counts are the latest published answer covering all property types for the whole calendar year.
- QBE's round of requests to all 49 UK services: 37 answered; 107 fires in 2022, 128 in 2023, 171 in 2024, published 3 November 2025.
- England has 44 fire and rescue services. The official file names 34 of them.
- Nothing on this page attributes a fire to a manufacturer, an installer or a scheme, and no person is named.
Page built from the data files on 2 October 2026. Corrections: how to report one.