AliDeck extend UK Balcony Fires Report 2017 to 2020 with new data from Fire and Rescue Services covering 2020 to 2021

Last year, AliDeck made an important contribution to the national debate on fire safety in the external envelope of multi-occupancy buildings with the publication of our UK Balcony Fires Report 2017 to 2020. This report collated data from UK Fire and Rescue Services on the prevalence and causes of balcony fires across our nation.

The results were shocking; at least 873 fires on balconies were recorded nationally across the period, with almost half of them caused by smoking materials such as carelessly discarded cigarettes.

This stark revelation underlined the urgent need to remove combustible materials from balconies to minimise the risk of catastrophic fires in high, medium and low-rise buildings with balconies. With the ongoing cladding crisis and failing EWS1 scheme causing chaos in the housing sector, the fire safety of balconies is a key issue and is a core part of the problems that leaseholders and building owners are facing.

One year on from the launch of the Balcony Fires Report, we are pleased to announce the addition of the 2021/2021 update, with new data collated from Fire & Rescue services around the UK, to whom we posed the following questions;

How many fires involving balconies occurred between 1st August 2020 and 31st July 2021?

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Please provide data on the causes of any fires that started on balconies (ie; barbecue, discarded cigarette, electrical appliance fault, etc) and please provide the number of occurrences for each cause.

Once again, the results are genuinely shocking; a grand total of at least 213 fires on balconies were recorded nationally between August 2020 and July 2021, with almost half of them again being caused by smoking materials.

In addition to the 104 smoking-related fires, 47 of the 213 recorded fires were identified as of man-made origin; 18 by arson, 8 by use of candles, and 21 due to barbecues on balconies.

With nearly three quarters of fires on balconies, then, being clearly due to reckless human actions, it is clear that the main preventative measure that can be taken is for building owners and property managers to ensure that balconies are as fire safe as possible and that combustible materials, such as timber or composite decking, are removed and replaced with non-combustible alternatives.

Richard Izzard, AliDeck managing director, said “We have been beating this drum for a long time now, that construction materials on balconies must be non-combustible; not only to achieve compliance with regulations and Government building safety advice but to help protect against the risk of major fires.”

“The Balcony Fires Report that we published last year highlighted the human factor in the majority of balcony fires and that trend is repeated in this new data. Changing human behaviour to achieve fire safety should certainly be a goal to work towards but the reality is that the surest route to fire safe balconies is to use non-combustible materials.”