London Fire Brigade figures for 2025 make sobering reading. Firefighters attended 206 e-bike and e-scooter fires across the capital last year — an average of one every other day. Two people died. Since 2023, that fatality figure now stands at five. In every one of those five deaths, the person killed did not own the e-bike involved.
That last point matters enormously for anyone managing residential property. These are not accidents that only affect the rider. They're happening in shared hallways, communal stairwells and residential blocks, and the people paying the price are often neighbours, family members and other residents who had no involvement with the device at all.
Where the risk is concentrated
Lewisham and Southwark recorded the highest number of incidents in 2025, with 16 each, followed by Tower Hamlets, Lambeth and Westminster. But this isn't a problem confined to a handful of boroughs — it's a London-wide trend, and the underlying causes apply just as much to a converted HMO in Surrey as they do to a tower block in east London. London Fire Brigade data shows these fires occur disproportionately in high-rise residential premises and social housing, which should be of particular concern to anyone managing blocks of flats, HMOs or supported housing.
Around 83% of the fires involved e-bikes rather than e-scooters. Investigations consistently point to the same root causes: lithium-ion battery failure, unregulated conversion kits, and incompatible or faulty chargers. Batteries bought online — whether new or second-hand — that don't meet UK safety standards are especially prone to failure. A significant proportion of e-bike fires involve conversion kits, which typically have no product safety standard applied to them at all, and often leave the end user guessing which battery and charger combination is safe to use.
Why this is now a landlord's problem, not just a rider's
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Responsible Person for a building — typically the landlord, freeholder or managing agent — has a legal duty to identify fire hazards affecting the common parts and the building as a whole, and to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk to occupants. Lithium-ion battery fires from e-bikes and e-scooters are now firmly within scope of that duty.
In practical terms, that means your fire risk assessment should explicitly consider:
- Whether e-bikes or e-scooters are being stored or charged in communal areas, hallways, or escape routes
- Whether current storage arrangements could obstruct a means of escape in the event of fire
- What information tenants have been given about safe charging and storage
- Whether the building's fire strategy and evacuation procedures account for a fast-developing battery fire, which can produce intense heat and toxic smoke within seconds of thermal runaway beginning
A number of the fatal and serious incidents recorded by London Fire Brigade have involved bikes or batteries stored in communal hallways, precisely because that's often the only practical charging point available to residents in flats without private storage. If your building has this issue, it needs addressing directly rather than left as an informal arrangement between tenants.
Practical steps for landlords and managing agents
Recognising the risk is the easy part. Managing it effectively means:
- Reviewing and updating fire risk assessments specifically to address lithium-ion battery storage and charging, rather than treating it as a generic electrical risk
- Making clear in tenancy agreements or building rules where e-bikes and e-scooters may and may not be stored or charged
- Providing, where practical, a dedicated and appropriately ventilated charging area away from escape routes
- Communicating clearly with residents about the dangers of counterfeit batteries, incompatible chargers and unregulated conversion kits
- Ensuring escape routes and communal areas are never used for storage or charging under any circumstances
The Government has been under sustained pressure from London Fire Brigade to introduce stronger product safety regulation for e-bikes, e-scooters and conversion kits, and further legislation is expected. But regulation of the products themselves won't reduce a landlord's own legal duties in the meantime, and enforcement action following a serious fire will look closely at what the Responsible Person knew and what they did about it.
Having spent 26 years in the fire service, I've attended incidents where a fire that started with a single battery in a hallway spread with a speed that caught everyone by surprise. Lithium-ion fires behave differently to conventional fires — they can escalate from nothing to fully involved in under a minute, and they're notoriously difficult to extinguish once thermal runaway sets in. Prevention, not response, is where the real protection lies.
If it's been a while since your fire risk assessment specifically addressed e-bike and e-scooter charging, now is a sensible time to have it reviewed. Whale Fire carries out fire risk assessments across residential and commercial premises and can help you identify where this emerging risk applies to your building. For all London Fire Risk Assessments please contact us at Contact Us - Whale Fire
