German Building Fire Trends: Large Losses Rising

Dark smoke rising from a large fire at a market hall complex in Berlin
File photo: smoke from a large fire at the Dong Xuan Center market halls in Berlin-Lichtenberg, May 2016. Photo: Andreas Trojak via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
Costs risingUpdated 6 October 2026

Trend summary

  • Germany has far fewer deadly fires than a generation ago, but each building fire now costs more, large industrial fires have become more expensive, and 2024–2026 brought a run of deadly fires in hospitals and care homes.
  • Home and building insurers paid €2.2 billion for about 320,000 fire claims in 2024, up from just over €1.5 billion for about 350,000 claims in 2019 (GDV, the German insurers’ association).
  • Large fire losses (over €1 million each) cost insurers €1.7 billion in 2023, a provisional figure, with 21 fires costing more than €20 million each, against 4 in 2022 (GDV).
  • Hospital and care-home fires killed at least four people in Uelzen (January 2024), three in Hamburg (June 2025) and two in Ludwigslust (July 2026); a care-home fire in Berlin-Kreuzberg in September 2026 killed one and injured at least 25.
€2.2bnpaid for about 320,000 home and building fire claims, Germany, 2024 (GDV)
€1.7bnlarge fire losses over €1 million, all insurance lines, Germany, 2023 (provisional)
21fires costing over €20 million each, Germany, 2023 (4 in 2022)
343deaths from smoke, fire and flames, Germany, 2019 (766 in 1980)

What the numbers show

Germany has no single national count of building fires. Each federal state (Land) runs its own fire services, so the clearest nationwide picture comes from insurers and from the cause-of-death statistics. The German insurers’ association GDV says household contents and residential building insurers paid about €2.2 billion for some 320,000 fire claims in 2024 (GDV, November 2025, in German). Its earlier releases give about 350,000 claims and just over €1.5 billion for 2019, about 300,000 and €1.6 billion for 2020, about 330,000 and just under €1.6 billion for 2021, and about 280,000 and about €2 billion for 2022. The number of fires has moved up and down, but the bill has risen steadily: the extra fires around Advent and Christmas cost a record average of €4,900 each in 2024, which the GDV puts down mainly to costly apartment fires.

Large fires in factories and businesses swing the totals. The GDV’s damage-prevention report puts large fire losses (each over €1 million, adjusted for inflation) at a provisional €1.7 billion in 2023, above the 20-year average of €1.5 billion and well up on €1.0 billion in 2022. The costliest single fire in 2023, at a precision metalworking plant, cost €175 million, and 21 fires each cost more than €20 million (GDV report 2023/2024, in German). Deaths have fallen over the long run: the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) recorded 343 deaths from smoke, fire and flames in 2019, down 56% from 766 in 1980 (FeuerTrutz, citing Destatis, in German). The fire-protection association vfdb now collects detailed reports of building fire call-outs from fire brigades to fill the gaps in official data (FeuerTrutz, September 2025, in German).

What is driving it

For businesses, the cost of a fire is driven by lost production as much as by the damage itself. The GDV warns that fires in recycling plants and refuse lorries are rising, partly because lithium-ion batteries thrown away with other waste catch fire when crushed (GDV, April 2025, in German). In September 2026 investigators blamed a battery for a fire at a recycling yard in Herdecke (WDR, in German), and a fire on an industrial estate in Freiburg in October 2025 destroyed about 60,000 square metres of businesses and caused at least €50 million of damage (TÜV SÜD review of 2025, in German).

The deadliest recent fires have hit buildings where people cannot easily escape on their own. After three people died in a fire at Hamburg’s Marienkrankenhaus in June 2025, experts asked whether hospitals should fit sprinklers (Der Spiegel, in German); after a fatal fire in a Reutlingen care home in January 2023, the patient protection foundation Stiftung Patientenschutz said there had been more than 140 fires in care homes for older people in 2022, killing 16 residents, and called for sprinklers (Der Spiegel, in German). High-rise safety has been checked since the Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017: Wuppertal emptied a tower with a flammable facade in June 2017, Dortmund cleared the 800-resident Hannibal complex that September and Duisburg cleared two towers in 2019 (DW). The federal building minister asked the states to find buildings at risk, and a list was passed to the Conference of State Building Ministers (Bauministerkonferenz) (WirtschaftsWoche, in German).

Recent cases

  • 1 October 2026: after a fire destroyed the vehicle hall of the volunteer fire brigade in Offenbach an der Queich, with seven vehicles lost and damage estimated at €5 million, it emerges that the hall had no fire detectors (SWR, in German).
  • 19 September 2026: a man dies and at least 25 people are injured, most with smoke poisoning, when fire breaks out in a patient’s room at a care facility in Berlin-Kreuzberg; about 160 firefighters attend (rbb24, citing Berlin Fire Brigade, in German).
  • 2 July 2026: two patients die when fire breaks out in a room at the Helene von Bülow hospital in Ludwigslust and spreads into the roof; many patients and staff are evacuated (DW).

Press releases and official reports, 2023–2026

Five key releases a year for the last four years, newest first. Most come from German federal and state government agencies, regulators, accident investigators and national statistics; a few news reports are included where they are the clearest public record of an event. Many official releases are published only in German; for those we give an English translation of the title and mark the link (in German). Releases from 2007–2022 are in the expandable list after 2023.

2026

2025

2024

2023

View 20 years of major German building fire press releases (2007–2026)46 more from 2007–2022, up to five a year, newest first

2022

2021

2020

2019

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2008

Some early years list fewer than five items. Many older German government releases are no longer online at their original addresses, and we only list items we could find and check.

Photo list

A Berlin fire brigade turntable ladder truck on a city street at night
File photo: a Berlin Fire Brigade turntable ladder in Wilmersdorf on New Year’s Eve, 2014. Photo: Sebastian Rittau via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
A large airport fire engine on display
File photo: an airport crash tender at a fire brigade show in Berlin, 2007. Photo: Steffen Zahn via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Related on ROR Labs

How this page is built. Figures come from the official statistical releases linked above; where agencies publish provisional numbers we say so, because they are revised. German statistics are often published separately by each federal state (Land) and some only in German, so we say which area and period each figure covers and translate titles. Photos are public-domain or Creative Commons images credited in each caption; file photos are illustrative and are not from the events described unless the caption says so. This page tracks trends and is not personal safety, medical, legal or financial advice.