UK Building Fire Trends: After Grenfell, a Slow Repair

A high-rise tower block burning at dawn, seen across west London
Grenfell Tower burning in the early hours of 14 June 2017. 72 people died. Photo: Natalie Oxford via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
Recent rise, slow remediationUpdated 4 October 2026

Trend summary

  • Fires in workplaces, shops, hospitals, schools and other non-home buildings are rarer than home fires and kill far fewer people. In Britain the bigger story is the buildings people live in above the ground floor.
  • English fire services attended 13,679 fires in “other buildings” in the year to March 2026, up 3.7%. That is 15% more than five years earlier, but 15% fewer than ten years earlier.
  • Since the Grenfell Tower fire, the government has tracked high-rise blocks with unsafe cladding. At the end of August 2026, 4,724 buildings were on the list and only 39% had been fully fixed.
  • Inspections keep finding problems: 40% of fire safety audits in England in 2025-26 were unsatisfactory.
13,679fires in non-domestic buildings, England, year to March 2026
17deaths in those fires (14 the year before)
4,72411m+ residential blocks with unsafe cladding, Aug 2026
39%of those blocks fully remediated

What the numbers show

England’s fire statistics count “other buildings” separately from homes: workplaces, shops, hospitals, schools, care homes and farm buildings. MHCLG recorded 13,679 such fires in the year ending March 2026, with 17 deaths and 991 non-fatal casualties. Fires in blocks of flats are counted as dwelling fires, so they appear on our home fires page instead.

The cladding programme is measured in buildings. At the end of August 2026 the monthly remediation data listed 4,724 residential buildings of 11 metres or more with unsafe cladding, holding an estimated 250,000 homes. 54% had started or finished work and 39% had finished. A year earlier the completed share was 35%. The total number of buildings is not comparable over time, because social-sector blocks were re-categorised in December 2025.

What is driving it

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that companies involved in the tower’s refurbishment put profit ahead of safety and that some concealed how flammable their products were, alongside failures in product testing and regulation. The government accepted all 58 of its Phase 2 recommendations.

Progress is uneven. Blocks with the aluminium composite cladding used at Grenfell are 97% started or completed, but buildings in the later Cladding Safety Scheme are only 28% of the way there. Inspection also matters: fire safety audits found 40% of premises unsatisfactory, and prohibition notices rose 27%. Space heaters were the largest known cause of deaths in non-domestic building fires (29%).

Recent cases

  • 13 May 2026: the King’s Speech announces a Remediation Bill to speed up work on homes with unsafe cladding (GOV.UK).
  • 27 January 2026: the Building Safety Regulator leaves the Health and Safety Executive and becomes a standalone body, a step towards a single construction regulator (GOV.UK).
  • 26 February 2025: the government responds in full to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report (GOV.UK).

Press releases and official reports, 2023–2026

Five key releases a year for the last four years, newest first. Most come from UK government departments, regulators, accident investigators and national statistics; a few news reports are included where they are the clearest public record of an event. Releases from 2007–2022 are in the expandable list after 2023.

2026

2025

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2023

View 20 years of major UK building fire press releases (2007–2026)54 more from 2007–2022, up to five a year, newest first

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2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

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2010

Some early years list fewer than five items. Many UK government releases from that period are no longer online at their original addresses, and we only list items we could open and check.

Photo list

Firefighters and a fire engine at night outside a smoke-filled terrace building
File photo: West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service at a fire in an empty building in Littlehampton. Photo: HJ Mitchell via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
A historic art school building wrapped in scaffolding
File photo: the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh Building encased in scaffolding. It was badly damaged by fire in 2014 and gutted by a second fire in 2018. Photo: Paul Trafford 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. UK statistics are often published separately for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so we say which area each figure covers. Photos are public-domain, Creative Commons or Open Government Licence 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.