E-bike battery fire deaths have claimed 18 lives and left nearly 700 people injured across the UK since 2019, according to data gathered through Freedom of Information requests by BBC Verify. More than 2,000 fires were started by e-bikes, e-scooters or their batteries over that period, with the number of incidents rising year-on-year.
E-bike Battery Fire Deaths: The Scale of the Problem
The FOI requests, sent to all 49 fire and rescue services in the UK, found that fires from these vehicles have grown from 32 incidents in 2019 to 605 in 2025. Forty-one services provided comparable responses. Nearly half the fires started in homes or garages.
Urban areas recorded the highest numbers. London fire and rescue services logged 793 incidents over the seven-year period, followed by Manchester with 128, West Yorkshire with 93, Merseyside with 74 and Avon with 73.
Fatalities recorded by fire and rescue services include cases where people became trapped inside burning homes, died while attempting to escape through high windows, or from inhaling toxic smoke.
Regulators Step Up Enforcement
Enforcement action has been under way for several years. According to the Office for Product Safety and Standards, enforcement activities since 2022 have led to 21 product recalls and 29 Product Safety notices relating to e-bikes, e-scooters and lithium-ion batteries. The government’s ‘Buy Safe, Be Safe’ campaign advises consumers to look for UKCE or CE product safety marks when purchasing these vehicles.
Separately, E-in the Zone reports that the Metropolitan Police recorded 2,741 seizures of illegal e-bikes and e-scooters across 2025 and 2026 combined, reflecting the scale of unregulated vehicles on UK streets.
Any lithium-ion battery sold in the UK for these vehicles must meet government safety requirements covering charging, overheating and protection from damage. The government said it is also strengthening the responsibilities of online marketplaces and working with local authorities to remove unsafe products from sale.
The Fire Risk Explained
London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner Pam Oparaocha told BBC Verify the service is ‘increasingly concerned by the significant fire risk’ some vehicles can pose. ‘From our investigations we know many of the fires we’ve attended have involved second-hand vehicles or the bike has been modified using parts bought online,’ she said. ‘We urge people to be extremely careful about where they buy their e-bike or e-scooter from.’
Dr Simon Jones at the University of Warwick, who led research into the safety of e-bike and e-scooter batteries for the Office for Product Safety and Standards, told BBC Verify that lithium-ion batteries are useful because they store a large amount of energy in a small space. ‘However, if these batteries are faulty, over-charged or damaged, the stored energy may be released rapidly in the form of flame jets and burning projectiles,’ he said. ‘If this occurs in the home this is likely to result in a fast spreading fire that can engulf a room in seconds and block escape routes, trapping people inside. These fires also release toxic fumes from the batteries that pose a serious risk to health.’
Survivors and Victims
Jahmell Campbell, 24, from London, said when his e-scooter caught fire ‘it was the loudest explosion I’d ever heard’. He was at his grandmother’s home in Hither Green in March last year when the vehicle burst into flames by the front door. ‘The only way out was through the window, so I jumped straight out,’ he said.
His grandmother was initially trapped. Campbell’s father threw a blanket down for her. ‘My dad had to throw her out the window and we had to catch her,’ he said. His grandmother suffered minor injuries after hitting a windowsill. The flat, where she had lived for over 20 years, was destroyed. Six fire engines attended the blaze.
Among the fatal cases documented by coroners was eight-year-old Luke Albiston-O’Donnell from Birkenhead, who died after inhaling toxic fumes from a house fire caused by an e-bike battery on charge in 2024. Coroner Anita Bhardwaj warned following the inquest: ‘The general public do not appreciate the life-threatening risks involved with having lithium-ion batteries, from electronic bikes in this case, stored in domestic properties.’
Mohsin Janjua, 28, from Bradford, died in similar circumstances in 2023. Later investigations found a ‘catastrophic failure’ of the battery in an e-bike conversion kit purchased online from China was ‘more likely than not’ responsible for the fire.
Industry and Online Marketplaces
An average of 153,000 new e-bikes have been added to UK roads each year since 2020, according to the Bicycle Association. New e-bikes range from around £400 to £4,000 in high street retailers, while second-hand vehicles and unregulated conversion kits can be found on online marketplaces for as little as £150.
Steve Garidis from the Bicycle Association said retailers have invested in developing safe and legal e-bikes but that work can be ‘undermined by illegal and unsafe products often sold through online marketplaces to unsuspecting consumers’. The Bicycle Association and the Association of Cycle Traders have called on the government to crack down on the sale of unsafe products through online platforms. Several coroners have issued at least five Prevention of Future Deaths reports since 2023 with recommendations to improve public safety.
A government spokesperson said action includes ‘strengthening the responsibilities of online marketplaces to better protect consumers, working with local authorities to identify and remove unsafe products from sale, and helping people make informed choices through our Buy Safe, Be Safe campaign’. The Office for Product Safety and Standards’ recall and safety-notice programme, active since 2022, is set to continue as enforcement activity intensifies.
