Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what data his Department holds on the number of fire service call outs in response to fires involving solar panels in England for each of the last five years.

MHCLG collects data on incidents attended by Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) in England through the Incident Recording System (IRS), which includes the cause of fire and source of ignition. These statistics are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fire-statistics.

However, the IRS does not record whether an incident involved solar panels. As a result, the Department does not hold data on the number of fire service call outs specifically involving solar panels for the last five years.

Additional information is available here: Number of fires in England with “solar panel” or “photovoltaic panel” mentioned in the additional information free text - GOV.UK. This dataset is based on free-text searches for “solar panel” and “photovoltaic panel” in IRS records, by calendar year. As these results are not systematically categorised, accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Mentions of solar panels may not be closely linked to the fire, as the phrase “solar panel” may have been included in the free-text as part of a wider context, and some FRSs provide no free-text data. The dataset was last analysed and published in 2023, covering the calendar year to December 2022.