E-cigarette fires increase by a third in 2025 despite disposable vape ban

There are signs that the ban on disposable vapes and e-cigarettes is failing to cut the number of fires, according to Zurich UK.

Government legislation, enforced on 1 June 2025, made it illegal to sell or supply single-use vapes, which partially aimed to tackle the fire risk from the lithium-ion batteries when not used or disposed of correctly.

However, Freedom of Information (FOI) data obtained by Zurich UK revealed that responses from 38 fire brigades across the UK show incidents involving e-cigarettes were around a third higher in 2025 (172 fires) compared with 2024 (132 fires).

The number of vape fires attended by the emergency services has also climbed sharply since 2021, when there were 31 incidents reported in total.

It comes as a report from Action on Smoking and Health, published July 2025, revealed that the number of adults in Britain who vape has climbed to 10% despite the new rules.

Charlie Bush, head of large and complex claims at Zurich UK, told Insurance Times the issue was “beyond an emerging risk” and that the rapid increase in vaping is cause for concern on many levels.

Raising awareness

He added: “It’s extremely difficult to provide an insurance policy where you exclude lithium-ion batteries, not least because most people don’t even know they’ve got them in their homes and if you excluded lithium-ion battery fires, then you would suddenly become a particularly uncompetitive insurer.

“What we can do is we can take these case studies and identify what could this customer of ours have done to have prevented this loss from occurring? How can we take these [lessons] and share that with all of our other customers to make sure that they now safely charge, safely dispose, understand the broader risk and don’t buy on the grey market.”

“That is the same whether it’s somebody’s home and then understanding those risks from a consumer perspective or whether it’s somebody running a business.”

Bush continued that “raising awareness” of lithium-ion battery risks is key and that insurers have been in conversations surrounding how the industry can “work with fire councils, Airmic directly and risk managers of organisations” to mitigate this risk more broadly.

Joanne Henderson, the National Fire Chiefs Council’s smoking and vape lead, added: “One of the simplest ways people can help prevent vape fires is to buy safe, charge safe and recycle safely.

“Every vape that is thrown into a bin, where the lithium-ion battery can become crushed or damaged instead of being recycled correctly, has the potential to cause a serious fire. These fires can start in household bins, or later in bin lorries and waste sites, putting residents, workers and firefighters at risk.”