In the year ending December 2025, fire and rescue services in England attended 673 fires in purpose-built high-rise flats — 3.6% fewer than the year before — yet at the end of May 2026, 4,411 residential buildings over 11 metres were still being monitored for unsafe cladding. This page brings the UK’s high-rise fire statistics together in one place: fire and casualty counts from MHCLG’s fire statistics for England (data table FIRE0205 and the quarterly incident bulletins), remediation progress from MHCLG’s monthly Building Safety Remediation release, and cost estimates from the National Audit Office.
It’s written for anyone who needs citable numbers on tall-building fire safety — how many high-rise fires happen, how many people die in them, how many buildings still have dangerous cladding, and what fixing it will cost. Every figure is dated and sourced, and the incident statistics (which cover England) are kept clearly separate from the building-safety programme data.
Key facts and figures
- 673 fires in purpose-built high-rise flats in England in the year ending December 2025 — down 3.6% on the year before.
- 14% fewer high-rise flat fires than a decade earlier (779 in the year ending December 2015).
- 12 deaths in high-rise flat fires in the five years to December 2025 — against 90 in the five years to December 2020, which included Grenfell.
- 4,411 residential buildings 11 metres and over with unsafe cladding were being monitored at the end of May 2026.
- 38% of those buildings (1,672) had completed remediation; 53% had started or completed it.
- 5,900–7,400 buildings over 11 metres in England are estimated to have, or have had, unsafe cladding needing work.
- £16.6 billion is the National Audit Office’s central estimate of the total remediation bill (range £12.6–£22.4 billion).
- ~12,500 high-rise residential buildings are registered with the Building Safety Regulator — home to around 1.31 million people.
All figures are the latest available as of July 2026, and this page is updated when new data is released — MHCLG publishes fire and rescue incident statistics for England quarterly and the Building Safety Remediation data release monthly.
How many high-rise fires are there in the UK?
673 fires in purpose-built high-rise flats or maisonettes of 10 storeys or more were attended by fire and rescue services in England in the year ending December 2025, according to MHCLG’s fire statistics data table FIRE0205 — down 3.6% from 698 the previous year, and an average of roughly 13 high-rise fires a week.
The figure comes from the dwelling-fires-by-building-type table (FIRE0205), which splits England’s dwelling fires into houses, bungalows, converted flats and purpose-built blocks by height band. “High-rise” in this series means purpose-built blocks of flats of 10 storeys or more — the tall towers most people picture — and the counts cover fires actually attended by fire and rescue services, not alarm activations or incidents put out before crews arrive. Scotland and Wales publish their own fire statistics separately, so the headline high-rise series is England-only.
This page is deliberately scoped to tall buildings and the cladding-safety response. For the UK’s general dwelling and workplace fire counts, see our sister site’s Fire Statistics UK guide.
Are high-rise fires falling?
Yes — high-rise flat fires in England are down 14% in a decade, from 779 in the year ending December 2015 to 673 in the year ending December 2025. The fall mirrors the long-term decline in dwelling fires generally: safer appliances and furnishings, near-universal smoke alarm ownership and decades of prevention work by fire and rescue services.
The post-Grenfell years also brought tall buildings a level of scrutiny no other building type has had — alarm and detection upgrades, waking watches in blocks awaiting remediation, sprinkler retrofits by some social landlords, and rolling inspection of the highest-risk buildings. The recent trend is gently downward rather than steep: 698 fires in the year ending December 2024, then 673 a year later.
| Measure | Latest figure | Data period | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fires in purpose-built high-rise flats (England) | 673 | Year ending December 2025 | Down 3.6% on the year; down 14% from 779 in 2015 |
| Fatal high-rise flat fires (England) | 1 (causing 1 death) | Year ending December 2025 | Down from 2 the year before |
| High-rise flat fire deaths, five-year total (England) | 12 | Five years ending December 2025 | Against 90 in the five years ending December 2020 (incl. Grenfell) |
| Buildings 11m+ with unsafe cladding being monitored | 4,411 | End May 2026 | Up 33 on April 2026 as identification continues |
| Monitored buildings fully remediated | 1,672 (38%) | End May 2026 | 2,331 (53%) started or completed |
| Estimated total buildings 11m+ with unsafe cladding | 5,900–7,400 | MHCLG best estimate | — |
| Estimated total remediation cost | £16.6bn (range £12.6bn–£22.4bn) | NAO, November 2024 | ~£9.2bn of government funding available |
| Buildings under local-authority enforcement action | 898 | As at 22 May 2026 | — |
Whether a flat fire stays a flat fire depends on compartmentation — the walls, floors and fire doors that hold smoke and flames back. Our companion page on fire door statistics covers how often those doors fail inspection.
How many people die in high-rise fires?
12 people died in high-rise flat fires in England in the five years ending December 2025, across 10 fatal fires and 3,589 fires in total. In the latest year alone — the year ending December 2025 — there was 1 fatal high-rise flat fire, causing 1 death, down from 2 fatal fires the year before.
The comparison with the previous five-year window is stark. In the five years ending December 2020 there were 90 deaths in high-rise flat fires in England — 72 of them in a single fire, at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, the UK’s worst residential fire since the Second World War.
The low fatality counts in a normal year reflect how purpose-built blocks are designed: compartment construction is meant to contain a fire in the flat where it starts, which is the basis of “stay put” evacuation strategies. Grenfell was catastrophic precisely because combustible cladding defeated that containment — the reason the remediation programme below exists, and the reason the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s final report (September 2024) drove a rebuild of building-safety regulation.
How many buildings still have unsafe cladding?
4,411 residential buildings 11 metres and over with unsafe cladding were being monitored in MHCLG’s remediation portfolio at the end of May 2026 — 33 more than a month earlier, as assessments continue to identify new buildings and add them to the programme.
The monitored portfolio is not the whole picture. MHCLG’s best estimate is that 5,900 to 7,400 buildings over 11 metres in England have, or have had, unsafe cladding requiring work — implying that somewhere between roughly 1,500 and 3,000 affected buildings may not yet have been identified and brought into the programme.
The data is published in the Building Safety Remediation monthly release, which breaks the portfolio down by remediation stage, funding scheme and height band; the figures here are as at the end of May 2026. For anyone tracking unsafe cladding statistics in the UK, that monthly series is the canonical source.
How much cladding remediation is complete?
1,672 buildings — 38% of the monitored portfolio — had completed remediation by the end of May 2026, and 2,331 buildings (53%) had either started or completed works. That leaves 2,080 buildings — 47% of those identified — where remediation had not started.
Nine years on from Grenfell, in other words, just over a third of the identified buildings are fully fixed. Enforcement is increasingly part of the picture: 898 buildings 11 metres and over with suspected unsafe cladding were subject to local-authority enforcement action under the Housing Act 2004 as at 22 May 2026.
For residents of the unremediated blocks, the statistics translate into interim safety measures — waking watches, upgraded communal alarms and, in some buildings, a switch from “stay put” to simultaneous evacuation — alongside the insurance and mortgage difficulties that have defined the cladding crisis for leaseholders.
What will cladding remediation cost?
£16.6 billion is the National Audit Office’s central estimate of the total cost of remediating unsafe cladding on residential buildings 11 metres and over in England, within a range of £12.6 billion to £22.4 billion (NAO, Dangerous cladding: the government’s remediation portfolio, November 2024).
Government money covers only part of that: MHCLG has around £9.2 billion available for remediating external-wall defects, with the balance expected to come from developers — under the remediation contracts they have signed for buildings they built — and from building owners rather than the taxpayer.
The width of the NAO’s range reflects how much is still unknown, including how many of the estimated 5,900–7,400 affected buildings remain unidentified and what each will cost to fix. Those uncertainties are why the cost estimate, like the building counts, gets revisited as the monthly remediation data comes in.
How many high-rise buildings are on the Building Safety Regulator’s register?
Around 12,500 high-rise residential buildings — those at least 18 metres tall or with at least seven storeys — have been registered with the Building Safety Regulator, and roughly 1.31 million people live in them. Registration has been mandatory for occupied higher-risk buildings since October 2023 under the Building Safety Act 2022, and the register is publicly searchable on GOV.UK.
UK building-safety data uses three different height bands, and mixing them up is the most common error in coverage of the topic: the fire incident statistics count purpose-built blocks of 10 storeys or more; the cladding remediation portfolio covers buildings 11 metres and over; and the Building Safety Regulator’s “higher-risk” regime applies at 18 metres or seven storeys. The House of Commons Library’s building-safety briefings track the policy detail behind each regime.
The regulatory changes reach evacuation planning too: from 6 April 2026, residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) became mandatory in England for residents with disabilities and impairments in high-rise residential buildings. Our fire evacuation statistics page covers the PEEPs rules and the wider rescue and evacuation data.
Frequently asked questions
How many fires are there in high-rise flats in the UK each year?
673 fires in purpose-built high-rise flats of 10 storeys or more were attended by fire and rescue services in England in the year ending December 2025 — down 3.6% on the year before (MHCLG fire statistics, table FIRE0205). Scotland and Wales publish separate statistics, so there is no single UK-wide high-rise series.
What counts as a high-rise building in UK fire statistics?
The fire incident statistics treat purpose-built blocks of flats of 10 storeys or more as high-rise. The cladding remediation programme covers residential buildings 11 metres and over, and the Building Safety Regulator’s higher-risk regime applies to buildings at least 18 metres tall or with seven or more storeys.
How many tower blocks in the UK still have unsafe cladding?
4,411 residential buildings 11 metres and over with unsafe cladding were being monitored by MHCLG at the end of May 2026, of which 38% had completed remediation. MHCLG’s best estimate is that 5,900–7,400 buildings in England have, or have had, unsafe cladding requiring work.
How many people have died in high-rise fires in the UK?
12 people died in high-rise flat fires in England in the five years ending December 2025, across 10 fatal fires. In the five years ending December 2020 the total was 90 — 72 of them at Grenfell Tower in June 2017.
How much will cladding remediation cost?
The National Audit Office’s central estimate is £16.6 billion for residential buildings 11 metres and over in England, within a range of £12.6–£22.4 billion. Around £9.2 billion of government funding is available, with the rest expected from developers and building owners.
Where do UK high-rise fire statistics come from?
Fire counts and casualties come from MHCLG’s fire statistics for England — data table FIRE0205 and the quarterly fire and rescue incident bulletins. Cladding figures come from MHCLG’s monthly Building Safety Remediation release, cost estimates from the National Audit Office, and the register of high-rise buildings from the Building Safety Regulator.
If you help run a high-rise or any multi-occupied building, the numbers on this page are the argument for competent people on the ground: fires are rarer than a decade ago, but nearly half the buildings with known unsafe cladding are still waiting for work to start. Our Fire Warden Training course covers evacuation procedure, sweeps, assembly-point management and PEEPs — £18 per learner, RoSPA approved and CPD accredited, 60 to 90 minutes online, with an instant certificate on passing and bulk discounts from 10 delegates.
Related guides
- Fire Evacuation Statistics UK: Rescues, Drills & Evacuation Behaviour Data
- Fire Door Statistics UK: Failure Rates, Inspections & Compliance Data
- Fire marshal responsibilities: the complete UK duties list
- Fire marshal checklist: daily, weekly and emergency procedure
- How many fire marshals do you need?
Sources & references
- MHCLG — Fire and rescue incident statistics, England, year ending December 2025
- MHCLG — Fire statistics data tables (FIRE0205: dwelling fires by building type, England)
- MHCLG — Building Safety Remediation: monthly data release, May 2026
- National Audit Office — Dangerous cladding: the government’s remediation portfolio (November 2024)
- GOV.UK — Find a high-rise residential building (Building Safety Regulator register)
- House of Commons Library — Building regulations and safety briefing (CBP-8482)
- Grenfell Tower Inquiry — Phase 2 final report (September 2024)
- MHCLG — Residential PEEPs factsheet (Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025)
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Mark writes about workplace health & safety, fire safety and accredited online training for Fire Warden Training, part of Online CPD Academy.