This year has seen the UK hit by successive heatwaves, with the driest July on record for England and Wales, leading to multiple wildfires across the country and across Europe.
Paul Knightley from DTN consultancy recently told us the impact of extreme heat on festivals and what organisers can do to be prepared. So what happens when heatwaves and dried ground combine with other fire risks?
Lithium-ion batteries may not be the first risk that festival-goers think about when cramming clothes into their backpacks, but fire services, including Hampshire and Isle of Wight, have reported a spike in lithium-ion batteries incidents since May. These incidents often include power banks, rechargeable vapes and e-scooters.
In recent years, power banks have become festival staples as an effective way to keep smartphones charged and friend groups in touch. Not just for festival-goers, the charging packs are also used across festival sites, from traders to production teams.
Festivals have already been quick to impose restrictions on portable chargers, with Boomtown banning the use of personal speakers and charging packs over 30cm due to the increased risk of damage in hot conditions.
CheckFire, a trade-only fire safety supplier, started life as a small family business out of a garage in 1975 and now operates from a large industrial complex in Caerphilly, Wales. Here, Joshua Marshall, product manager at CheckFire, tells us what festival organisers need to know about the new Class L classification for lithium-ion batteries and how to plan around a new fire risk.
“Fire safety at festivals has always been a serious planning discipline. Large crowds, temporary structures, complex technical setups, generators, cabling, catering, and camping combine into a distinctive risk environment that demands robust planning.
What has changed in recent years is the scale and character of what those sites now contain. Modern festivals run heavily on rechargeable technology – audience power banks and vapes, cordless production equipment, e-bikes and e-scooters, portable power for stalls and stages, and more. The lithium-ion battery footprint of a festival site is materially different from that of a decade ago.
What’s more, hot and dry summer conditions are becoming a more consistent feature of the UK festival season.
Grass fires and vegetation fires have risen sharply in recent years, and outdoor sites – often located on rural or semi-rural land with heavy footfall and technical infrastructure – can be considered particularly at risk. And while dry conditions do not create new hazards, they reduce the tolerance for the ones that already exist.
For festival organisers, fire safety obligations sit under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The legislation places responsibility on a designated ‘responsible person’ – often the overarching event organiser – to take a series of actions to ensure a safe and compliant event. These include conducting a fire risk assessment, ensuring suitable fire safety equipment is in place, arranging for that equipment to be regularly maintained, and communicating clear evacuation procedures across the site.
The government’s guide to fire safety risk assessments for open-air events and venues remains a valuable reference. It explains that a well-conducted risk assessment is a living document – one that reflects both the layout and configuration of the event and the evolving fire risk environment.
The introduction of Class L on 31 January 2026 marked the first dedicated international fire classification for lithium-ion battery fire incidents. Class L is not a legal duty in itself, but it raises awareness of how lithium-ion battery fire risks can be explicitly reflected in fire risk assessments – moving lithium-ion battery fires out of the general electrical risk category and into a distinct one, in recognition of its unique characteristics.
For a festival site, this has real practical implications. These types of fires burn intensely, can reignite after apparent extinguishment and behave very differently from other fire classes. Thermal runaway – the process by which a damaged or overheating cell rapidly cascades into fire – is the defining characteristic, and can be triggered by mechanical damage, overcharging, manufacturing defects or heat exposure. On a festival site, all four failure modes pose a threat.
Reflecting this context in the fire risk assessment means considering lithium-ion battery fire risk across the whole site, rather than treating rechargeable devices as a single electrical hazard.
Audience charging areas, camping zones, stalls with portable power setups, and production teams storing rechargeable equipment between uses all present their own dynamics. Fire safety equipment provision benefits from being suited to the risk – suppression that is effective on Class A or electrical fires, for example, would not be appropriate for a burning lithium-ion battery cell.
Practical planning around lithium-ion battery fire risk at festivals starts with visibility. Understanding where rechargeable devices concentrate on-site, how they are stored and charged, and where any early signs of thermal issue might present gives the responsible person a foundation for the wider decisions that follow.
None of this is intended to alarm – the industry’s commitment to responsible planning is genuine. But the underlying risk picture is not static, and the responsible person’s planning cannot be either. Reviewing fire risk assessments regularly, factoring lithium-ion batteries and dry condition considerations into that review, and ensuring fire safety equipment reflects the character of the site are all essential steps for organisers who take fire safety seriously.“
Find out more about CheckFire and the work they do here.
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