The duct is how kitchen fires reach the flats above.
Since January we have kept a tracker of every UK fire where a fire and rescue service's own published report says a commercial kitchen's extract system or ducting was involved. No news-only reports, no business names. Each row links to the fire service page.
Ten months in, it holds eight fires.
The numbers
- 8 restaurant and takeaway fires reached or started in the ducting, January to July 2026.
- 7 of 8 had homes above the premises.
- 2 of 8 started in the extract system itself. One London report gives the cause as grease build-up in the ducting (LFB, Lee Green, May 2026). One Hampshire report says the fire started in the kitchen ventilation system and spread into the flat above (Hampshire & Isle of Wight FRS, Cosham, June 2026).
- In the other six the fire started somewhere else - grill charcoal, a fryer, smoking materials, or a cause still under investigation - and then got into the duct.
- The largest needed 12 engines and about 80 firefighters (LFB, Clerkenwell, July 2026).
What the pattern says
A clean duct does not stop a fryer catching fire. What it changes is what the fire finds once it is inside: a duct lined with grease is a fuel path from the ground-floor kitchen to the roof, past every floor in between. In seven of these eight buildings, people were living on those floors.
That is why the record matters as much as the clean. After a fire, the questions are what was cleaned, when, what could not be reached and why, and what the next clean date was. London Fire Brigade's own guidance expects a post-clean report that shows exactly that, including areas not cleaned and the reason (LFB GN86).
The honest limit
Most UK fire services do not publish incident reports the way London Fire Brigade does. Seven of our eight rows are in London, so this tracker shows London far better than it shows the rest of the country. Eight is what we could verify, not how many happened. We found no qualifying report for August to mid-October; that is a gap in what is published, not proof of a quiet autumn.
What a firm can do with this
- Record areas not cleaned, with the reason and a photo, every visit.
- Set the next clean date from how the kitchen is used, not from habit.
- Keep the report the client was sent, unchanged, so it can be produced on request.
SMART Reports is kitchen extract cleaning software built for firms working to TR19 Grease: the engineer records readings, photos and areas not done on the phone, and the post-clean report goes to the client the same day.
Method
Counts UK fires in 2026 where a fire and rescue service's published report says a commercial kitchen's extract system or ducting was involved. Primary sources only; news used only to confirm a date. We update it each month. Fire services and journalists are welcome to use the figures with a link.
TR19® is a registered trade mark of the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA). Smart Solutions Bristol Ltd is not affiliated with or endorsed by BESA.
Written by Edward Bristow, an engineer of more than 15 years. Published 21 October 2026.