Gas explosions make national headlines every time one destroys a house, but the underlying numbers are widely misquoted — usually because two entirely separate official series get merged into one. This page keeps them apart and clearly labelled. The larger series is the Home Office fire-service count of "fires involving gas and an explosion" in England, which runs at a few hundred a year. The much smaller series is the Health and Safety Executive's RIDGAS count of RIDDOR-reportable flammable-gas injury incidents in Great Britain, which runs at a few dozen a year. Layered on top are the Gas Safe Register's annual inspection findings on unsafe appliances and dangerous fittings. Every figure below is linked to its source at the end of the page.
One scoping note up front: this page covers flammable-gas explosions, gas-leak fires and unsafe gas appliance findings only. Carbon monoxide — deaths, non-fatal poisonings and symptoms — is a different hazard entirely and lives on our carbon monoxide poisoning statistics page, so we quote only the explosion, fire and unburnt-gas figures here.
Key facts and figures
- 270 fires involving gas and an explosion were attended by fire and rescue services in England in 2021/22 — down from a peak of 361 in 2018/19 (Home Office, Table A22).
- 2,287 gas-and-explosion fires were recorded across the seven years 2015/16 to 2021/22 in England, causing 49 fire-related fatalities and 883 casualties (Home Office).
- 21 RIDDOR-reportable explosion or fire flammable-gas incidents were reported to the HSE in Great Britain in 2024/25 (provisional), up from 17 in 2023/24 (HSE RIDGAS).
- 11 deaths in total resulted from HSE-reported explosion or fire flammable-gas incidents over the five years 2020/21 to 2024/25 provisional (HSE RIDGAS).
- 2,010 notifications of dangerous gas fittings were made to the HSE in Great Britain in 2024/25 (provisional), down from a recent high of 2,603 in 2021/22 (HSE RIDGAS).
- 1,222 of those 2,010 dangerous-fitting notifications were gas leaks — the single biggest fault type in 2024/25 provisional (HSE RIDGAS).
- 7,116 defects classed as At Risk or Immediately Dangerous were found by Gas Safe Register inspectors in 2023/24 (Gas Safe Register).
- 1 in 5 of the 19,498 homes Gas Safe Register inspected between April 2022 and March 2023 had an unsafe gas appliance (Gas Safe Register).
These figures are the latest available as of July 2026, and this page is updated as new data lands. The refresh cadence is mixed and worth flagging: the dedicated GOV.UK gas-explosion release was a one-off (published November 2022, covering data to 2021/22, with no committed repeat), so the ongoing, annually-refreshed figures come from the HSE's RIDGAS tables each autumn and the Gas Safe Register's annual "At a Glance" report and Gas Safety Week data drops each September.
How common are gas explosions in the UK?
English fire and rescue services attended 270 fires involving gas and an explosion in 2021/22, according to the Home Office's ad-hoc fire incidents involving gas explosions release (Table A22, drawn from the Incident Recording System). That was the lowest figure in the seven-year window. The count started at 334 in 2015/16, climbed to a peak of 361 in 2018/19, and then fell back to 270 by 2021/22. Across the whole seven-year period 2015/16 to 2021/22 there were 2,287 such fires in England — an average of roughly 327 a year.
A separate Home Office table gives a longer, calendar-year view of the same phenomenon and confirms the picture is broadly flat over a decade. On a calendar-year basis (Table A12), England recorded 309 gas-and-explosion fires in 2010, 365 in 2018, and 268 in 2021 — the same story of a few hundred incidents a year, with no runaway upward trend.
The single most important thing to understand about "how common" is scale relative to the other official series. The Home Office fire count sits in the hundreds per year because it captures every fire an English fire service attends where gas and an explosion were involved, whatever the severity. That is an order of magnitude larger than the HSE's injury-incident count covered further down — the two are measuring different things, and merging them produces the misleading trend lines that circulate online.
How many people die from gas explosions in the UK each year?
Over the seven years 2015/16 to 2021/22, gas-and-explosion fires in England caused 49 fire-related fatalities and 883 non-fatal casualties in total, according to the Home Office's Table A22. That works out at an average of around seven deaths a year, though the annual figure moves about a good deal from year to year given how few incidents produce a fatality.
Within that window, the peak years for gas-explosion fire deaths were 2019/20, with 12 fatalities, and 2015/16, with 9. The lowest were 2020/21 and 2021/22, with 4 fire-related deaths each. Because the numbers are small, a single multi-fatality incident can swing a year's total sharply, which is exactly why the seven-year total is the more stable figure to quote.
A word of caution on a widely-repeated statistic here. The often-cited "11 deaths over five years" figure is not from the Home Office fire count — it comes from the HSE's much smaller RIDGAS injury-incident series (covered next), and refers to the five years 2020/21 to 2024/25 provisional. The two death counts measure different populations of incident and should never be added together or presented as one trend.
What do the HSE's RIDDOR gas figures show?
The HSE recorded 21 RIDDOR-reportable explosion or fire flammable-gas incidents in Great Britain in 2024/25 (provisional), up from 17 in 2023/24, according to its RIDGAS statistics tables (Table 1). This is a far smaller count than the fire-service figures above, and deliberately so: RIDGAS only captures incidents that cross the injury and reporting thresholds of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR), whereas the Home Office count records every gas-and-explosion fire attended, injury or not.
These explosion and fire incidents reported to the HSE caused 1 death and 22 non-fatal injuries in 2024/25 provisional. Over the five years 2020/21 to 2024/25 provisional, the same category of incident caused 11 deaths in total — the correct source of that widely-misattributed "11 deaths" figure. RIDGAS is the primary refreshable series on this page: the HSE updates it annually in the autumn, so this is where the freshest year-on-year movement will show.
One methodological caveat matters for accuracy. RIDGAS groups carbon monoxide exposure incidents together with flammable-gas incidents in the same dataset. On this page we quote only the explosion, fire and unburnt-gas rows and never the CO exposure rows — the CO figures belong on our carbon monoxide poisoning statistics page, where they are covered in full alongside deaths, hospital cases and alarm ownership.
The table below sets the two official incident series side by side so the difference in scale and scope is clear.
| Measure | Latest figure | Coverage & source |
|---|---|---|
| Fires involving gas and an explosion (England) | 270 | 2021/22; peak 361 in 2018/19 — Home Office, Table A22 (IRS) |
| Gas-and-explosion fires, seven-year total (England) | 2,287 | 2015/16–2021/22 — Home Office, Table A22 |
| Fire-related deaths from those fires (England) | 49 | 2015/16–2021/22 total — Home Office, Table A22 |
| RIDDOR explosion/fire flammable-gas incidents (GB) | 21 | 2024/25 provisional; 17 in 2023/24 — HSE RIDGAS, Table 1 |
| Deaths from those RIDDOR incidents (GB) | 11 | 2020/21–2024/25p total — HSE RIDGAS, Table 1 |
| Dangerous gas fitting notifications (GB) | 2,010 | 2024/25 provisional; 2,603 in 2021/22 — HSE RIDGAS, Table 2 |
What is the most common cause of a domestic gas explosion?
"Other accidental" is consistently the single largest cause category in the Home Office data, accounting for between 76 and 115 gas-and-explosion fires a year across 2015/16 to 2021/22 (Table A22b). Deliberate ignition was the second most common cause, running at 45 to 83 fires a year over the same period — but the details of deliberate fire-setting sit outside this page's scope and belong with fire-service prosecution and arson data, not with gas-safety statistics.
The cause category that matters most for gas safety is faulty fuel supplies. "Faulty fuel supplies" — the gas-leak type of cause — accounted for 39 to 55 gas-and-explosion fires a year over 2015/16 to 2021/22. That is the category the prevention story turns on: a leak from ageing pipework, a defective appliance connection or a poorly-made joint, allowing gas to accumulate until it finds an ignition source.
The HSE's dangerous-fitting data points the same way. Gas leaks were the single biggest dangerous-fitting fault type reported to the HSE — 1,222 of the 2,010 notifications in 2024/25 provisional — with pipework (375 notifications) and boilers (288) the most common leaking components (HSE RIDGAS, Table 2). Faulty pipework and appliance leaks, not dramatic one-off failures, are where the everyday risk concentrates.
How many UK homes have an unsafe gas appliance?
The Gas Safe Register found unsafe appliances — cookers, boilers and fires — in one in five of the 19,498 homes it inspected between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. A wider Gas Safe Register investigation of more than 120,000 homes put the figure at one in six, equivalent to around 4.28 million UK households on that basis. The one-in-five figure over a clean, dated inspection period is the more precise of the two, and the one to prefer where a specific number is needed; both originate with the Gas Safe Register and were publicised around Gas Safety Week.
The Register's annual inspection programme adds the detail behind those headline ratios. In 2023/24, Gas Safe Register carried out 60,174 inspections and inspected 28,902 registered businesses, and the At a Glance report 2023/24 lists the top three issues found as flue construction, appliance safety on boiler installations, and the installation of gas fires.
Those inspections found 7,116 defects classed as At Risk or Immediately Dangerous in 2023/24, of which 924 were attributed to unregistered — "illegal" — gas fitters, from 1,048 reports about unregistered work. Illegal gas work is a recurring theme in the data: work carried out by people who are not on the Gas Safe Register is disproportionately likely to be dangerous, which is why the legal requirement to use a registered engineer exists at all.
How many Gas Safe registered engineers are there?
There were 150,729 Gas Safe registered engineers and 76,630 registered businesses in the UK as at 31 March 2024, according to the Gas Safe Register's At a Glance report 2023/24. Over the same year, the public performed 23.5 million engineer find-and-check searches on the Register's website — the mechanism that lets a householder confirm an engineer is genuinely registered before letting them touch a gas appliance.
Awareness, though, still lags. Only 61.9% of consumers were aware of the importance of gas safety in 2023/24, up one percentage point on the previous year. That gap is why the register runs Gas Safety Week each September and publishes its inspection findings: a large minority of households still do not routinely check that gas work is done by a registered engineer — the behaviour that keeps unsafe appliances and dangerous fittings in the figures above.
The prevention playbook that falls out of the data is straightforward: have gas appliances serviced every year by a Gas Safe registered engineer, always check the engineer's registration before work starts, never accept work from an unregistered fitter, and act immediately on any smell of gas by turning off the supply, opening windows and calling the national gas emergency line. Against a leak that can accumulate unseen, the annual service and the registration check are the two habits that do most of the work.
Where do gas explosions sit in the wider fire picture?
Gas-and-explosion fires are a small but severe slice of the overall fire workload. A few hundred incidents a year is modest against the hundreds of thousands of fires English services attend annually, but the consequences per incident are disproportionate: a gas explosion can destroy a building's structure and injure occupants and neighbours in a way most fires do not. That severity, not the frequency, is why gas explosions attract the coverage they do.
The broader detection-and-prevention message connects gas safety to the rest of the fire-safety cluster. A gas leak that ignites is one of several household ignition causes worth understanding alongside carbon monoxide, working smoke alarms and safe use of candles and heating. For workplaces, staff who understand ignition risks, alarms and how to respond when one sounds react faster and more calmly — exactly the ground covered by our online fire safety awareness training course for every UK employee.
Frequently asked questions
How common are gas explosions in the UK?
English fire and rescue services attended 270 fires involving gas and an explosion in 2021/22, down from a peak of 361 in 2018/19, on the Home Office's Table A22. Across 2015/16 to 2021/22 there were 2,287 such fires in England — an average of roughly 327 a year. A separate HSE RIDGAS series, which only counts RIDDOR-reportable injury incidents, records a far smaller number: 21 explosion or fire flammable-gas incidents in Great Britain in 2024/25 provisional.
How many people die from gas explosions in the UK each year?
Gas-and-explosion fires in England caused 49 fire-related fatalities over the seven years 2015/16 to 2021/22 — an average of around seven a year — with peaks of 12 deaths in 2019/20 and 9 in 2015/16 (Home Office, Table A22). Separately, the HSE's RIDGAS explosion and fire incidents caused 11 deaths in total over the five years 2020/21 to 2024/25 provisional. The two figures come from different series and should not be added together.
What is the most common cause of a domestic gas explosion?
In the Home Office data, "other accidental" is the largest cause category (76 to 115 fires a year, 2015/16 to 2021/22), but the gas-specific cause to watch is faulty fuel supplies — gas-leak type causes — at 39 to 55 fires a year. This matches the HSE dangerous-fitting data, where gas leaks were the biggest fault type (1,222 of 2,010 notifications in 2024/25 provisional), most often from pipework and boilers.
How many UK homes have an unsafe gas appliance?
The Gas Safe Register found an unsafe gas appliance in one in five of the 19,498 homes it inspected between April 2022 and March 2023. A wider Register investigation of more than 120,000 homes put the figure at one in six, equivalent to around 4.28 million UK households. Its 2023/24 inspections separately found 7,116 defects classed as At Risk or Immediately Dangerous.
Are gas explosion figures rising or falling?
The Home Office fire count has been broadly flat: 334 gas-and-explosion fires in 2015/16, a peak of 361 in 2018/19, and 270 by 2021/22, with the decade-long calendar-year view (309 in 2010, 268 in 2021) confirming no runaway trend. HSE dangerous-fitting notifications fell from a recent high of 2,603 in 2021/22 to 2,010 in 2024/25 provisional, while RIDDOR explosion/fire incidents ticked up from 17 in 2023/24 to 21 in 2024/25 provisional.
What should I do if I smell gas at home?
Turn off the gas at the meter if you can reach it safely, open doors and windows to ventilate, avoid using any electrical switches, naked flames or anything that could create a spark, leave the property if the smell is strong, and call the national gas emergency service. Then arrange for a Gas Safe registered engineer to inspect before the supply is used again — you can confirm an engineer's registration on the Gas Safe Register website.
Related guides
- Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Statistics UK: Deaths, Incidents & Alarms
- Smoke Alarm Statistics UK: Ownership, Failures & Lives Saved
- Candle Fire Statistics UK: Fires, Deaths & Seasonal Trends
- UK Fire Classes Explained: A, B, C, D, F (and L)
- Types of Fire Extinguisher: The Complete UK Guide
Sources & references
- Home Office — Fire incidents involving gas explosions, England, 2015/16 to 2021/22 (Table A22, Incident Recording System; ad-hoc, published November 2022)
- Home Office — Fires involving gas and an explosion, England, calendar-year series (Table A12)
- Health and Safety Executive — RIDGAS: gas-related incidents reported in Great Britain (Table 1 flammable-gas injury incidents; Table 2 dangerous gas fittings), 2024/25 provisional
- Gas Safe Register — At a Glance report 2023/24 (inspections, defects and illegal-gas findings)
- Gas Safe Register — unsafe-appliance investigation findings (one in five of 19,498 homes; one in six of 120,000+ homes), publicised via Gas Safety Week
- CE Safety — analysis of HSE RIDGAS explosion and dangerous-fittings figures (secondary source, HSE-sourced)
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Mark writes about workplace health & safety, fire safety awareness and accredited online training for Fire Safety Awareness Training, part of Online CPD Academy.