Do EVs catch fire more often than combustion cars?

Vehicle fires can begin in many parts of a car, and a fire involving an EV is not automatically a traction-battery fire. How often fires occur and how responders must manage a battery-involved fire are separate questions.

Claim review

Claim: “EVs catch fire more often than combustion cars.”
Verdict: Mostly incorrect
Scope: Current passenger battery-electric vehicles. The best recent Nordic fleet comparisons often combine BEVs with plug-in hybrids, while other national systems do not identify powertrain reliably.
Short answer: Available fleet data do not show EVs catching fire more often. Recent Nordic figures show fewer reported fires per registered electric or electric-and-hybrid vehicle than among other cars. Those crude rates do not fully adjust for vehicle age, distance driven or different reporting methods. When a traction battery enters thermal runaway, however, cooling, monitoring, recovery and the risk of re-ignition can make the incident unusually demanding.
Last reviewed: 6 August 2026
Review trigger: New powertrain-specific and age-adjusted fleet data, a material change in national incident reporting, or evidence that changes the verdict.

This article is part of EV Claims, Checked.

What the claim gets right

EVs can catch fire. A severe collision, internal cell fault, external heating, flooding, damaged high-voltage equipment or a charging-system fault can initiate an incident. If a cell enters Thermal Runaway, self-heating reactions can release hot gas, flame and ejected material. The failure can then spread between cells or modules through Cell-to-Cell Thermal Propagation.

A battery-involved fire can also create response problems that are less familiar from a conventional vehicle. Cells can retain energy after the high-voltage contactors open, the pack enclosure can make the affected cells difficult to cool, and a damaged battery can heat or ignite again after visible flames have been suppressed. EVKX covers those protection layers in EV Battery Safety and Failure Management and the vehicle-level response sequence in Post-Crash Systems and Rescue.

These hazards explain why some EV fires require different tactics and longer monitoring. They do not establish that EV fires happen more frequently.

Why fire statistics are easy to misuse

A meaningful comparison needs both a defined event and a suitable denominator. At minimum, the data should distinguish:

a fire that started in the vehicle from a vehicle exposed to an external fire;
any EV involved in a fire from a fire that involved the traction battery;
BEVs from plug-in hybrids and non-plug-in hybrids;
accidental, intentional, crash-related, charging, parked and driving incidents; and
fires per registered vehicle, vehicle-year or distance driven.

Many incident systems were not designed to answer all of those questions. Sweden’s civil-contingencies agency, MSB, identifies relevant incidents through free-text searches because its reports lack predefined powertrain variables. Its 2018–2024 compilation includes confirmed damage, suspected damage and call-outs, while excluding fires assessed as intentional. MSB warns that data quality and selection methods limit the conclusions. MSB — Compilation of Fires in Electric Vehicles and Electric Transport, 2018–2024

The problem is not limited to one country. In May 2026, the UK government stated that England’s fire-service data did not identify whether a road vehicle involved in a fire was electric. UK Parliament — Road-Vehicle Fire Data and Electric-Vehicle Identification A 2026 NIST analysis likewise described lithium-ion fire data as fragmented and mostly incomplete, with battery fires difficult to identify in major U.S. datasets. Its estimates combine BEVs and plug-in hybrids and do not provide a clean combustion-versus-BEV incidence rate. NIST Technical Note 2365 — Understanding the Risk of Lithium-Ion Battery Fires

This is why figures built by dividing one source’s incident count by another source’s annual vehicle sales are not credible fire rates. Sales are not the fleet exposed to risk, and the incidents may cover vehicles of many model years, causes and operating conditions.

What current fleet data show

The Danish Emergency Management Agency’s latest factsheet reports 62 fires involving electric or hybrid cars in Denmark during 2025. Relative to the registered fleet, it calculated 1.0 fire per 10,000 electric-and-hybrid cars and 4.0 per 10,000 other cars. The same factsheet reports 0.55 versus 3.90 per 10,000 in Norway for 2025, and 0.45 versus 7.50 in Sweden using the latest available 2024 data. Danish Emergency Management Agency — Fires in Electric and Hybrid Cars 2025

Those figures directly contradict the simple claim that electrified cars are currently reported burning more often. They are also not a controlled experiment. The electric category combines BEVs and hybrids, registration and incident practices differ between countries, and the calculations do not adjust for distance driven, location, use pattern or vehicle age. The factsheet itself warns that cross-country registration practices differ.

The Swedish contrast needs an additional caution: MSB’s electric-and-hybrid compilation excludes incidents assessed as intentional, while its separate count of all passenger-car fires includes intentional fires. That makes the published categories useful for showing the observed direction, but not interchangeable inputs for a causal powertrain comparison.

Age deserves special attention. EV fleets are generally newer than the combustion fleets they are compared with. NFPA’s U.S. vehicle-fire report found that about three-quarters of 2022 highway-vehicle fires attributed to mechanical or electrical failures involved model years 2011 or earlier. That does not give an age-adjusted powertrain rate, but it shows why comparing a young fleet with an old fleet can mix the effect of age with the effect of propulsion technology. NFPA Research — Vehicle Fires

The careful conclusion is therefore narrower than “EVs never burn” or “EVs are proven safer in every condition.” In the best recent public fleet comparisons, electric-and-hybrid cars have a lower crude reported fire frequency. The available data are not detailed enough to assign one universal, age-adjusted causal rate to every BEV and combustion car.

Where the fire starts matters

An EV contains tires, brakes, wiring, electronics, interior materials and a 12-volt system in addition to its traction battery. A fire can start in those components or spread from another vehicle or structure. Calling every such event a “battery fire” misstates the ignition source.

In a Danish review of incidents from 2018 through September 2021, half of the fires involving electric or hybrid cars had an external influence before the fire, such as spread from another vehicle. The fire service usually limited the incident before it became critical to the traction battery. The sample was small and older, but it demonstrates why “an EV burned” and “the EV battery started the fire” cannot be treated as the same observation. Danish Emergency Management Agency — Review of Electric and Hybrid Car Fires

The distinction also affects severity and response. A cabin, tire or brake fire without battery involvement can initially resemble the same fire in another modern car. If heat or impact compromises the traction pack, the incident can change as cells vent or propagate.

Fire severity is not one number

“Burns worse” can refer to peak heat release, fire growth, total energy, duration, smoke, toxic products, spread to nearby objects or difficulty of extinguishment. One metric cannot substitute for all the others.

A 2025 peer-reviewed analysis compiled 16 single-EV and 17 single-combustion-vehicle fire experiments. Its statistical design-fire model found distinct EV fire dynamics and often higher peak heat-release values and faster growth. The authors also cautioned that the dataset was limited and that experiments used different vehicles, ignition locations, conditions and measurement methods. Fire Technology — Evaluating Fire Severity in Electric and Combustion Vehicles

Those experiments support treating some battery-involved scenarios seriously. They do not measure how often a road-going EV catches fire, and an intentionally induced full-vehicle test is not a representative fleet incident. Vehicle size, combustible cabin materials, battery energy, state of charge, fuel load, ventilation, nearby vehicles and suppression timing can all change the result.

Why some battery fires are harder to manage

The NTSB examined three U.S. crash fires and one non-crash fire involving high-voltage EV batteries. The three crash-damaged batteries re-ignited after the vehicle fires had been extinguished. NTSB attributed the continuing electric-shock and re-ignition hazards to energy stranded in the damaged batteries. This selected set illustrates a failure mode; it is not a population frequency estimate. NTSB — Safety Risks to Emergency Responders from EV Battery Fires

U.S. fire-service guidance published in 2025 says there is no universally accepted, scientifically validated method for extinguishing every type of EV fire. Battery chemistry, pack construction, vehicle condition and access vary, so scene assessment must continue through recovery and storage. U.S. Fire Administration — Emergency Response to Electric Vehicle Incidents

Water is still central to many response strategies because cooling can slow or interrupt propagation. Full-scale work by the Fire Safety Research Institute found that hose streams faced difficulty reaching cells inside protected underfloor packs, but researchers interrupted thermal runaway in two experiments and observed useful control in others. The result does not justify a universal water-volume claim, and vehicle-specific procedures remain necessary. Fire Safety Research Institute — EV Water-Suppression Experiments

Responders use rescue sheets and emergency-response guides to locate batteries, high-voltage cables, isolation points, reinforcements and safe cut zones. The role of that information is explained in Rescue Sheet, eCall, and Post-Crash Rescue.

What changes the answer

Definition: A vehicle involved in a fire is not necessarily the vehicle or component that ignited it.
Denominator: Registered vehicles, vehicle-years and distance driven answer different questions.
Fleet age and use: Age, maintenance, mileage, parking, charging and operating environment can distort a crude powertrain comparison.
Cause: Collision, deliberate ignition, external fire, flood exposure, charging equipment and an internal vehicle fault should not be merged without explanation.
Battery condition: Chemistry, state of charge, cell format, pack protection and damage determine whether thermal runaway begins or propagates.
Setting: A fire in open air, a garage, a tunnel, a workshop or post-crash storage creates different exposure and access problems.
Response stage: Flame control, pack cooling, monitoring, recovery, transport and storage are distinct parts of the incident.

What owners and readers should do with the claim

For normal ownership, follow recalls and manufacturer warnings, maintain the vehicle and charging equipment, and use a correctly installed charging circuit. After a severe underbody impact, collision or flood exposure, follow the manufacturer’s instructions and have suspected battery damage assessed by qualified personnel.

When evaluating a fire statistic, ask:

Does it separate BEVs from hybrids?
Did the fire start in the vehicle, and was the traction battery involved?
Are intentional and externally caused fires included?
Is the denominator the active fleet rather than annual sales?
Are age, distance and reporting practices comparable?
Does the source measure frequency, severity or response difficulty?

The evidence available in August 2026 does not support the claim that EVs catch fire more often than combustion cars. It does support a more precise statement: reported fires are currently less frequent in the available Nordic electrified-vehicle fleet data, while the smaller subset that involves traction-battery thermal runaway can require specialized cooling, monitoring and recovery.