Fire, Fire Burning Bright...Who Will Be Liable If You Damage Our Site?

12/01/2016

It is in our evolutionary make-up to both embrace and fear fire.  Evidence suggests that human’s early ancestors discovered how to make and cultivate fire around 350,000 years ago, long before the first Homo sapiens emerged (around 200,000 years ago).

Although the use of fire has helped transform civilisations, it can also cause enormous destruction, both of property and life.

If you are an insurer or an insured party of property that has been damaged by fire, which you believe was caused by negligence, then you may have a right to claim damages from the party or parties that were responsible for the cause and/or spread of the fire.

Distinguishing between the cause and spread of the fire

If your property has been damaged by fire, you may have a claim against two individuals (or companies, as the case may be).  Firstly, the person who caused the fire itself, and secondly, the individual responsible for the design or construction of your building, if their negligence when carrying out their work meant that the fire was able to spread through and destroy your premises.

Let’s begin by looking at the liability of the person or persons who were responsible for the cause of the fire.

Does the rule in Ryland’s v Fletcher apply to fire damage?

If your factory, plant or warehouse has been damaged by a fire spreading from a neighbouring property and the flames resulted from a clear act of negligence on the part of the property owner, (he or she dropped a cigarette carelessly for example) then it is likely that you will be able to claim damages.

A more interesting question is whether or not you can claim damages if the owner of the neighbouring property did not cause the fire.  Can they still be held liable?

It is a well established legal principle (derived from the case of Ryland’s v Fletcher), that a property owner or occupier is liable for damage to other property (whether or not he was at fault) if he brings or keeps an exceptionally dangerous thing on his property, he recognises, or ought reasonably to recognise, that there is an exceptionally high risk of danger if that thing escapes, his use of his property is extraordinary or unusual, and the dangerous thing escapes and damages other property.

But does the principle in Ryland’s and Fletcher apply to fire?

In the case of Stannard (t/a Wyvern Tyres) v Gore, the Court of Appeal concluded that it did not.  In this case, there were about 3,000 tyres stored haphazardly on the premises.  Tyres are not inherently dangerous but if they catch fire then combustion develops rapidly and the fire is difficult to put out.  The fire destroyed the premises and the adjoining unit.

The Appeal judges stated that for the principle established in Ryland’s v Fletcher to apply, the tyres themselves would have to be ‘dangerous’.  On their own, they were not.  The Court did not rule that the principle could never apply in the case of fire damage, but it would be rarely applicable as the fire itself would have to be brought onto the premises and then escape.

Liability with regards to the spread of the fire

Under the provisions of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, any person with a level of control over premises must ensure that the risks of fire are contained, and if a fire occurs, the occupants of the building can escape easily.

The order says that you must manage any fire-risk in your premises. Fire authorities no longer issue fire certificates and those previously in force will have no legal status.

However, if you have met all your requirements under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, is it possible to make a claim against the architect, or the firm which constructed the building, if defects are found that may have led to the spread of the fire?

The Building Regulations 2010 state that ‘the building shall be designed and constructed so that, in the event of a fire, its stability will be maintained for a certain period...’ .  The regulations also state that reasonable measures should be taken to prevent the spread of fire.  This could include subdividing the building with fire-resisting construction and/or the installation of sprinklers or other fire suppression systems.

In the case of Bellefield Computer Services Ltd and others v E Turner & Sons Ltd, fire prevention methods such as partitions and sprinklers were found to be inadequate.  Forbes J ruled that, although an architect could be liable in principle in an appropriate case to a subsequent occupier for latent defects in a building that he designed or whose construction he supervised, it was not appropriate to hold so in the instant case because, on the evidence, the architect's retainer had not included design responsibility for the fire prevention measures that had given rise to the latent defect.

If you are seeking compensation following fire damage, you need to ensure you distinguish between the party responsible for cause and the party responsible for the spread of the fire as well as the impact of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and the Building Regulations 2010.  And remember, depending on the scale of the destruction, evidence to support your case may prove difficult to recover.  By obtaining expert advice sooner rather than later, you will have a greater chance of successfully recovering your losses.