Editor’s note: Battery and vape safety will be featured in sessions at the 2026 E-Scrap: The Longevity Conference Oct. 26-28 in New Orleans.
Fire incidents at North American recycling and waste facilities last month tied a 10-year high for August, but the numbers indicate there may be progress in mitigating these incidents.
Ryan Fogelman, who works as a fire prevention consultant at Fire Rover, said in his September fire report that 49 fire incidents happened last month at facilities in the US and Canada. That ties last month for the highest August total in the decade Fogelman has recorded statistics.
It also kept pace with an above-average July and brought the year-to-date incident total to 293, a pace that’s only behind the 300 reported to this point in 2024 and 2025. Of those 293, 74 are considered catastrophic (defined as causing at least $400,000 in damage) — more than all of 2024, when the year ended with 71.
“Whatever is driving these fires is producing more total losses, not just more incidents,” he said.
Fogelman said the data shows that vapes are driving a good number of incidents. The waste, paper and plastics facility category, which is where disposed-of vapes often end up, has seen the number of incidents through the first months of the year climb from 91 in 2016 up to 161.
That would track with reports elsewhere. British waste collector Biffa reported an estimated 480,000 vapes passed through its facilities just in June and July, while Material Focus cited discarded batteries as a main cause for a near-doubling in waste system fires from 2022-2024.
“Every one of these numbers has a mirror image in the North American data I track,” Fogelman said.
Remedies such as a deposit return system, which Biffa supports, and mandatory recycling could help. So can education, which Fogelman has advocated for and feels could finally be working. The 2.3% downturn in year-to-date fires through August would, if it holds through the rest of 2026, be the first non-pandemic decline in fire incidents since he started this report. Several months have also seen year-over-year drops, including January (down 31%), March (21%) and April (19%).
“Those declines coincide with expanded disposal education, retailer takeback efforts and municipal battery collection programs,” he said. “The data alone cannot establish causation, but the pattern is worth watching.”
In the short term, though, history suggests little relief. Fogelman said the past two years have revealed what was once a summer seasonal fire surge now extends through about half the year, portending above-average months through the early fall.
“Plans based on the assumption that risk declines after Labor Day should be re-evaluated,” he said.
Fogelman’s report takes into account publicly reported fires, which are generally considered to be two alarms or greater so as to make them newsworthy. Actual incident totals are estimated to be six times higher.
