Are candles safe in a power cut? What the official advice says

The short answer

No, and the official guidance says so directly. The government's Prepare advice recommends keeping a battery or wind-up torch, and states plainly that torches are safer than candles. UK fire and rescue services say the same thing. Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue tell households to keep torches handy for a power cut because they are much safer than candles.

Where the confusion came from

You may have read that candles are on the government's recommended emergency list. Several news outlets have reported it that way. They aren't. The live guidance at gov.uk/prepare specifies a battery or wind-up torch, and it has said so since the page launched in 2024.

The candle line is a summary of a summary, repeated until it looked official. It matters, because a lot of households will read that and feel reassured about doing the one thing the actual advice tells them not to.

What the fire services say

Candles are consistently named as one of the most common causes of house fires in the UK. Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service puts candle fires at 3% of house fires in England, but 6% of fire injuries. That gap is the important bit — candle fires hurt people at roughly twice the rate you would expect from how often they happen.

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service report that around 30% of the candle fires they attend result in a death or an injury. And London Fire Brigade repeat the same advice after almost every candle-related incident: never leave one unattended, keep them away from anything that can catch, and consider battery-powered LED candles instead.

None of this means candles are dangerous in normal use. It means they are a fire source, and a power cut is the worst possible time to be introducing extra fire sources into a dark house.

Why a power cut makes candles worse

Think about what actually happens on a dark evening with no electricity. You carry the light from room to room, because there is only one of it. You put it down somewhere that isn't its usual place. You have children who want to see it, and possibly a cat who wants to knock it over. Everyone goes to bed earlier than usual because there is nothing else to do, and somebody is tired enough to forget.

Every one of those is a normal, reasonable thing to do, and every one of them is exactly how candle fires start. A torch does none of that. You can carry it, drop it, hand it to a six-year-old and fall asleep holding it.

What to use instead

• A wind-up torch. No batteries to run out or forget — ninety seconds of winding gives you enough light to find everything else. Worth having even if you buy nothing else.
• A torch each. One per person, kept together in one place. Children cope with a power cut far better when they have their own light — it turns a frightening evening into an interesting one.
• An LED lantern. A torch lights one direction; a lantern lights the room everyone ends up sitting in, which is where you actually want to be.
• A head torch. Underrated. It means you can carry a child, make a sandwich or find the fuse box with both hands free.
• Battery LED candles. If it's the atmosphere you want rather than the light, these give you the flicker with none of the risk. Keep the batteries out of reach of small children.

Store spare batteries with the torches, not in a drawer upstairs. A torch with flat batteries is an ornament.

If you are going to use candles anyway

Some people will, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. The fire service advice is consistent:

• Use a proper heat-resistant holder on a stable surface
• Keep them well away from curtains, paper, furniture and anything else that can catch
• Keep them out of reach of children and pets
• Never leave one burning in an empty room
• Put them out before you go to sleep, every single time
• Don't burn several close together — the flames can flare
• Snuff them out rather than blowing, which can send sparks and hot wax flying
• Never use one in a bedroom or anywhere you might doze off

Use them as one light in one room where somebody is sitting. Never as the light you carry around the house.

Two other things to avoid in a power cut

Don't cook indoors with a barbecue or anything designed for outside. It's not just a fire risk — it produces carbon monoxide, which you cannot smell.

And turn off appliances that could restart on their own when the power returns, like hobs, hair dryers and irons. A hob that comes back on at three in the morning with a tea towel resting on it is a genuine cause of house fires.

Get the lighting sorted first

Of everything in a household emergency kit, lighting is the part you will use most and the part people most often get wrong. It is also cheap. Our kit builder includes the right number of torches for your household alongside everything else you need, sized to the number of people and their ages.