Get Used To It – The Mainstream Media Will Not Play Nicely

*An explanation of the above image follows later for younger readers 

An off-duty firefighter notices smoke coming from the roof of a home in Wellingborough and alerts the occupants who safely evacuate the premises.  The fire brigade extinguishes the fire, but only after the whole roof has burned away.  

This article reports the incident in a factual way, noting that the house has solar panels installed.

In this telling of the story the doorbell footage shows the “terrifying! moment” that the “solar panels EXPLODED! ripping a hole! through the roof” and that the family “scrambled! to safety” as neighbours “watched in horror!”

The Sun article also includes the timelapse footage from the doorbell which, when combined with the misleading headline, does indeed look like the roof exploded.

So even after the investigation all we really know is that a house with solar panels on it had a fire and the fire started in the loft – maybe from elements of the solar installation, maybe from other electrical equipment.  Can we expect a retraction from the tabloids?  That solar panels don’t explode blowing holes in roofs?  Not likely.

An old school friend of mine who had worked on the news desk at the Daily Mail once told me how they would know when their work was done.  Their readership would be too terrified to get out of their beds, at which point he would run a story about the dangers of bedsores.

Just like the bogus headline about a UK comedian putting a friend’s pet hamster between two slices of bread to create a tasty late night snack, the news cycle has already moved on by the time the truth emerges.  People remember that solar panels can explode suddenly and our industry is just a little bit worse off.

What should the Solar Industry do?

We need to recognise two irrefutable facts.

1. There will be fires on more and more buildings that have a solar installation.  

2. In some cases the solar installation will be the cause of the fire.

An Action Plan for the Solar Industry

2. Consider adopting as mandatory some of these best practice measures through changes to MCS standards.

What the industry cannot do is just hope that the news cycle moves on and reporting of “solar fires” will be forgotten.  Parts of the UK media continue to promote negative news about electric vehicles, heat pumps and utility scale solar.  These outlets are unlikely to let the facts get in the way of a good story that is damaging to the solar industry.

*Freddie Starr was a stand up comedian and entertainer in the UK at his peak of fame in the 1970s.  In 1986 one of the best-known British tabloid newspaper headlines of all time featured Starr. The Sun ran its front page with “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”. The man behind the hamster story was Starr’s agent, the British publicist, Max Clifford – at that time Starr’s agent.