Australia has the proportionally the greatest number of roof panel installs than anywhere else and their incidence rate is 0.01% of installs. The panels’ themselves are not the cause but poor quality workmanship around connections. In particular the use of pairing up of different makes of MC4 connections and poor or underrated DC switchgear. Most panel manufacturers fit flying leads to connect to each other, so that is covered, the issue can be the end of the string being mated up to the continuation cable to the inverter using a different make of MC4. I saw something this week about the tightening up of the use of DC switchgear (not sure if it was a guidance or regulation) because they have been recognised as a weak point in installs DC being more demanding of switchgear quality than AC due to the arcing potential. A recommendation was to have minimum number of DC isolators in a system. The concern here with the roof fire, as highlighted, is this a one off or is there potentially a systemic issue with the other builds on the estate.

The report in today's Mail suggests a couple of causes. Leaves or other debris behind the panels, presumably over-heating and combusting, and/or the gap between panels and tiles being presumably, too little.

I don't have panels, and have no plans to fit them, but if I did, I prefer the flush appearance. With no 'open to the air' gap behind flush panels, can that be a problem?