The Three Important Basics of Kitchen Fire Safety and Prevention

Fire safety and prevention is something that most all of us with a kitchen have to give some thought, but this is especially true for big commercial kitchens. With all of the heavy duty cooking equipment proper kitchen fire suppression installation is crucial for making sure fires can be stopped quickly and safely. As common knowledge states, fires are dangerous; however, a commercial kitchen fire can also be quite expensive depending on the damage caused. Knowing the crucial facts about kitchen fires and fire protection can go a long way to helping a business owner ensure employees, customers and expensive equipment are safe from extensive damage.


1. Kitchen fires happen frequently and can lead to expensive repair costs.


Thankfully, kitchen fires are pretty rare during business hours. Even if there’s a problem, trained employees and proper kitchen fire suppression installation can see to it that the fire goes out quickly. In the off hours, however, is when true destruction can happen by accident. On average, there are over 8,000 commercial kitchen fires reported annually and cause about $246 million in direct property damage. This is primarily why even good kitchen fire suppression is only a half of prevention, equipment maintenance being the other.


2. Cooking equipment is often to blame.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, 57% of restaurant fires are caused by the cooking equipment, accounting for 41% of restaurant fires starting in the kitchen. Deep fryers are particularly hazardous as they can be traced back to 9% of these fires (ranges come in at 7% and miscellaneous cooking equipment at 5%). This is why properly maintaining cooking equipment just as well as the fire suppression system is so important.


3. Proper equipment and fire extinguisher maintenance can prevent many fires.
Kitchen fire suppression installation does a lot for controlling kitchen fires. A study of more than 2,000 incidents of fire has shown that fire extinguishers successfully stifled 80% of those fires before they could do serious damage. This is why automatic extinguishing systems must be inspected and serviced once every six months to ensure they’re working properly. The same is true of cooking equipment and making sure every piece is up to date and working properly so as to avoid combustion or any other hazardous error.


Following these three basics will keep a kitchen (and the people within) safe from extensive fire damage.