Recently the U.S. Fire Administration released a report on trends in nonresidential building fires over the 10-year period from 2007 to 2016. You can see the full report here.
But here are the highlights:
- Cooking is far and away the leading cause of fires in nonresidential buildings.
- Dollar losses from nonresidential building fires are on a long-term downward trend, but deaths from those fires tragically spiked upward in 2016, reducing what had also been a long-term downward trend.
- The number of nonresidential building fires caused by cooking has been on an upward trend, although losses in dollars are mostly trending down, and 2016 was a particularly good year as regards these measures of cooking fires.
The National Restaurant Association publishes a useful guide on the basics of restaurant fire safety, which is applicable to any commercial cooking establishment. You can see it here.
The International Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning Association (IKECA) is the leading industry group on preventing fires by advancing the standards for maintenance and cleaning of kitchen exhaust systems. You can see IKECA’s web page on the importance of keeping your system clean here. and get copies of its American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-approved standards for cleaning and inspection of kitchen exhaust systems here.
Have a great Labor Day weekend!