Kitchens can be dangerous places. Most of us know that commercial kitchens in restaurants, hotels and schools are highly susceptible to Class F fires – and have seen the catastrophic effects that can have to the premises. But did you know that the most common cause of death from a home fire is also cooking gone wrong? When you combine these two facts, it becomes clear why choosing the right fire extinguisher for your commercial and domestic kitchen is so important.

There’s a lot to consider when choosing your kitchen fire extinguisher. You need something that is easy to use, but also effective against grease fires or electrical fires – potentially both. You also want something that can put out a fire quickly to minimise damage and prevent injury. Luckily, kitchen fire extinguishers are readily available to combat kitchen fires and to keep these high-risk areas safe.

This comprehensive guide explores kitchen fire safety. Whether you are a restaurant owner looking to maintain the safety of your commercial kitchen or a homeowner wanting to make sure your family stays safe when they’re cooking, OHEAP has you covered.

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Kitchen Fire Statistics:

The Most Dangerous Room in the House

Kitchens play an integral role within the home and the hospitality industry. Kitchens are also important for schools, hospitals, nursing homes, hostels and cruise ships (to name only a few!). While we might be aware of how important kitchen fire safety is for the home, commercial kitchens can pose an even greater risk.

The kitchen is factually the most dangerous room in your house. According to the National Fire Protection Association, the kitchen statistically has the highest fire death rate, injury rate and loss rate of any room in a home. In fact, according to data collected by the NFPA over 20 years (1996-2016), kitchens have accounted for nearly 50% of all residential fires that resulted in death or injury.

The NFPA estimates more than 54% of these fatal fires occurred while cooking; another 24% happened while people were eating or drinking; 12% started with an electrical fault; 9% from smoking materials such as cigarettes and cigars; 4% from candles; 3% from heating equipment (e.g., space heaters); 2% from flammable liquids like gasoline or paint thinner; and 1%, not surprisingly given its prevalence among adults ages 55+, was attributed to alcohol use.

Kitchen Fire Combustibles

Fats and Oils: Wet Chemical Fire Extinguishers

Commercial kitchens regularly use deep fat fryers or work with hot cooking fats and oils on burning stoves. These highly flammable ingredients, paired with a restaurant’s fast-paced, high-pressure environments, can easily result in a Class F fire. These incredibly hot fires can engulf a restaurant kitchen quickly. Although fire blankets can offer some protection, they will not be enough to sufficiently extinguish larger Class F fires. So, how do you combat these kitchen fires? PFAS-free wet chemical extinguishers are the solution.

Investing in a specialised fire extinguisher, like a wet chemical extinguisher, might sound like something reserved for restaurant chefs and cooks. But these deadly fires aren’t limited to commercial kitchens. Your home kitchen can also be at serious risk from Class F fires. Let’s look at some frequently asked questions on Class F fires to help us understand why they are so dangerous and how we can safely combat them.

What Makes Class F Fires Dangerous?

Class F fires burn at incredibly high temperatures, can reignite despite initially being extinguished and can even become explosive if water is thrown over the flames.

Alongside these factors, using the wrong kitchen fire extinguisher on a Class F fire will only aid in spreading the flames and can cause the blaze to become uncontrollable.

What Causes a Class F Fire?

Generally, Class F fires are caused by fats and cooking oils.

Mostly, these fires will occur due to negligence. Uncleanliness, leaving oils, fats and pans unattended. It’s important to maintain a clean environment and remove old oils from surfaces as well as keep an eye on food whilst it’s cooking.

How Are Class F and Class B Fires Different?

Class F fires differ from Class B fires due to their incredibly hot flash point. Technically, cooking oils and fats are a sub-class of flammable liquids, also known as Class F.

Class F fires have been split into their own category as their flash point is substantially higher than the typical liquid fire. An excess of 340°C is needed to ignite these fires and therefore has been recognised as a very different threat.

These combustible materials are highly flammable and burn a lot hotter than a typical fire. If oils spill or drip onto something else that’s hotter, like an oven, the fat will ignite much like gasoline would.

Wood and Cloth: Water Mist Fire Extinguishers

In both restaurant and home kitchens, there are a lot of wooden surfaces and objects. In addition, cloth towels and cleaning cloths are easily combustible. If they are left to dry near an open flame or appliance, they can ignite and cause a fire. Fortunately, these fires are fairly easy to tackle, and simply using a Class A fire extinguisher would be sufficient. Water mist extinguishers are the safest option. Due to their versatility, a water mist fire extinguisher can tackle Class A, B, C and electrical fires. This, combined with a wet chemical fire extinguisher, will be enough to keep your kitchen or restaurant safe.

Remember:

• A Class F kitchen fire extinguisheris designed to put out combustible oil fires.

• A Class A kitchen fire extinguisher is designed to put out combustible solid fires.

• Class F fire extinguisher types typically use foam or potassium acetate to extinguish cooking oils.

• Class A fire extinguisher types typically use water to extinguish cloth, wood and paper.

If you’re in your kitchen and spot a small fire on your stovetop, then a regular Class A extinguisher will do just fine. However, if there is any chance that the flames have spread beyond the immediate area where they started, it’s best to use a different type of fire extinguisher, a Class F one with foam-based chemicals in it.

Features Of A Class F Fire Extinguisher in the Kitchen

In a domestic kitchen, commercial kitchen or restaurant, fires are extremely common. To safely tackle them and prevent injuries or damage, we recommend purchasing a Class F fire extinguisher. Wondering what exactly a Class F fire extinguisher is? Let’s explore it.

Firstly, a Class F kitchen fire extinguisher is typically a PFAS-free wet chemical extinguishing agent. This canary yellow-labelled extinguishing agent is a solution made of potassium. Potassium will act as both a coolant and a preventative measure against splashing and spitting oils. Cooling the flame is vital as this prevents the flame from continuing to spread. Secondly, potassium salts will react with the hot oils and cause saponification. This soapy solution will then coat the surface of the flame and cause asphyxiation, as no oxygen will be able to reach the combustible.

Wet chemical fire extinguishers have a wide spray pattern and a long reach. This makes it easier to use in tight areas like kitchens or near ovens and grills. Generally, these are tight areas where you might need to douse flames from a distance before approaching them directly. Also, these fire extinguishers have a low pressure, so you don’t have to worry about being blown back when using one. In addition to Class F fires, a wet chemical fire extinguisher can often tackle Class A and Class B fires.

Where to Place Kitchen Fire Extinguishers

There are a few things to consider when choosing the best place for your kitchen fire extinguisher. It should be located in an area where people will see it and use it easily. Also, it should be somewhere that won’t cause too much carnage e.g. in busy footfall areas. Where to put your fire extinguisher in your vehicle.

How Many Kitchen Fire Extinguishers Do You Need?

To ensure you can quickly and easily put out most fires, our expert engineers recommend that commercial premises have two fire extinguishers in their kitchen:

• An extinguisher capable of tackling Class F fires.

• An extinguisher capable of combating Class A, B & C.

Fire Extinguisher Positioning

One of the best places to put a kitchen fire extinguisher is within 30 feet of the stove. This is where there is an exposed and open flame, likely to cause a fire. Oil splatter, burning food and gas are just some of the common examples of flammable combustibles in a kitchen. It is also important to remember that a kitchen fire extinguisher should be placed in an area where someone can see it and use it easily. This will help prevent accidents from occurring.

• We recommend at least 1 metre away from the oven.

• Within 30 feet of the oven

• Ideally, we would situate the fire extinguisher near an exit door, too.

• Keep the fire extinguisher off the floor on either a stand or bracket.

• It should be placed in a visible location so that anyone entering the room can see it.

• It should be placed in a location where it is easily accessible and not likely to be knocked over.

• It should be placed in a location where it is not likely to be tampered with.

Extinguishers need to be available for easy access. If you leave something inside the oven that catches on fire, it may not be able to be easily seen from the outside of the oven itself.

In a domestic setting where space is limited, another great location is near appliances. You should put an extinguisher next to any appliances that may cause fires, such as microwaves or dishwashers. If your kitchen is small, you can also mount smaller extinguishers to the wall if necessary.

How to Make Your Kitchen Safer

Kitchen and cooking fires can be statistically devastating. Fortunately, they are easy to prevent. At OHEAP Fire and Security, we have a few tips you can follow to help keep your home or business safe.

• Make your home safer by being aware of where fires can start: If you identify where the potential combustibles are, we can begin to eradicate the threat before it becomes a problem in the future.

• Identify gaps in your fire safety tools or knowledge: If a fire were to occur, how would you put it out? Do you have the correct fire extinguisher? Do you know how to use a fire extinguisher?

Commercial kitchens are busy places with lots of activity. This increases the risk of negligence and reduces awareness of developing fire threats – which can lead to uncontrollable fires spreading easily. Alongside investing in a kitchen fire extinguisher, we would recommend that smoke alarms be installed throughout the premises and that they be tested regularly. In addition, you should install carbon monoxide detectors near fuel-burning sources such as boilers or open wood fires.

Click Here: What fire extinguisher do you need in the kitchen

Is Your Kitchen Safe?

Investing in the fire safety of your home kitchen is essential. However, in commercial kitchens that can easily be accessed by the public and quickly become a serious fire threat, having the knowledge and tools to protect your kitchen is a legal and moral obligation.

Common Causes of Kitchen Fire

• Check that your appliances are not switched on when you leave the room.

• Never leave cooking unattended for more than a few minutes.

• If you have children at home, remember to keep matches and lighters locked away from them.

• Never leave children unattended in the kitchen.

• Keep cooking grease away from open flames or pilot lights to prevent fires.

• If you must use a stove, turn the burner off when you finish cooking and never leave it on while you sleep.

Kitchen Fire Safety Checklist

Maintaining kitchen fire safety can seem like an overwhelming task. Especially when we have busy lives. That’s why we’ve made a simple kitchen fire safety checklist for you to follow.

• Install a stove guard and keep children away from ovens and hotplates.

• Don’t leave your cooking or flames unattended.

• If you leave the kitchen, turn off the stove.

• Don’t wear loose-fitting clothes or loose-fitting sleeves.

• Don’t keep flammable cloth near the cooker e.g. tea towels or oven mitts.

• Don’t use water to put out oil or fat fires.

• Don’t carry pans of hot oil around the house or restaurant.

• Provide fire safety training to all members of staff.

• Install non-slip flooring or mats in commercial kitchens.

• Install both fire extinguishers and fire blankets in your kitchen.

• Regularly clean old oil and fat from the grill.

• Turn pot handles away from the edge to avoid knocking pans over.

• Install smoke alarms.

• Install heat detectors.

In case of a kitchen fire, the Fire Service usually recommends that you get everyone out of your home and call the Fire and Rescue Service. If a fire is spreading and you are not equipped to deal with it, leave the building immediately and call 999.

Which Fire Safety Tools do I need for a Commercial Kitchen?

• Heat and Smoke: Interlinked smoke and heat alarms are highly effective fire detection devices. While smoke alarms are important to detect early warning signs of fire in your home, they cannot differentiate between dangerous smoke and regular cooking fumes. However, heat alarms can. These devices detect fire by monitoring the temperature of a space. This makes heat alarms essential for protecting your kitchen from fire.

• Fire Blankets: One of the ways you can safely combat a developing fire threat in a commercial kitchen is by using a fire blanket. These should be located near or in the commercial kitchen, but never too close to any potential fire hazards. Remember, if a fire suddenly starts on the hob, the last thing you should do is reach over it to get your fire blanket.

• Class F Fire Extinguishers: Wet chemical (PFAS-free) extinguishers are specialised to combat Class F fires. They are the best tool for safely extinguishing hot oil and cooking fat fires, making them the ideal commercial kitchen fire extinguisher.

• Kitchen Suppression Systems: Fire suppression systems provide active protection against fire. Kitchen suppression systems are a specialised form of suppression systems designed specifically for commercial kitchens.

What Are Kitchen Suppression Systems?

Kitchen suppression systems protect commercial kitchens from fires by directly deploying an extinguishing agent onto the affected area.

The extinguishing agent is typically a wet chemical, although this can change depending on the commercial kitchen’s fire safety needs.

A kitchen system consists of two elements: ductwork and suppression.

Do Kitchen Suppression Systems Require Room Integrity Testing?

Some kitchen suppression systems flood the entire affected area.  It is a legal requirement, then, for these systems to have room integrity testing. However, this depends on the specific type of kitchen suppression systems.

Room integrity testing (RIT) is a process of evaluating the ability of a room to maintain consistent pressure and prevent the spread of fire and smoke. Some suppression systems work by completely flooding a space.

Still unsure whether your kitchen suppression system needs room integrity testing? We have in-depth blogs available covering the technicalities of RITs. Our expert engineers are also able to conduct RITs for you. Alternatively, our fire safety experts are always available to talk to you about your fire safety needs.

Which Industries Have Commercial Kitchens?

When we think about fire safety risks in commercial kitchens, it is easy to assume that only the hospitality industry will be affected. However, commercial kitchens are a key part of many buildings. These include:

• Schools, colleges and universities
• Restaurants
• Hospitals
• Shopping Centres
• Hotels and hostels
• Cruise ships
• Nursing homes

Conclusion

In summary, it’s important to know how to use a fire extinguisher. We teach others how different fire extinguishers work and how to properly use these devices. Class F wet chemical fire extinguishers are designed for kitchen fires that occur in both commercial and domestic kitchens. They are very effective in putting out both grease fires and oil fires through the process of saponification. Also, if you already have a fire extinguisher, then you should know the type of extinguisher you have and how it works. It’s important to understand what type of fire extinguisher is needed in your home.

The fire extinguisher should be placed in a visible location so that anyone entering the room can see it. Also, it should be placed in a location where it is easily accessible and not likely to be knocked over. It should be placed in a location where it is not likely to be tampered with. The fire extinguisher should be checked regularly to make sure it is working properly. The area around the fire extinguisher should be kept clear of any obstructions that could prevent easy access to it.

If you have any questions about this article or would like more information on various types of fire extinguishers. Please feel free to contact us!