Hospitality
In a kitchen, floor area does not decide. The fryer does.
Restaurant, brasserie, chip shop, café, hotel: your fire obligations look nothing like those of an office of the same size. A bath of hot oil, a greased-up extraction hood and customers who do not know where the exits are — that changes the whole reasoning.
Your obligations
What actually applies to you
An oil fire does not go out like any other
Frying oil burns in class F. Water or powder sprayed onto it scatters burning oil instead of putting it out — the instinctive move makes the fire worse. A professional kitchen calls for a class F extinguisher and a fire blanket within reach, not at the far end of a corridor.
The hood is the route the fire takes
Grease builds up inside extraction ducts and turns them into a chimney: a kitchen fire reaches the upper floors that way. Periodic cleaning of hoods and ducts is a standard insurer requirement and the first thing a loss adjuster checks. Above a certain cooking output, automatic suppression under the hood is the only serious answer.
From the first employee: the risk analysis
The Belgian Code on well-being at work, Book III title 3, requires a fire risk analysis whatever the size of the business. It sets the number and type of appliances, the instructions on display and the evacuation drill, to be held at least once a year. In hospitality that drill is prepared differently: staff turn over, and customers do not know the place.
Offer rooms and the bar rises
Hotel, guest rooms, holiday let: automatic detection in bedrooms and circulation areas, emergency lighting and an evacuation plan become the rule. On top of that comes a fire safety certificate issued by the municipality on the fire service’s advice — the brandveiligheidsattest in Flanders. Without it the business is not compliant, however good the system.
On inspection day
What gets looked at first
An inspection does not start with the drawings. It starts with what is visible in thirty seconds, and that is where most findings come from.
- Does the extinguishing agent match what can burn in that room, fryer included
- Can the appliances be reached — not behind a stack of crates or a locked store-room door
- The date of the last service, on the label of every appliance
- The safety register, and what has been recorded in it over the past year
- The emergency lighting, tested rather than assumed
- Escape routes and exit doors, clear and openable from the inside
A survey of your premises
We come on site, appliance by appliance, hood included, and you leave with a written report setting out what is missing and what is enough.
Frequently asked questions
The answers people ask us for in meetings.
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