LAFD's Fire Prevention Bureau and your kitchen
Inside the City of Los Angeles, business fire code enforcement belongs to the LAFD Fire Prevention Bureau, which carries out the Fire Marshal's duties and has units for Industrial and Commercial and Public Assemblage occupancies, among others. Which unit sees your kitchen? That depends on how the building is classified. Ask the bureau if you aren't sure.
Building out a new kitchen? New construction runs through LAFD Fire Development Services at the One Stop Permit Center, which handles plan review, permit approvals and field inspections. The city fire code sits in LAMC Chapter V, Article 7, and is based on the California Fire Code. Confirm the edition in force with the bureau.
Outside city limits? Then another fire authority covers your kitchen, and our Los Angeles County fire kitchen service page is the place to start.
What happens on the semi-annual visit
Commercial cooking suppression systems are inspected every six months under NFPA 96 and NFPA 17A. That's two visits a year. On a typical service the technician:
- Checks that every nozzle still sits over the appliance it protects.
- Replaces the metal-alloy fusible links.
- Checks the agent cylinder and the release mechanism.
- Tests the manual pull station.
- Confirms the gas or electric shutoff trips when the system releases.
Cooking lines get rearranged all the time, and a fryer moved two feet to the left can end up outside the nozzle pattern that was set when the hood went in. The tag gets updated at the end. Keep it visible.
The UL 300 fire kitchen system standard
UL 300 is the test standard for pre-engineered wet chemical systems that protect cooking appliances. Older dry chemical systems don't meet it.
If you took over a space from a previous tenant, the hood may have come with no paperwork, and nobody on staff may know which kind of system is installed or when it was last serviced. We can check. A technician can look at the cylinder, the agent and the nozzle layout, then tell you which type you have and what condition it's in. From there you can decide what to do next.
Your Class K extinguisher
Kitchens with a suppression system also need a Class K portable extinguisher for cooking oil and fat fires. It runs on its own schedule. Wet chemical units get annual maintenance with a new tag and a hydrostatic test every 5 years, which is far more often than the 12-year cycle for dry chemical units elsewhere in the building.
In California, extinguisher service must be done by a firm and technician licensed by the State Fire Marshal under Title 19. Our California work is done by Hedrick Fire Protection, which holds C-16 (fire protection) and C-10 (electrical) contractor licenses and is State Fire Marshal licensed under Title 19 for portable extinguisher service. For details, see annual extinguisher certification in Los Angeles and hydrostatic testing in Los Angeles.
Book kitchen service in Los Angeles
Call (213) 568-0188 or email socal@1profire.com. Have three things ready: the date on your last hood tag, how many appliances sit under the hood, and the hours when the line can be shut down for the visit. Early slots before opening work well.
Other services for the city are on our Los Angeles fire protection page. Kitchens farther south can use the Orange County fire kitchen service page.
Our services include
Frequently asked questions
Can we keep cooking while the system is serviced?
No. Testing trips the fuel shutoff, so the line is down for the visit. Book a slot before you open.
Do you need to see the kitchen before giving a price?
Usually, yes. The price depends on the hood, the number of nozzles and the appliances under it, and those are hard to judge over the phone.
What if the system discharges?
Stop cooking and call us. The system has to be recharged and put back in service before the line runs again.
What happens if something fails the inspection?
You'll hear what failed and why. Some fixes are small, like a missing nozzle cap, while a system that no longer covers a rearranged cooking line can take a good deal more work to sort out.