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Fire risk assessment and gas safety for kitchens ​

A commercial kitchen puts hot oil, open flames and gas in the same room as your staff, and sometimes under someone’s flat. The law asks two things of you: a fire risk assessment, written down in full and kept up to date, and gas appliances kept safe by engineers who are allowed to work on them. Since October 2023 every business must write its fire risk assessment down, however small. This guide covers England. Wales uses the same fire law but has its own guidance; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own fire safety laws.

Who is responsible ​

The law calls you the responsible person if you are the employer, the owner, the landlord, an occupier or anyone else in control of the premises. If there is more than one, for example a tenant running the restaurant and a landlord responsible for the shared stairs, you must work together.

The fire risk assessment ​

You must carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and keep it up to date. GOV.UK sets it out in five steps:

  1. Identify the fire hazards: in a kitchen, fryers, hobs, grills, oil, gas and the grease that builds up in extraction.
  2. Identify the people at risk: staff, customers, delivery drivers, and anyone living above or next door.
  3. Evaluate, remove or reduce the risks, and decide what protection you need: alarms and detection, escape routes, emergency lighting and fire fighting equipment.
  4. Record your findings, prepare an emergency plan and train your staff.
  5. Review it regularly, and whenever something significant changes, such as a new layout, new equipment or more staff.

Write it all down. Since 1 October 2023 you must record the whole assessment, with all its findings, and your fire safety arrangements, whatever the size of the business. The old rule that only businesses with five or more employees had to write it down has gone. Record each review and its date too.

Doing it yourself. For a small, simple premises you can do the assessment yourself with the government’s guides. If you do not have the expertise or the time, appoint a competent person to help, such as a professional fire risk assessor, and record their name and organisation in the assessment.

What the guidance says about kitchens ​

The government’s guide for small premises applies where cooking is away from the exits, so that a fire there could not block the way out. Where it does apply, it says:

  • Fryers: if there is a risk from fat fryers or similar equipment, keep a fire blanket and a Class F extinguisher, made for burning fats and oils, in the kitchen or cooking area.
  • Never leave cooking unattended.
  • Clean filters and ducts over cooking appliances regularly, so flammable grease does not build up.
  • Store bulk cooking oil outside where possible.
  • Detectors: in a kitchen, where a smoke detector would give false alarms, use a heat detector.
  • Escape routes for the public should ideally not pass through the kitchen.
  • Emergency lighting: if you need artificial light to find your way out, you need emergency escape lighting.

Train staff when they start and refresh it regularly, typically every year, and hold at least one fire drill a year and record it. If your kitchen is close to the exits, or your premises are larger or more complex, use the fuller government guides or a professional assessor.

A flat above or next door ​

If you share a building, find out who the other responsible persons are, give each other your names and an address in the UK, and co-ordinate your fire safety measures. Where a business puts residents above it at risk, the fire service can stop the business being used until the risk is dealt with.

Enforcement ​

Your local fire and rescue authority enforces fire safety. It can serve an enforcement notice telling you what to put right, giving you at least 28 days, or a prohibition notice stopping all or part of the premises from being used. You can appeal to the magistrates’ court within 21 days. Serious offences can lead to an unlimited fine and up to two years in prison.

Gas safety ​

  • Only a Gas Safe registered engineer qualified for the work may work on your gas appliances and pipework. It is illegal for anyone else to do it, and checking that the engineer is registered and qualified is your responsibility.
  • Keep it safe. As an employer you must keep every gas appliance, pipe and flue at work in a safe condition. The law does not set how often, but HSE’s guidance for catering says annual inspections are a reasonable minimum, following the manufacturer’s recommendations.
  • Ventilation interlock. A new installation should have the extraction and the gas supply interlocked, so the gas shuts off if the extraction fails, and manual bypasses are not allowed. The standard is not retrospective: if an older kitchen has no interlock, assess the risk and deal with it.
  • Carbon monoxide alarms made for homes are not normally suitable for a commercial kitchen, and HSE reminds you that alarms are only warning devices.
  • A flat let to staff or anyone else counts as residential: the landlord must have the gas appliances there checked every 12 months.

Health and safety in a restaurant is enforced by your council’s environmental health team.

A short checklist ​

  • A written fire risk assessment covering everything it found, reviewed and dated.
  • Fire blanket and Class F extinguisher by the fryers.
  • Filters and ducts on a cleaning schedule.
  • Staff trained when they start, refreshed yearly, and a recorded fire drill.
  • Gas work by Gas Safe registered engineers only, with an annual inspection.
  • Check the extraction is interlocked with the gas, or assess the risk.
  • If you share the building, swap details with the other responsible person.

Sources ​

This guide is general information, not legal advice. For your own premises, ask your local fire and rescue service or a competent fire risk assessor.