The recent kitchen fire in a Hungary Jacks restaurant highlights the need for commercial restaurants to implement regular and professional canopy and exhaust cleaning procedures.
On June 24, it is reported that a fire started in a deep fryer in the Traralgon restaurant before quickly spreading to the kitchen canopy, and then onto the kitchen exhaust system and into the ceiling.
The fire was extinguished by CFA crews, but not before inflicting significant damage to the ceiling and kitchen. Around 20 people were evacuated with at least one person treated for minor smoke inhalation.
Commercial kitchens are constantly depositing layers of grease on surfaces surrounding cooking surfaces. These surfaces include kitchen fryers, hot plates and kitchen canopies.
In addition, the kitchen exhaust system is constantly sucking grease-filled air through the air filters and into the exhaust ducts. If left unmanaged, the result is a very dangerous greasy fuse that sits ready to explode into flames.
Most restaurant owners and managers understand that it is their responsibility to regularly clean their kitchen canopy and kitchen exhaust system. They’re aware that there is an Australian standard that outlines the requirement for an annual clean.
However, many commercial kitchens don’t realise that an annual clean is a minimum and that bigger kitchens require professional cleaning more regularly.
Further, the industry has seen the emergence of a group of unprofessional cleaning companies that are great at marking, but very poor at cleaning exhaust systems. This new breed of cleaning companies simply clean the kitchen canopy and filters but leave the exhaust ducts and other important areas.
Commercial kitchen owners and managers have been warned. Your livelihood is at risk as too is the safety of your patrons. Make sure you are using a professional and experience commercial kitchen cleaning company like Clean Air Filtration.
We have been servicing the restaurants and cafe’s of Melbourne for nearly 30 years. We’ll manage the cleaning of your Kitchen canopies and exhaust systems as well as implement our world-leading grease filter exchange service. Call us on 03 9303 9661 to learn how we can help.
