Fire safety in a hotel kitchen: hood suppression, gas detection and LPG rules

In Türkiye, a hotel kitchen serving more than 100 people at once must have automatic hood suppression and, depending on the burner gas, gas detection with shut-off and alarm. Cooking exhaust must be independent of other building systems. The fire rules for buildings were reissued in 2021, and article numbers and thresholds changed with that text, so check the current version rather than an older copy. Confirm your own building with a fire consultant.

The hood over a hotel kitchen carries a grease load, a gas line and a suppression system that may not have been tested since the last contractor visit. The rule that governs all three is short, specific, and mostly checked by walking the room rather than reading the file. This article turns those rules into a hotel kitchen fire safety checklist the chef and technical service can run themselves: who the kitchen rules reach, what the systems must do, what the exhaust duct must look like, and who owns the records.

Does the kitchen rule reach your kitchen? The 100-person test#

For most hotels the trigger is capacity: Article 57 covers kitchens serving more than 100 people at once, alongside kitchens in shopping centres, high-rise buildings and food factories. The consolidated text of the Regulation on the Protection of Buildings from Fire (opens in a new tab) (Resmî Gazete 19 December 2007, No. 26735) states the duty in one sentence, and the scope question is the one to settle first, in writing, with your fire consultant.

"At once" means simultaneous, not daily covers. A 90-seat à la carte restaurant plus a 250-seat banquet hall is a kitchen serving more than 100 people at once on banquet nights, even if the restaurant alone never does. The clause lists its own scope: dwellings are excluded; shopping centres, high-rise buildings, food factories and kitchens above 100 people at once are in.

If the hotel building is itself a high-rise, the clause reads as covering its kitchens whatever the seat count. Ask the fire consultant to confirm that reading for your building rather than assuming it either way. The regulation is a floor, not a ceiling: the fire report, the insurer and the building's fire consultant can require suppression and detection below 100 people, particularly for a basement kitchen.

Count the tea kitchen and the staff canteen separately. A tea kitchen is treated as a kitchen in the separation rule even when it serves far fewer than 100. Write the number down once: seats per outlet, banquet covers, canteen seats, and the hour at which they peak. That single sheet decides whether the rest of this checklist applies to you.

The kitchen sits inside the building's wider fire duties; see the fire safety checklist for the whole building for what the regulation asks of the hotel beyond the kitchen door.

What must hood suppression and gas detection actually do?#

The hood needs an automatic extinguishing system, and the burners need gas detection, shut-off and alarm matched to the gas in use. Article 57 states both duties in one line; the mechanics are where compliance is won or lost.

Automatic means it works without a person. The system detects the fire at the hood and discharges on its own, with a manual release as the backup, not the primary method. Gas detection, shut-off and alarm are one chain: the detector senses, the alarm sounds, and a valve cuts the flow. A detector with no valve is half a system and will not satisfy the clause.

"Depending on the gas used in the burners" means the design follows the gas. Kitchens on natural gas also fall under Article 112 of the same regulation, which this article does not quote; the gas distributor and the fire consultant own that conversation. The regulation sets the duty, not the maintenance period: the service interval comes from the system's manufacturer, the installer and the insurer, and it belongs in the contract, not in someone's memory.

What a fire officer or an insurer will ask for is a set of documents, not an opinion: the design, the commissioning report, the last service record, and the name of the person trained to use the manual release. Test the chain, not the parts. Trigger the detector with the kitchen briefed in advance and watch three things happen: the alarm sounds, the valve closes, and the cooks know who calls whom.

For how the kitchen fits into the wider operation, see how a hotel food and beverage department runs day to day.

Cooking exhaust: what does Article 88 require, and what cleaning records should you keep?#

The kitchen exhaust must be its own system, kept clear of combustibles, discharging outside away from air intakes, and it must contain no fire damper. Article 88(2) of the Fire Regulation, consolidated text (opens in a new tab) sets these rules for the cooking areas of hotels, restaurants, cafeterias and similar places.

Independence comes first: the mechanical exhaust of the cooking area must be independent of the systems serving other parts of the building. A kitchen duct shared with the rest of the building fails on the first line of the article. Exhaust ducts must pass at least 50 cm away from unprotected combustible materials, and the exhaust must discharge directly outside, at least 5 m from any air intake opening. A duct that ends near a fresh-air louvre moves grease and smoke into the building it just left.

A duct running outside the kitchen must be covered with material giving fire resistance equal to the structural fire resistance of the section it passes through, or of the kitchen. Where the duct runs inside a brick shaft, the shaft must be separated from its other sections and from other ducts and service elements. And no fire damper may be fitted in kitchen exhaust ducts: a damper that closes would hold heat and grease inside the duct, which is why the regulation removes the option.

Cleaning is the part the regulation does not number. It sets no interval, so the interval comes from the grease load, the system design, the manufacturer and the insurer. Keep a dated record with photographs of the duct before and after, and the name of the contractor.

LPG and basement kitchens: what is prohibited?#

LPG cylinders may not be kept in a basement, and a basement kitchen may not use gas without a second exit. Both rules sit in Article 57, and both are written as prohibitions rather than risks to be managed.

The cylinder rule is unconditional: in kitchens that use LPG, cylinders may not be kept in the basement. A basement LPG kitchen needs ventilation and a safety valve, either an automatic safety valve or a quick shut-off valve, triggered when the gas detector senses a leak and raises the alarm, cutting the gas flow. Basement kitchens using gas need ventilation systems, and using gas without a second exit is prohibited; the second exit is the one people reach without passing the fire.

Natural gas kitchens follow Article 112. The connection details, the meter room and the isolation points belong to the gas distributor and the fire consultant, not to the kitchen team. Where cylinders are stored above ground, treat the store as its own risk: ventilation, no ignition sources, cylinders secured against falling, and a route out that stays clear.

Compare the as-built drawing with the room. A cylinder store moved during a renovation is a frequent gap between what the file says and what the building does.

How are kitchens and tea kitchens separated from the rest of the building?#

By partitions that resist fire for at least 120 minutes, with no wood or easily flammable material used as the partition. Article 57 names kitchens and tea kitchens together, so the small pantry off the lobby is in scope, not just the main production kitchen.

The 120 minutes is the resistance of the partition, not of the door. The door, its frame, the glazing and the penetrations are where the rating is actually lost. Ducts, cables and pipes crossing the partition need the same treatment as the wall; an unsealed penetration turns a rated wall into a hole with a wall around it. Easily flammable materials may not be used as partitions: a timber screen between the kitchen and the restaurant is decoration, not separation.

Check after every renovation. A new pass-through, a service hatch or a relocated tea station can break the separation in an afternoon and leave no trace on any drawing. Photograph the wall, the door and the penetrations before the finishes go on; the photograph is what an insurer reads two years later.

What should the cook on shift check before closing?#

A short written closing round: gas off at the burner and at the main valve, grease under control, extinguishing access clear, and the log signed. The round takes ten minutes and it is the fire control that runs every day.

Burner valves closed, and the main shut-off valve closed where the kitchen's own procedure says so; the person who closes it signs for it. Hood filters and grease trays cleaned or swapped, because grease is the fuel the suppression system is designed to fight, and a clean hood is part of the system working. Nothing stored in front of the manual release, the extinguisher or the exit; this is the check that fails quietly, because the release is at the back of a busy line.

A gas smell is not a checklist item. It is an evacuation and a call, with no switches touched and no attempt to find the leak with a flame or a phone torch. The log is dated and signed, and the morning shift reads it: an unsigned round did not happen, whatever was actually done.

Fire records sit next to the food law records a hotel kitchen already has to keep; the same file discipline serves both.

Who owns the service contract, the records and the drill?#

One named person owns the contract, the file and the drill date; split across departments, all three lapse quietly. This is an organisational duty, not a technical one, and it is the first thing an inspection asks to see.

The contract: the suppression system is serviced by the installer or the manufacturer's authorized service, and the certificate goes into the file the same week, not into a kitchen drawer. The file: design, commissioning, every service record, every detector test, every duct clean, every drill, in date order, in one place, findable in five minutes during an inspection.

The drill is for cooks on shift, not the whole hotel. Trigger the manual release with the system isolated, or walk the sequence aloud if it cannot be fired, and make sure each cook can point to the release without looking. After a discharge, the kitchen stays out of service until the system is recharged and the cause is written down; a discharge is information, not an embarrassment.

Name the owner and a deputy in the job description, so leave and turnover do not break the chain. Once a year, read the file against the current kitchen layout: the kitchen changes, and the file does not, unless someone makes it. For the wider staff duties, see the department-by-department health and safety checklist.

What to do next#

Walk the kitchen one morning with the fire consultant and the suppression service in the same room, the Article 57 and Article 88 lines printed in hand, and open a dated file for what you find. The regulation gives you the floor; the file is what proves you met it, and it is the part of this checklist that survives a change of staff.