Fire Inspection Checklist for Your Business

An inspector walks your building with a checklist and asks to see your paperwork. Most of what is on that list you can check yourself in an hour. The failures come from a short set of things: a blocked exit, an extinguisher with no current tag, boxes stacked against the ceiling, a hood system nobody has serviced, or a service record that cannot be found.

Is there one official fire inspection checklist?

No. Fire codes in the US are adopted locally. A city or county picks an edition of the International Fire Code or NFPA 1, adds its own amendments, and its fire marshal inspects against that. Seabrook, Texas, for example, adopts the 2021 International Fire Code by ordinance (City of Seabrook FAQs). The result is that the same hazard can have a different number attached in the next town over.

This checklist is built from published ones: a Florida city’s business checklist (Apopka), a California fire district’s (Mammoth Lakes), a suburban Chicago fire department’s self-inspection form (Bedford Park), and two Texas fire marshals’ kitchen suppression guides (Prosper and Kerrville). Where they agree, you can treat the item as safe to assume. Where they differ, the table below shows how, and the right answer is the one your own fire marshal gives you. Most offices will send their checklist if you ask.

Exits and the way out

These come first on every list because they decide whether people get out. Walk each exit route from the far end of the building to the door.

• Exit doors open from the inside without a key, a code or special knowledge, and have no extra surface locks added. Bedford Park lists “no added surface locks”; Apopka allows a deadbolt only on the main entry door, and only if it is unlocked during business hours.
• Corridors, aisles and the stairs inside enclosed exit stairways are clear. Nothing is stored in them.
• The outside of exit doors is clear too, so people who reach the door can leave the building.
• Exit signs are lit whenever the building is occupied. Apopka asks for letters at least six inches tall with a three-quarter inch stroke.
• No mirrors or coverings hide an exit door. Street address numbers are posted where they can be read from the street; Bedford Park asks for six-inch numbers.

Fire extinguishers

Federal workplace rules set the base. Under OSHA’s portable extinguisher rule the employer is responsible for every extinguisher in the workplace, each one is visually inspected monthly, and each gets an annual maintenance check. The employer records the date of the annual maintenance and keeps that record for one year after the last entry or the life of the shell, whichever is less.

On a walk-through, check that every unit is where it belongs, the gauge is in the green, the pin and tamper seal are intact, and the tag shows a service within the past twelve months. The local lists add placement details. Apopka wants an extinguisher mounted 3½ to 5 feet above the floor and one at an exit or exit path every 75 feet of travel. Bedford Park wants every part of the building within 75 feet of an extinguisher and 36 inches of clear space in front of each unit. How to read the tag itself is covered in our guide to the fire extinguisher inspection tag, and the yearly visit is the fire extinguisher inspection.

Sprinklers, alarm panel and the fire department connection

• Nothing is stored within 18 inches of a sprinkler head. Bedford Park raises that to 36 inches for ESFR and large-drop heads. Heads are free of paint, corrosion and debris.
• Sprinkler valve rooms are reachable and free of storage, and the room’s location is identified.
• The fire department connection, the pipe stub where a fire truck hooks up, has 36 inches of clear access and its caps in place.
• The fire alarm panel, pull stations and horns are visible and unobstructed. Bedford Park asks for 36 inches of clearance at alarm devices.
• The systems carry current inspection tags. Mammoth Lakes asks for an annual sprinkler inspection with a current five-year inspection tag, and an annual alarm inspection. Our pages on sprinkler inspection and fire alarm inspection cover how often each is due.

Emergency lights and exit signs with batteries

Battery-backed emergency lights and exit signs are tested on a schedule that many inspectors ask to see logged. The Minnesota Department of Health summarizes the NFPA 101 schedule in a guide to battery-operated emergency lights: a functional test every month for at least 30 seconds, with three to five weeks allowed between tests, and a test every year for at least 90 minutes with the lights fully working throughout. Self-testing units can do the monthly part themselves, but someone still checks the status indicator each month, and the 90-minute test still happens. The same schedule applies to exit signs with a battery.

One caution: that guide was written for health care facilities, and your fire marshal decides which edition of the standard applies. Mammoth Lakes asks that exit signs have a backup supply of not less than 90 minutes. Keep a simple log with the date, who tested and anything that failed.

Electrical, storage and housekeeping

This is where local numbers diverge most. Three of the published checklists side by side:

Beyond those numbers, the lists agree on the basics: no extension cords or multi-plug adapters standing in for permanent wiring, cover plates on outlets, switches and junction boxes, no buildup of combustible waste, compressed gas cylinders secured upright, and dumpsters kept at least five feet from combustibles (Apopka). Electrical, mechanical and boiler rooms stay accessible and are not used for storage. If you have a boiler, its own rules are on the boiler inspection page.

What a restaurant kitchen adds

A kitchen adds a hood, a suppression system and a Class K extinguisher, and inspectors read all three closely. Two Texas fire marshals describe what they expect to see. They wrote their guides for new installations and final inspections, but the same items are what a later inspector looks at.

• Fusible links. Prosper’s checklist asks whether the links are from the current calendar year. Kerrville says dated links must be changed every year.
• Class K extinguisher. Prosper puts it 10 to 30 feet from the protected hood, with a sign above it saying to use it after the hood system, and a current state certification tag. Kerrville asks for an extinguisher within 30 feet of the cooking equipment by unobstructed path, rated for Class K where oils and fats are used, with the same kind of placard.
• Manual pull station. Prosper wants it 10 to 20 feet from the hood in the path of egress, with 5 feet of clearance. Kerrville allows 10 to 30 feet and sets the height at 42 to 48 inches above the floor. Those two offices disagree, which is the point of asking yours.
• Shutdown on activation. Kerrville requires the suppression system to shut off the fuel supply and electricity to the appliances, with valves and switches that need a manual reset, and to be tied into the building fire alarm where there is one.
• Clean hood and duct. Kerrville’s final inspection includes a clean hood, duct and ventilation. How often cleaning is due depends on how you cook. The Marysville Fire District’s guide, following NFPA 96, puts solid-fuel cooking at monthly, high-volume cooking such as 24-hour operations, charbroiling and wok cooking at quarterly, moderate-volume cooking at every six months, and low-volume kitchens such as churches and seasonal businesses at yearly.

The suppression system itself is serviced every six months by a licensed technician, and Bedford Park’s list asks for that six-month interval. Book it through kitchen suppression inspection, and the hood through kitchen hood cleaning. If your kitchen has a grease trap, the city’s pumping schedule is a separate obligation, covered on grease trap cleaning.

The paperwork an inspector asks for

An inspector cannot see inside a pipe or a cylinder, so the tag and the report stand in for the work. Keep these where a manager can find them in two minutes.

PremiseBay keeps every certificate in one place and reminds you before each date, so the paperwork half of this list is already done when the inspector arrives. What the inspector does when something fails is covered in our guide to the fire marshal inspection.