What is NFPA 96?

NFPA 96 is published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Its full name is the Standard for Ventilation Control and Fire Protection of Commercial Cooking Operations. The current edition is 2024, and NFPA updates it every few years.

It sets minimum fire safety rules for the equipment that pulls smoke and grease out of a commercial kitchen: the hood over the cook line, the grease filters, the ductwork, the exhaust fan on the roof, and the fire suppression system that protects the cooking area. It applies to restaurants and other commercial cooking, not to home kitchens.

Cooking sends grease vapor up into the hood. As it cools, it sticks to the inside of the hood, the ducts, and the fan. That grease is fuel. A flare-up on the cook line can pull fire into the ductwork, where it can spread through the building and is hard to reach. Keeping the exhaust system clean removes that fuel. NFPA 96 exists to make sure it is kept clean and built to contain a fire if one starts.

• Design and installation. How hoods, ducts, and fans are built and installed, including clearances and access panels so the system can be cleaned.
• Fire suppression. Requirements for the fire-extinguishing system over the cooking equipment. That system has its own service schedule, separate from hood cleaning.
• Inspection. How often the exhaust system has to be checked for grease, based on the type of cooking. Our guide on how often a restaurant hood should be cleaned lays out the intervals.
• Cleaning. When grease is found, the affected parts have to be cleaned, down to bare metal, by qualified people.
• Records. After a cleaning, the kitchen should have a record of who did the work, when, and which areas, if any, could not be cleaned.

NFPA 96 is a standard, not a law on its own. It becomes enforceable when a code adopts it. In California, the California Fire Code sets the inspection and cleaning rules for commercial kitchen hoods and points to NFPA 96 for the details. Your local fire authority, sometimes called the "authority having jurisdiction", enforces it and has the final say for your kitchen.

Which authority that is depends on where you are. In Sacramento it is the Sacramento Fire Department inside city limits and Metro Fire in much of the surrounding county. Our city pages name the fire authority for each area, starting with Sacramento.

In day-to-day terms, NFPA 96 asks four things of you:

• Have the exhaust system inspected on the schedule that matches your cooking.
• Have it cleaned by a qualified company when grease has built up.
• Keep the fire suppression system serviced on its own schedule.
• Keep records of the cleanings, so you can show an inspector what was done and when.

AFS cleans the full exhaust system and leaves a service record with photos where access allows, technician notes, and a recommended next-service interval. AFS is not the fire authority and cannot certify a whole kitchen or guarantee an inspection result, but a clear record makes the inspection conversation much easier. See what the service record includes.