Phoenix Journal · Extraction
Trailers, marquees and short-lease units cook hard and clear grease into improvised extraction - yet the same fire, gas and cleaning duties apply as in any permanent kitchen. Here is what temporary event caterers need to get right.
Pop-up & event catering
A kitchen that only trades for a weekend still produces the same flammable grease as one that runs all year - it just does it faster and in a setting that is far harder to make safe.
Pop-up and temporary event kitchens cover a wide spread of setups: street food trailers and vans, gazebo and marquee cook lines at festivals, seasonal residencies inside a host venue, and short-lease units that turn a bare shell into a working kitchen for a few weeks. What they share is intensity. Service is compressed into long, back-to-back sessions on chargrills, fryers and flat-tops, and the extraction that carries away all that heat, smoke and airborne fat is often improvised rather than purpose-built.
The result is that grease builds up quickly on canopy filters, in the plenum and along any run of ducting - and grease is the problem. Built-up grease is highly flammable, and once it ignites a fire can travel through the extract system into roof spaces, marquee linings and neighbouring pitches. UK fire services attribute a large share of commercial kitchen fires to grease in the extract system, so a temporary kitchen is not a lower risk simply because it is short-lived. If anything, the improvised ducting, close-packed pitches and LPG cylinders raise the stakes.
The other thing pop-ups share is that the law does not treat them as a special case. The same duties that apply to a permanent restaurant apply to a trailer parked on a green for three days. Understanding those duties - and building cleaning into the plan from the start - is what keeps an event kitchen open, insured and safe.
Three legal frameworks matter here, and they overlap. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, whoever controls the cooking space - the trader, and often the event organiser too - is the responsible person and must carry out a fire risk assessment and keep the extract system free of flammable grease. That duty does not lapse because the kitchen is temporary; it simply moves with you to each new pitch.
On the gas side, the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 require any commercial kitchen using gas to have either an effective extraction system or a gas interlock that shuts off the supply if ventilation is not running. LPG appliances in a trailer or van need a CP44 mobile catering gas safety certificate, while a fixed or semi-permanent installation is covered by a CP42; both are issued by a Gas Safe registered engineer and both check that the ventilation and interlock actually work. The HSE’s catering guidance sheets, CAIS10 on ventilation and CAIS23 on gas safety, set out what “adequate” looks like in practice.
For the extract cleaning itself, the recognised UK benchmark is TR19® Grease, the code of practice published by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA). It defines how a kitchen extract system should be cleaned, how the result is measured, and what evidence you keep. A compliant clean should leave less than 50 microns of grease residue on internal surfaces, verified and recorded - the number insurers and fire officers look for. Skipping it is one of the most common reasons a post-fire insurance claim is challenged.
Ventilation is the requirement most often underestimated at events. A canopy sized for a domestic-style gazebo will not clear the fumes from a full LPG cook line, and poor extraction does more than let grease settle - in an enclosed marquee or trailer it allows the products of combustion to build up. That is where gas cooking crosses over into a genuine health risk, not just a fire one, which is why the interlock and CO checks in a gas inspection exist.
Temporary kitchens fail on the practical details more than on paperwork, so it pays to plan the extract system as carefully as the menu. A few habits make the difference between a clean, compliant pitch and a smoky, grease-laden one.
Because gas in a tight, temporary space is where the real hazard sits, it is worth understanding the carbon monoxide risk in commercial kitchens before you cook under canvas - poor ventilation and a partially blocked, grease-choked extract are exactly the conditions that let it accumulate.
None of this replaces a professional deep clean of the extract system, but it slows the rate at which grease builds up and keeps the system performing between cleans. On a busy event, that can be the difference between passing a spot inspection and being shut down.
Cleaning frequency under TR19® Grease is driven by how many hours a day the kitchen cooks, not by the calendar. Heavy use of 12 to 16 hours a day points to cleaning every three months; moderate use of 6 to 12 hours a day, every six months; and light use of 2 to 6 hours a day, roughly every twelve months. Pop-ups routinely sit in the heavy-use band during a run even if they only trade for a short season, so a residency or a multi-week unit can reach a cleaning trigger far sooner than the trading dates suggest.
For one-off and short events, the sensible approach is a clean before you open on a system of unknown history, and a clean at the end of the run before the equipment goes back into storage - grease left in a stored canopy is both a fire load and a hygiene problem for the next hire. Whatever the interval, the outcome that matters is evidence: a post-clean report with before-and-after photographs, grease-thickness readings against the sub-50-micron target, and a record of what was accessible and what was not.
That documentation is what you hand to an event organiser, an environmental health officer or your insurer. Without it, you are relying on their goodwill; with it, you can demonstrate compliance in minutes.
Questions
Yes. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 makes keeping the extract system free of flammable grease a legal duty that applies to temporary kitchens just as it does to permanent ones. A short but intense run on chargrills and fryers can deposit as much grease as weeks of lighter cooking, so the TR19 Grease standard and its sub-50-micron target still apply. The practical rule is to clean an unknown system before you open and again before storage.
An LPG trailer or van needs a CP44 mobile catering gas safety certificate from a Gas Safe registered engineer, while a fixed or semi-permanent installation is covered by a CP42. Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 the kitchen must also have effective extraction or a gas interlock that cuts the supply if ventilation fails. The inspection checks appliance soundness, the interlock and ventilation performance, and carbon monoxide levels.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
The right kit only helps if the system stays clean. Phoenix degreases canopies, filters and ductwork to TR19 Grease - UK-wide, overnight.