Fire code changes coming for food trucks
Changes are coming for food trucks and temporary cooking operations in May.
The state and city have adopted the 2021 edition of the International Fire Code, which includes new requirements for those operators.
The state fire marshal has given those operators until May 1 to comply with the new requirements and the city is requiring all food trucks and temporary cooking operations to comply with the new rules.
Great Falls Fire Rescue will inspect those operations annually.
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Mike McIntosh, GFFR fire marshal, said the biggest issue for most local food trucks and temporary cooking operations will be the requirement for a kitchen exhaust hood and an automatic fire extinguishing system.
Any cooking equipment that “produces grease-laden vapor” must have a kitchen exhaust hood, under the fire code now in force in Montana.
McIntosh said the state was stuck in the 2012 version of the fire code and GFFR Chief Jeremy Jones told the City Commission in 2022 that normally, governments need to be within a year of the current code, but Montana had a waiver for noncompliance due to a lawsuit related to the fire code.
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Typically, the state adopts a version of the International Fire Code and then municipalities have the option to adopt the permitting section, Jones said in 2022.
The State of Montana adopted the 2021 International Fire Code, which is the most recent version, in September 2023, McIntosh said, and Dirk Johnson, the state fire marshal who was previously the fire marshal at GFFR, gave municipalities until May 1 to comply with the new requirements for food trucks and temporary cooking operations.
The 2018 IFC included the language on food trucks and temporary cooking operations, but because the state hadn’t yet adopted new versions of the code, they weren’t enforced in Montana.
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McIntosh said that when the requirements came out with the 2018 IFC, GFFR officials told those operating food trucks and temporary cooking operations that those changes were coming. He said they’ve regularly reminded food trucks and temporary cooking operations of those coming changes and encouraged anyone who came to GFFR wanting to start such an operation to build it to the newest fire code requirements since they’d have to comply once the state adopted them.
Fire marshals across Montana have a monthly meeting and McIntosh said during those, the fire marshals for most other large cities in Montana had started enforcing the new rules for food trucks and temporary cooking operations on Jan. 1.
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McIntosh said he developed the language on the new rules that was distributed to food trucks and temporary cooking operations and is available on the GFFR website. He said fire marshals in other major cities in Montana modeled their language off his.
The requirements that are new in Montana have been in place nationwide for several years, “Montana is just now catching up,” McIntosh said.
He said one vendor who uses trailer to sell food at the Montana State Fair also vends at other state fairs so he had already met the requirement as they were in place elsewhere.
One women started a food truck last year and it was built in Arizona and met all the new requirements, he said.
Some of the fair vendors are working with a local contractor to bring their equipment up to code, McIntosh said.
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He said there are multiple options available to food trucks and temporary cooking operations and the fire prevention GFFR tries to make operators aware of those.
