GREENFIELD — Locally made fried dough and French fries will be eaten for another year at the Franklin County Fair now that concerns about strict fire code enforcement that emerged last year have been smoothed over.
Fred Steiner, the fair’s president, said all of the vendors plan to return when the fair opens Thursday despite a controversy last year over the state’s fire codes requiring expensive upgrades to use equipment that produce grease-laden vapors, such as grills and deep fryers, in their booths and tents.
The state fire marshal’s office requires commercial cooking systems that emit grease-laden vapors to be equipped with hoods and fire suppression equipment. They cannot be used under tents under any circumstance.
Many vendors told The Recorder last year that it would be hard to justify spending upward of $5,000 to upgrade their booths to comply with the codes to participate in an event that is just four days long.
New National Fire Prevention Association codes adopted in January 2015 left local fire departments like Greenfield with little wiggle room to waive rules for short-term events such as the fair.
But Greenfield Fire Chief Robert Strahan said he was able to work with the fire marshal to find alternative methods for the vendors to become code-compliant.
“Because there is a fire apparatus on site up there, and within a year new hoods will be installed, we were able to get code compliance and keep costs down,” Strahan said. “We also had some new guidelines set by the state fire marshal for exemptions on frying under tents — there are new requirements, but they won’t need suppression systems.”
Those new requirements include using tents that are rated fire-resistant and keeping a safe distance between the cooking appliances and the general public, he said.
“The Fire Department did one hell of a job over the winter. Everything has been corrected,” said Steiner, the fair president.
He said most vendors will have until April 2017 to get some type of hood over their stoves, but they won’t need fire suppression systems — just an exhaust hood with a fire extinguisher nearby.
“When I went up to see Chip Hager (of Hager Farm, one of the vendors) to tell him, he said it makes a world of difference,” Steiner said.
Last year’s controversy set off a series of talks among fire officials to figure out what could be done to fix things, said Rep. Paul Mark, D-Peru, who said he brokered talks between Greenfield fire officials and the state fire marshal.
“The marshal put the Greenfield chief into a working group with other chiefs. They were very helpful and willing to help, and I was willing to file legislation if that’s what it took, but they got to a place where that was not necessary,” Mark said.