Beloit sits right on the Illinois line where the Rock River runs through the middle of town. It is a college town and a manufacturing town at the same time, and both halves need fire equipment that is actually current.
Fire & Safety Equipment III LLC has worked the state line since 1975 — extinguisher inspection, service and recharge, kitchen suppression, hood cleaning, paint booth systems, CO₂ refills, and hands-on training. We cover Beloit and out through Clinton, Brodhead, Shopiere, Afton, Footville, and Orfordville.
A Riverfront That Came Back
Beloit spent a long stretch as a factory town that had lost some of its factories, and then it did something unusual: it rebuilt around the river instead of away from it. The Ironworks campus turned old industrial buildings into offices and workspace. Downtown filled with restaurants and taprooms. Beloit College anchors the east side with its dormitories, dining halls, labs, and the Powerhouse — a decommissioned power plant converted into a student union right on the water.
The industrial base did not disappear either. Manufacturing, food production, packaging, and distribution operate on both sides of the river and both sides of the state line, and the Gateway Business Park along I-39/90 has kept adding buildings for years.
That combination — old converted buildings full of new kitchens, plus working plants — is exactly the mix where fire equipment gets overlooked. We have been servicing buildings here since 1975 and we are frequently the only ones with a record of what was installed and when.
The State Line Communities
Clinton, east of Beloit near the Illinois line, is a village with its own school district, downtown, and light industry along Highway 67. Shopiere is small and rural just northeast, and Afton sits along the Rock River north toward Janesville — both with the taverns, churches, shops, and grain operations that need annual inspections like anywhere else.
West on Highway 81, Brodhead has a genuine downtown, a school district, a hospital, and manufacturing along the Sugar River. It is a substantial stop on this run rather than a drive-through.
North and northwest, Footville and Orfordville sit between Beloit and Janesville with schools, village halls, and small businesses. We cover them on the same route as both cities, so there is no extra trip charge for being a smaller town.
We keep Beloit and Janesville as separate service conversations because the buildings and the businesses are genuinely different, even though the routes overlap.
Kitchens Downtown and on Campus
The downtown and riverfront restaurants, the Beloit College dining halls, the hospital and care facility kitchens, and the school cafeterias in Clinton, Brodhead, and Orfordville are all on the same six-month suppression cycle under NFPA 17A.
Every visit: fusible links replaced and tested, manual pull station verified reachable from the egress path and not blocked, gas valve or electric shunt confirmed to drop on actuation, cylinder weight and hydrostatic date checked, nozzles cleared and re-capped. Tag and written report.
The converted-building kitchens are where UL 300 comes up most. A pre-1998 dry chemical system cannot reliably keep modern vegetable oil below its reignition point, and in most jurisdictions it will not pass. We tell you where you stand and quote the wet chemical replacement honestly.
Hood cleaning matters just as much: grease travels the whole run and burns at once. We clean to bare metal, photograph before and after, and leave a certificate and dated sticker.
Plants, Packaging, and Distribution
The Gateway corridor and the older industrial areas along the river give Beloit a full range of industrial hazards: hot work, flammable liquid storage, packaging lines, forklift charging, and in food operations, dust.
Extinguisher placement in these buildings is a design question, not a formality. NFPA 10 caps Class A travel distance at 75 feet and Class B at 30 or 50 depending on hazard level, measured the way a person actually walks around equipment and racking. We map it, flag what is out of range, and put it in the written report rather than quietly re-tagging.
Spray Booths and Finishing
Collision shops, equipment refinishers, and manufacturers who finish in-house all operate spray booths under NFPA 33, and they need semiannual service.
Agent tank weight and hydrostatic date, cartridge, fusible links in the airstream, nozzle caps, cable and pull station function, and the interlocks that shut down spray equipment, paint pumps, and the exhaust and makeup air fans on actuation. We function-test the interlocks rather than trusting the panel.
The mix room, gun-cleaning station, and solvent storage around the booth are Class B hazards with tighter travel distances, and we handle those on the same visit.
CO₂ Extinguishers for Campus, Shops, and Server Rooms
CO₂ extinguishers belong where dry chemical residue would cost more than the fire: the server closets and electrical rooms in the downtown offices, the labs at Beloit College, the control panels on the plant floors along the riverfront. We fill CO₂ fire extinguishers by weight in our Platteville shop, track the five-year hydrostatic date, and swap a tested unit onto your wall so the room is never uncovered.
Beverage and industrial cylinders are a different animal, and we are not set up to fill them in Beloit yet — that service is currently limited to the Dubuque–Platteville area while we bring more equipment online. If you have them, call and ask rather than assuming either way. Details on CO₂ refill.
Training That Changes Behavior
We bring a propane fire prop and our own dry chemical extinguishers to your parking lot. Every participant discharges on a live fire under supervision, and anyone who misses goes again.
Beloit manufacturers, the college, care facilities, and school districts in Brodhead and Clinton use us for this, and we schedule around shifts. If you have a kitchen system, we show managers where the pull station is and what happens after they pull it.
Fire Codes and Inspections in Beloit
Every commercial building in Beloit answers to the same three layers of rules, and knowing them takes the mystery out of an inspection. At the top is Wisconsin’s Fire Prevention Code, Wis. Admin. Code ch. SPS 314, which adopts NFPA 1, the Fire Code, for every public building and place of employment in the state. NFPA 1 in turn requires portable extinguishers to be maintained under NFPA 10, commercial kitchen hoods and suppression systems to comply with NFPA 96 and NFPA 17A, and spray booths to comply with NFPA 33. Underneath that, Wis. Stat. § 101.14(2) makes the local fire chief the state’s deputy and requires the fire department to inspect every public building and place of employment at least once each non-overlapping six-month period, unless the department has adopted one of the alternative schedules the statute allows. And for any employer, OSHA 29 CFR 1910.157 applies on top — monthly extinguisher checks, annual maintenance, and annual extinguisher education for staff.
Beloit sits on the state line, so a business with locations on both sides of it answers to two different fire codes: Wisconsin’s SPS 314 on the Beloit side and Illinois’ locally adopted codes in South Beloit and Rockton. The NFPA standards underneath them are the same, which is why one service schedule covers both. The inspector who walks in is the City of Beloit Fire Department, and what they look for is consistent: a current tag on every extinguisher, a semiannual tag on the kitchen suppression system, a cleaning label on the hood, a current tag on the booth system in a body shop, extinguishers of the right class within travel distance, and records they can put their hands on. Those are exactly the things our technicians leave behind, which is why customers in Beloit tend to call us before the inspection rather than after.
If an inspection has already produced a correction order, send it to us. Most extinguisher, hood and suppression items on a Wisconsin fire inspection report can be corrected on a single visit, and we document the correction so you can close the order without a second trip from the department.
- City of Beloit Fire Department — official city website
- Wis. Admin. Code ch. SPS 314, Fire Prevention — Wisconsin Legislature
- Wis. Stat. § 101.14, Fire inspections, prevention, detection and suppression — Wisconsin Legislature
- NFPA 10, Standard for Portable Fire Extinguishers — National Fire Protection Association
Fifty Years on This Route
Fire & Safety Equipment III LLC has been based in Platteville, Wisconsin since 1975, with technicians located across southwest Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and eastern Iowa with our own trucks. We are licensed in all three states and distributors for Amerex, ANSUL, Pyro-Chem, CaptiveAire, and Lehavot.
Being right on the state line means a lot of Beloit businesses have operations on both sides of it. We can service both without handing you off to another company. Ask for a reference and we will give you one.
Everything We Do for Beloit Businesses
One company, one invoice — across Beloit, Clinton, Brodhead, Shopiere, Afton, Footville, and Orfordville.
Fire Extinguisher Inspection
Annual NFPA 10 inspection with every unit weighed, handled, and tagged — plus training for your staff on the monthly check.
Fire Extinguisher Service
Six-year internal maintenance, valve rebuilds, twelve-year hydrostatic testing, and honest replacement advice when a shell is done.
Fire Extinguisher Recharge
Refill, repressurize, and re-tag after any discharge. Tested, tagged swap units go on the wall so you are never uncovered.
CO₂ Refill
CO₂ fire extinguishers filled by weight and tested, with valve service and current hydrostatic dates.
Kitchen Fire Suppression Systems
Semiannual NFPA 17A inspections, fusible links, wet chemical recharges, and new UL 300 ANSUL installations.
Paint Booth Fire Suppression
Design, install, and semiannual service for spray booth and spray area systems under NFPA 33.
Commercial Hood Cleaning
Hoods, ducts, fans, and filters cleaned to bare metal on the same six-month cycle as your suppression system.
Fire Extinguisher Training
Hands-on training at your site. Everyone puts out a live fire with a real extinguisher in their hands.
State Line Communities We Cover
These are the communities on our Beloit route. Multiple buildings get grouped into a single visit so you are not paying for extra trips.
- Beloit
- Clinton
- Brodhead
- Shopiere
- Afton
- Footville
- Orfordville
Questions We Get From Beloit Businesses
We have buildings on both sides of the state line. Can you cover both?
Yes. We are licensed in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois, so a Beloit company with an operation just over the line in Illinois gets one service company, one report, and one invoice.
Do you cover Clinton, Brodhead, and Orfordville?
Yes, along with Shopiere, Afton, and Footville. Same route, no separate trip charge for the smaller communities.
Our restaurant is in a converted industrial building. Any special issues?
Usually the duct run. Converted buildings often have long or awkward exhaust paths, which affects both the suppression design and the cleaning schedule. We measure the actual run rather than assuming a standard layout.
How often do you get to Beloit?
It is a standing route. Scheduled work is usually within a week or two, and a discharged system that has you shut down gets same-week attention.
What is the difference between the annual inspection and the six-year service?
The annual is a hands-on inspection with every unit weighed and examined. At six years, stored-pressure dry chemical units get opened, the powder inspected or replaced, and the valve rebuilt. At twelve years the cylinder gets hydrostatic testing.
Can you handle Beloit College buildings?
Yes. Dormitories, dining halls, labs, and athletic facilities get scheduled as a block with one consolidated report and invoice, and we can run staff training on the same visit.
Do you fill beverage CO₂ in Beloit?
Not yet. Beverage-cylinder fills are currently a Dubuque–Platteville area service while we bring more equipment online. We do fill and service CO₂ fire extinguishers here; if you have beverage or industrial cylinders, call and ask rather than assuming either way.
We just bought a building and do not know what fire equipment is in it.
Common call. We inventory every unit and system by location, type, size, condition, manufacture date, and next hydro date, and give you a written report showing what is current, what needs service, and what has to be replaced.
Other Areas We Serve
Beloit is one stop on a route through southwest Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and eastern Iowa. Here is the rest of it.
Iowa
Tell us what you have and where you are.
Extinguishers, a kitchen system, a hood, a booth — one visit, one invoice. We reply the same business day.
5675 Southwest Rd, Platteville, WI 53818 · Mon–Thu 8:00–4:30, Fri 8:00–2:00