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If you run a business in Clermont, the single most useful thing to know is that Lake County Fire Rescue is not your fire marshal. Clermont is an incorporated city with its own fire department and its own fire prevention division, and that division enforces city ordinances in addition to the Florida Fire Prevention Code. A lot of published guidance — including, until recently, this page — gets that wrong, and it sends business owners to the wrong phone number.
Who actually inspects your business in Clermont
The Clermont Fire Department runs fire prevention as a staffed division, not a side duty. The team is a fire marshal, three fire inspectors, a full-time plans reviewer and a fire and life safety educator, working out of 400 12th Street.
| Role | Who | Direct line |
|---|---|---|
| Fire Marshal | Brian Hawthorne | 352-241-2160 |
| Fire Inspector | Vertilus Joseph | 352-241-2203 |
| Fire Inspector | Danny McAvoy | 352-241-6163 |
| Inspector | Amber Butler | 352-241-2164 |
| Plans Reviewer | Nicole Everson | 352-241-2212 |
| Fire & Life Safety Educator | Hayley Wheeler | 352-241-2162 |
| Fire prevention office | 400 12th Street, Clermont 34711 | 352-394-7662 |
That division completes more than 2,300 inspections a year — construction inspections, annual commercial inspections, life safety inspections and everything else state law requires — plus roughly 170 public education events. For a city of Clermont’s size, that is a high-contact program. The practical consequence: the recurring inspection is not theoretical, and deferred maintenance gets found.
Check your jurisdiction before you call. Clermont’s boundary is irregular along US-27, Hancock Road and the Hartwood Marsh corridor, and there are commercial parcels with Clermont mailing addresses that sit in unincorporated Lake County. Those are inspected by Lake County Fire Rescue. If you are not certain, ask Building Services to confirm the parcel before you submit anything.
How to schedule an inspection in Clermont
Clermont does not run a public self-service fire inspection booking portal. Annual commercial inspections are scheduled by the fire prevention division and you will be contacted; if you need to initiate one — a new tenant, a change of use, a certificate of occupancy, a state licensure inspection — call the fire prevention office at 352-394-7662 or the fire marshal directly at 352-241-2160.
Construction and fire protection system inspections run through Building Services and the building permit, not through a separate fire-only channel. Because the plans reviewer sits on the development review board, fire comments arrive during site plan review rather than as a surprise at the end. That is genuinely useful if you engage early and genuinely painful if you do not: a fire comment raised at development review is far cheaper to answer than the same comment raised when your contractor is already framing.
What it costs — and why we are not quoting you a number
Clermont sets fire plan review and inspection charges through the city’s comprehensive fee schedule, adopted by resolution and amended periodically, and administered by Building Services. Unlike Mount Dora and Apopka, Clermont does not maintain a plain-language fire fee page, and the copy of the comprehensive fee schedule that surfaces most readily in search is several years old.
Get the current schedule in writing. Quoting a stale Clermont fee here would be worse than quoting none. Ask Building Services (352-394-4083) for the fee schedule currently in force before you budget a build-out, and get the fire plan review line item identified specifically — it is separate from the building permit fee.
Clermont’s building stock, and what it does to your inspection
Clermont is really three different compliance environments wearing one city name, and which one you are in changes what an inspector spends time on.
Historic downtown — Montrose Street and 8th Street
The downtown core around Montrose Street and West Avenue is early-twentieth-century commercial fabric, some of it predating any meaningful fire code, now occupied by restaurants, two breweries within two blocks of each other, boutiques and tasting rooms. The recurring issues here are the ones old buildings always generate: single means of egress in deep narrow storefronts, exit paths that run through storage or kitchen space, occupant loads that the original floor plan never contemplated, and additions that were built before anyone was counting square footage. Breweries add their own wrinkle — production areas with CO2, boil kettles and mixed assembly-plus-industrial use in one tenant space, which is an occupancy classification argument before it is an extinguisher question.
The US-27 and SR-50 retail corridors
The commercial spine along US-27 and State Road 50 is mostly newer multi-tenant strip and shopping-center construction. Here the recurring problem is the shared building: extinguisher travel distance has to be measured against your interior layout, not the center’s common corridor, and your exit-access path is only as good as the neighboring tenant’s housekeeping. Shared egress corridors, blocked rear exits used as receiving doors, and demising walls penetrated during a build-out and never resealed are the three findings that come up over and over in multi-tenant space.
South Lake medical and light industrial
Clermont’s growth in medical office, outpatient surgical and clinic space brings in occupancies with their own state licensure inspections that run parallel to the city’s annual inspection — two inspections, two sets of paperwork, one building. Light industrial and self-storage along the Hancock and Hartwood corridors bring commodity classification and storage height into play, which is where standard office-grade 2A:10B:C units stop being adequate.
The baseline every Clermont occupancy has to meet
On top of anything Clermont adds locally, these are the requirements the Florida Fire Prevention Code and OSHA impose on essentially every commercial occupancy in the city:
- Extinguisher coverage: minimum one 2A:10B:C rated ABC unit per floor, with no employee more than 75 feet of travel distance from one (NFPA 10 / OSHA 29 CFR 1910.157). Higher hazard classes need higher ratings.
- Current service tag: annual service by a Florida-licensed fire equipment dealer. Tags expire 12 months from the inspection date, and an expired tag is a citation whether or not the extinguisher works.
- Mounting height: units under 40 lb mounted so the top is no more than 5 feet above the floor, and no closer than 4 inches to it.
- Exit signage: illuminated, self-luminous or photoluminescent signs at every exit and above every exit-access door in the egress path (NFPA 101).
- Emergency lighting: battery-backed units delivering an average of 1 foot-candle at floor level along the egress path for a full 90 minutes.
- Documented testing: a 30-second monthly function test and an annual 90-minute full-drain test on emergency and exit lighting, with written records the inspector can read.
- Class K where you cook: any commercial kitchen with a fryer or open flame needs Class K coverage within 30 feet of the appliance line, in addition to ABC units, plus a hood suppression system serviced semi-annually.
Clermont fire inspection questions
Does Lake County Fire Rescue inspect my Clermont business?
No. If your address is inside the Clermont city limits, the Clermont Fire Department’s own fire prevention division inspects you, and Fire Marshal Brian Hawthorne is the authority having jurisdiction. Lake County Fire Rescue covers unincorporated Lake County. This matters in practice: Clermont inspectors enforce city ordinances on top of the Florida Fire Prevention Code, and a county inspector’s guidance will not settle a Clermont violation. Check your parcel before you call anyone — addresses along the edges of US-27 and Hancock Road can sit outside the city.
Who do I call to reach the Clermont fire marshal?
Fire Marshal Brian Hawthorne is reachable at 352-241-2160. The fire prevention office is at 400 12th Street, Clermont, FL 34711, main line 352-394-7662. Clermont staffs this as a real division rather than a part-time assignment: a fire marshal, three fire inspectors, a dedicated plans reviewer and a life safety educator.
How many inspections does Clermont actually run?
More than 2,300 a year, across construction inspections, annual life safety inspections and everything else the code requires, in a city of roughly 50,000. That volume is the practical answer to “will they really come?” — the recurring commercial inspection cycle in Clermont is real and it is staffed.
Will a remodel in downtown Clermont trigger a full fire review?
Yes. Clermont’s plans reviewer sits on the city’s development review board, so fire review is built into the site plan process rather than bolted on afterward. Any permit for a build-out on Montrose Street or 8th Street puts egress, exit signage, emergency lighting and suppression back on the table for the whole tenant space, not only the part you are renovating.
What does a fire inspection cost in Clermont?
Clermont does not publish a standalone fire inspection fee schedule the way Mount Dora and Apopka do. Fire plan review and inspection charges are handled through Building Services and set by the city’s comprehensive fee schedule, which is adopted by resolution and revised periodically. Ask Building Services for the current schedule in writing before you budget a build-out — do not rely on a figure quoted for a neighboring city.
Where these Clermont figures come from
Fees and procedures are set locally and change. Every figure on this page was taken from the official source below on — confirm the current amount with the department before you write a check.
- Clermont Fire Department, Fire Inspections & Prevention — clermontfl.gov/394
- Fire prevention staff directory (fire marshal, inspectors, plans reviewer) — clermontfl.gov staff directory
- City of Clermont Building Services (permit fees and submittals) — clermontfl.gov/508
- Clermont Code of Ordinances, Chapter 20 — Fire Prevention and Protection — Municode Chapter 20
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