Why Are Fire Doors Important?

The Office of Compliance, Health and Safety necessitates every business to install fire protection structures to ensure the safety of people, in the event of a fire. The primary purpose of fire protection structures is to completely enclose the area with fire barriers, like fire doors, to interrupt the spread of fire, smoke, and other toxic gases.

Fire doors are essential part of a building’s accident prevention plan, and hence are necessary requirement for offices, public buildings, and factories.

How Fire Doors Help?

Fire doors are divided into two different categories, internal fire door and fire exit door. While internal fire doors are designed to resist the flames or smoke of the fire, the external or fire exit doors are intended to allow a quick and unhindered escape of occupants into a safe place.

Fire doors safeguard the integrity of fire barriers, such as fire wall. With self-closing features and proper latching devices, fire doors can provide optimal resistance to the spread of fire, smoke, and toxic gases. Usually, these doors are installed in stairwells, storage areas, kitchen and catering facilities, and boiler rooms.

Fire exit doors, on the other hand, are installed to allow the occupants of the building to leave the building safely. However, these doors are kept open to allow quick exit, whenever needed.

Certain fire exit doors also come with automated release features, which are designed to unlock fire exit doors automatically as soon as the building fire alarms are activated. However, if a fire exit door is being used as a security door that needs to be remained closed all the time, it should be fitted with automatic release options to enable swift passage in the event of fire.

How Fire Doors are Different from Standard Doors?

Fire doors are solid structures made with special materials, often wood composite or flax board. As these materials burn slowly, they are capable of resisting the fire for an extended period of time, normally a minimum of 30 minutes. Besides this, the edges of the fire doors are made with special composites, which seal them when exposed to heat. This prevents the fire from entering into other zones, thus keeping the other parts of the building unaffected.

Although fire doors are essentially used in commercial buildings, they are mandatory in domestic homes in some states. Therefore, people are required to check building regulations in their state when designing their home to not only ensure structural compliance, but also improve the fire safety in the building.

To install fire doors and all other types of security doors, visit Barr Commercial Doors or contact them at (800) 825-3667.