Earlier in the week I published a post about a fire in Aurora, Colorado. Today I ran across this news report which shows an apartment where the door was open, vs. an apartment where the door was closed. The reporter states that the doors were 2-hour rated, which is not typical, but some good publicity for fire doors regardless.
Here’s a portion of the 9News article that accompanied the video:
The Aurora Fire Department took 9NEWS on a tour of burned-out units inside the Fitz apartment building to show how much a difference a closed door can make.
Captain Allen Robnett, the spokesman for the department, walked us through some of the units.
“On this side you can see this door. It’s a two hour-rated door,” Robnett said. “It can handle flames for two hours before the burn through. This door was left open at the time of the fire. You can see how quickly and how dramatically the fire spread quickly into the unit.”
Everything was black inside the apartment with some of the items charred beyond recognition.
“You can see the frame around the TV is melted off. That’s certainly is going to take more heat than human skin,” Robnett said.
Directly across the way from the badly damaged apartment, is one that is surprisingly intact. That is because the tenant kept the door closed, Robnett said.
“The most of the soot you see is fire fighters coming in doing searches,” he told 9NEWS. “The plastic items, the pictures hanging on the wall look untouched. That demonstrates it’s a survivable environment.”
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NYC building code requires apartment doors to be self closing. Of course they had to run commercials on tv to remind everyone to “close the door”. This is because NYC building inspectors don’t enforce this rule. Many doors have hinges that are clogged with paint and others that slam.
The slamming / not closing is typical of spring hinges. Most do not reliably control the door. With the prevalence of apartment fires, and the importance of maintaining the corridors and stairs for safe egress, I much prefer door closers to spring hinges for apartment doors.