Mark Kuhn just reminded me that I had not yet posted one of my favorite videos on iDigHardware.  It’s a video of a fire door in a hospital that did its job during an electrical fire.  But first, some context…

One morning back in February of 2023, I started seeing social media posts about a fire at Brockton Hospital in Brockton, Massachusetts.  I immediately thought to myself, “Paul Goldense is responsible for the fire doors there…everything will be ok.”  Paul and I go waaaaaaaay back, and he and his company, Goldense Building Products, do the fire door inspections and repairs at many of the Boston-area hospitals.  I knew that the fire doors in Brockton were in good shape and would do their job.

A little later that morning, Paul called me and said, “Hey, remember that pair of double-egress fire doors we worked on at Brockton Hospital?  The ones to the electrical room where we had to get the combination of hardware approved by UL?  The local deputy fire chief just told me that the doors stopped the fire and prevented further spread.”  An insurance investigator later told Paul that the doors saved the hospital, and that he wished Goldense Building Products did the door work in all of their hospitals.  What a compliment!

It seems kind of crazy, but I remember a lot of doors from various points in my career, including this pair of doors.  They were a double-egress pair, but not a cross-corridor pair.  They were double-egress because one needed to open out for egress from an electrical room, and the other could not open out because of a ramp that would have obstructed it.  Paul and I worked with our compliance engineers and the hollow metal door manufacturer to find a combination that could work and still maintain the fire rating.  We settled on Von Duprin vertical cable fire exit hardware on the outswinging leaf with a Schlage multi-point cable lock on the inswinging, and the hollow metal door manufacturer was able to accommodate this design.

When a fire erupted inside of the electrical room served by this pair of fire doors, the doors held, despite the strength of the fire and several explosions.  While the doors helped to keep the fire contained (as fire doors are designed to do!), all of the patients in the hospital were evacuated and there were no fatalities.  This is an amazing success compared to some of the past hospital fires that resulted in a high loss of life!

This news story shows part of the security camera video, although it doesn’t give the fire doors enough credit (IMO)!

Video: WCVB Channel 5 Boston

There is also a story about the emergency response to this fire in NFPA Journal.

Here is a slightly longer video, which shows a ramp leading down to a lower-level hospital entrance.  To the left at the bottom of the ramp are the fire doors in question, which stayed closed and latched throughout the fire.  And when the electricity was turned off and firefighters were able to enter, they used the key to open the doors!

Video: Deputy Chief Ed Williams, Brockton Fire Department

Here are some photos from when I visited the site:

Do you have a favorite door story?  I’d love to hear it!

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