A few weeks ago I recorded a podcast with Paul Marks, for Allegion’s series called Solving for Multifamily.  My episode was a little different from most of the other topics discussed in the series, because I spent most of the half hour talking about – you guessed it – fire doors.

Most apartment residents, students living in dorms, and travelers staying in hotels have no idea that the entrance from the corridor to their apartment or hotel room is a fire door assembly.  These assemblies are designed and tested to protect the opening in the fire resistant walls surrounding the dwelling units – typically for 20 minutes.

This fire protection is crucial; according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), there were 81,500 apartment fires in the US in 2021.  If a fire occurs within a dwelling unit or sleeping unit, the walls and the closed and latched fire door will help to contain the fire.  These walls and doors also help to protect the means of egress to allow building occupants to escape during a fire.

I have written in the past about apartment fires where open fire doors led to fatalities by allowing smoke to spread.  There are many incidents that illustrate this, but two that occurred in the Bronx were very powerful examples of the effects of an open fire door during a fire (you can read about these fires in this Decoded article).

My episode of the podcast has been released in recognition of National Fire Prevention Week, and I’ve also put together a page of resources related to multifamily buildings.  There are tips to help ensure that a unit entry fire door is code compliant, information about fire door inspection, videos from the UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute, and more.  You can find the new page on the Topics menu of iDigHardware.

Feel free to share iDigHardware’s new Multifamily page, and stay tuned for the podcast!

You need to login or register to bookmark/favorite this content.