A fire door is a type of door or movable barrier used as part of a passive fire protection system within buildings to prevent the spread of fire or smoke between separate sections. It is usually the only means of allowing people to pass through a firewall. According to Life Safety Services’, a leader in the fire inspection industry, “Fire-rated doors are an integral part of not just the building’s passive fire protection system but the building’s overall fire protection. A properly operating fire door, just like a properly operating fire damper, is a key component in the compartmentalization of a building to stop the spread of deadly fire, smoke, and toxic fumes and gases.”

Both the door leaf (the swinging panel of the door) there and the door frame is required to meet the guidelines of the testing agency which provides the product listing. The door frame includes the fire or smoke seals, door hardware, and the structure that holds the fire door assembly in place. Together, these components form an assembly, typically called a “doorset” which holds a numerical rating, quantified in hours of resistance to a test fire. All of the components of the fire door assembly must bear a listing agencies label (with the exception of ball bearing hinges which meet the basic build requirements of ANSI 156.2 and NFPA 80) to ensure the components have been tested to meet the fire rating requirements.

Fire Door – Regulations

All components are required to adhere to product certification requirements that are acceptable to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) by meeting the requirements of the local building code and fire code. The regulatory requirement will change from country to country.

For example in the United Kingdom a fire resisting doorset should be sujected to either a British Standard Fire Test BS 476 Part 22 1987, or a BS/EN 1634-1 2000 test. The results are recorded by the test agency and provided in a report which detail such things as constructional details, distortion data and pressure readings. The numerical fire resistance rating that is required to be installed in a particular building is provided in the Building Regulations approved Document B, or British Standards such as the BS 5588 series (e.g., 30 minutes FD30, or FD30(S) if cold smoke resistance is also required).

Similar technical guidance documents and building regulations are in effect in other countries.

Fire Door – Combustibility

Fire doors are not necessarily noncombustible. It is acceptable for portions of the door to be destroyed by combustion during exposure to a fire as long as the door assembly meets the fire test criteria of limiting temperature limits on the non-fire side of the assembly. This is in accordance with the overall performance goal of a fire rated door to slow fire propagation from one fire rated compartment to another for only a limited amount of time, during which automatic or manual fire fighting may be employed to limit fire spread, or occupants can exit the building.