Doors are essential complements to any construction as they’re used to divide the space into smaller sections and give each of them a different function. Nevertheless, a simple door is helpless when faced with a fire. That is when fire rated or fire-resistant doors come into play.

In order to prevent fire from spreading and enhance the safety in a structure, building or construction, fire-rated elements must be used. A fire rated door is one of those elements, as it sectorises the building and helps prevent the fire and the smoke from spreading to other compartments than where it was originated.

What is a fire rated door?

A fire rated door can be metallic, wooden or glazed. It is used in certain parts of a building or structure to divide the space into smaller sectors. The larger the building is, the more sectorised it will be. Thus, when one of the sectors catches fire, the fire rated door helps holding back the fire and smoke and prevents them from spreading to the further compartments of the building. Therefore, its purpose is to prevent fire spread, allow safe evacuation of the building, and enable a quicker rescue and fire extinction. In that sense, a fire rated door is a passive fire protection system.

Fire rated door features

Fire doors can be more or less resistant to fire. This is measured by the time it takes for the fire to deteriorate the door. But in order for them to provide proper safety, all fire-resistant doors must present the following features:

• Integrity or ability to support the fire action on the exposed side of the door, without allowing the fire to spread to the non-exposed side through flame or gas escape.

• Insulation or ability to support the fire actions on the exposed side, without allowing the fire to spread to the non-exposed side of the door through heat transfer.

• Time of fire resistance. It can be 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes, and even 180 for UL doors (American regulation).

• Durability of the automatic closure or ability to maintain the clearance, toughness, and speed of aperture and closure without showing defects after overcoming various cycles of aperture and closure.