The Critical Importance of Fire Doors: Key Lessons from the Latest Grenfell Report and Why Regular Checks Are Vital
The latest report from the Grenfell Tower inquiry has reinforced the essential role that fire doors play in fire safety. Often taken for granted, fire doors are crucial in containing fire and smoke, giving occupants more time to evacuate and preventing fire from spreading through a building. The inquiry highlighted numerous fire safety failures, including inadequate fire doors, which were a significant factor in the tragedy. This emphasizes the need for building owners, landlords, and property managers to ensure that fire doors are not only compliant but also regularly inspected and maintained by qualified professionals.
What Makes Fire Doors So Important? Fire doors are designed to contain fire for a specific duration (usually 30 or 60 minutes) by compartmentalising a building and slowing the spread of flames and smoke. This added time is critical for occupants to escape and for emergency services to respond. The Grenfell inquiry revealed that many fire doors in the tower were not properly installed, failed to close automatically, or were made from non-compliant materials. This compromised the building’s fire protection, allowing the fire to spread more quickly.
The Importance of Regular Fire Door Checks
Fire doors can fail to fulfil its purpose if any component is not working properly, which is why regular inspections are so important. Some of these checks include:
Gaps around the door: Gaps should be no larger than 4mm, to ensure the seals operate as intended to prevent fire and smoke from passing through.
Condition of intumescent seals: These seals expand when exposed to heat, sealing the door in place.
Functioning of self-closing mechanisms: Fire doors must automatically close after use to ensure they are effective and they must latch if they are designed to do so.
Structural integrity: Fire doors are subject to wear and tear, and any damage comprising the integrity of the fire resistant properties should be repaired.
Correct signage: Fire doors must be clearly marked, with correct instructions to make building occupants aware of the requirements of the door.
Regular checks by certified fire door professionals are crucial, as they have the expertise to detect subtle issues that could cause failure during a fire.
Legal Requirements Following Grenfell: Since Grenfell, fire safety regulations have been strengthened. The Fire Safety Act 2021 now requires regular inspections of fire doors in communal areas and flat entrances. This is a critical update to ensure that fire doors, a key component of any fire safety plan, are maintained and ready to perform in the event of an emergency.
Although there has been a lot of focus on residential and high risk residential, fire doors in commercial building, such as offices, warehouses, factories, schools and hospitals still need periodic inspections.
The Grenfell report makes it clear that compliance alone is not enough. Fire doors must be regularly inspected, as even a compliant door can fail if it is not maintained.
Fire doors have often avoided strict installation checks so the doors may never have been compliant, there are many different types of doors for many different types of function, so the importance of being trained and qualified ensures incorrect assumptions are not made.
Building a Culture of Fire Safety: Fire door maintenance is not only the responsibility of landlords and building managers. Occupants and employees should be aware of the importance of these doors and report any issues, such as damaged seals or broken self-closing devices. Fire safety is a shared responsibility, and everyone in the building plays a role in ensuring fire doors are functioning properly.
The tragedy of Grenfell is a stark reminder of what can happen when fire safety measures are neglected. Regular fire door checks by qualified professionals are not just a legal requirement—they are a vital step in protecting lives. Property managers and landlords must prioritize these checks to ensure the safety of everyone in their buildings.
In Conclusion: The lessons from Grenfell are clear: fire safety systems, including fire doors, need to be regularly inspected and maintained. Fire doors are a critical defence in a fire emergency and neglecting their upkeep can have catastrophic consequences. Building owners and managers must make fire door checks a top priority, doing so could save lives. Don’t wait for an emergency to reveal the weaknesses in your fire safety systems, by then, it could be too late.
Asserv Fire Safety Solutions can assist you with bespoke programmes of inspection, to suit your particular needs. The inspection data can be stored in our AssetSafe portal and also coordinated with your own golden thread system or process.