Just over a century ago, Upton Sinclare’s shocking novel The Jungle exposed the deplorable conditions during the Industrial Revolution in which companies forced employees to work. At that time, profit was more important than human life, and companies took few precautions, if any, to ensure worker safety.
Today, companies value their assets and the lives of their employees. One way a company can prove their commitment is by installing fire-rated doors. The Office of Compliance says that fire-rated doors are essential to both employee and property safety if a fire breaks out in a business. They serve to manage the fire and keep it at bay until fire officials can control the blaze.
Fire-Rated Doors Can Save Lives
A fire can be contained more effectively by installing a fire-rated door. If the door is engaged correctly and nothing is impeding its proper closure, fire-rated doors can hold fire to the area of origin. By not allowing the fire to move past the place it started, rapid spreading throughout the entirety of your building is preventable.
Additionally, people often become trapped while trying to escape from a fire. Designed to help save lives, fire-rated doors protect those in hallways, stairways, and other building areas where an exit may not be readily available. They prevent smoke and fire from getting into those areas, allowing more time for escape and rescue.
Though not fireproof, depending on its quality, a fire-rated door can withstand a blaze and not allow smoke to enter the area anywhere from 20 to 90 minutes. Those are 20 to 90 minutes for a fire to become extinguish that would otherwise not have existed. Those minutes are invaluable for saving lives.
Fire-Rated Doors Can Save Property
Again, directly related to the time factor, those extra 20 to 90 minutes will help save your property from being extensively damaged. Obviously, employee safety trumps property safety, but companies get the advantage of safety to both with a fire-rated door.
The amount of property damage that can occur in the minutes that a fire-rated door will buy is astronomical. Entire businesses can burn to the ground in under 90 minutes. They can also endure an enormous amount of smoke damage in that time. Not to mention the possibility an uncontained fire has to spread to nearby buildings, homes, or surrounding wilderness.
Fire-rated doors allow time for things like sprinkler systems to do their part in extinguishing and slowing the blaze. They also allow for rescue services to get to the scene and contain the situation.
All of these factors add up to property saved with the proper use of fire-rated doors.
Fire-Rated Doors are Essential for Safety
Fire-rated doors offer the potential for employees to escape safely and help reduce property damage to a minimum. These building safety features offer opportunities companies cannot ignore. Responsible business owners owe it to their employees and themselves to check into the possibilities that fire-rated doors can afford them.
