- Author
- Cooper, L. Y. | Nelson, H. E.
- Title
- 'Feeling a Door' To See If Fire Is On the Other Side. Technical Note.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Journal
- Fire Technology, Vol. 25, No. 3, 251-256, August 1992
- Keywords
- doors | door assemblies | detection | fire fighting | fire hazards | smoke barriers | smoke transport | visual inspection
- Abstract
- This paper considers door assemblies that separate a fire environment from a protected space. It analyzes three methods of "feeling a door" on the protected side that can assist in determining the existence of a direct fire threat on the other side. These methods are 1) feeling the door surface to determine whether or not it is at an elevated temperature; 2) feeling, smelling and visual inspection of the door edges to determine possible smoke flows from an adjacent fire environment; and 3) feeling the door-knob to determine whether or not it is at an elevated temperature. It is determined that a practical and effective strategy can be developed which uses all three methods to establish the existence of a fire threat without direct exposure to the fire environment. Of all methods discussed, the most reliable single indicator involves touching the base of the door-knob.