Fire Safety & Slowing The Spread of Fire

10/26/2020 (Permalink)

To sleep with your doors open or to sleep with them closed, that is the question. And that answer changes depending on who you talk to. Some HVAC specialists recommend keeping the interior doors open as much as possible to help with airflow throughout your home (which is good for air flow when you are awake). However, firefighters will tell you that it is never a good idea to sleep with your interior doors open. You may ask why. It’s a simple answer for the firefighters, it slows the spread of fire.

It may sound crazy, but fire has been considered to “get faster” over the last 20-40 years. The materials used in the construction of homes as well as the materials our furnishings are made from are made from more synthetic materials than they were when our parents were our age. These synthetic materials burn much faster. It used to be said that on average a person had 17 minutes to exit their home after a fire started. That number is now down to roughly 3 minutes. That is a huge difference when the life of your loved ones is at stake.

Closing your bedroom door when you sleep can help slow the spread of fire drastically, which in turn increases your escape time. This is where a well planned and practiced fire safety plan comes into play, as well as those smoke detectors that need to be tested regularly and the batteries changed yearly. But just as important as slowing the spread of the flames, closing the interior doors also reduces the toxic carbon monoxide particles in the air by over 8,000 PPM (parts per million). It can also decrease the temperature by nearly 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit compared to a room whose door was left open.

Simply put, it’s okay to keep the interior door open during the day or when you are awake, but at bedtime it is best to close those doors. It could make all the difference.