Designing apartment buildings, high-rise buildings never lack emergency exits for people to escape when a fire occurs. Normally, emergency doors are made of stainless steel, covered with electrostatic paint, and inside is fire-resistant material.
In the event of a fire or explosion, people in the building will run to the corridor of each floor, then move quickly and escape through the emergency exit. Except for those times, the emergency exit doors in apartments must always be closed, and they are also designed to only open in one direction.
Why do apartment emergency exit doors always have to be closed?
Apartment emergency exit doors are always closed to prevent toxic smoke from entering this safe passage when there is a fire. When a fire occurs, residents can run into it to escape the fire without being suffocated.
However, there are still many people who do not understand this principle and intentionally open the emergency exit door, using heavy objects to wedge it, keeping them in the open state for ventilation. This is an extremely dangerous act that can cost the lives of many people in the building when a fire occurs.
While the fireproof door of the building’s emergency exit is open, if there is a fire, the smoke will spread from the burning area along the corridor into the emergency exit, spreading to other floors. At that time, residents will have no safe way to escape.
Why do apartment fireproof doors always have to be closed? (Photo: Actionshutters)
Fixing the emergency exit door can also lead to damage to the lock. If an obstructing object is inserted into the corner of the door for a long time, the frame will be dented, the door locking ability will weaken, leading to door misalignment, and when closed, it will no longer be tightly sealed according to standards.
Keeping the door open for too long, the hydraulic arm will weaken and damage, unable to automatically close tightly, easily causing serious damage to people and property when a fire or explosion occurs.
The heartbreaking consequences of fixing the emergency exit door happened in the Carina apartment fire (Ho Chi Minh City) in 2018. The fire originated from the basement. Smoke quickly rose to the upper floors because the door separating the basement to reach the upper floors was wedged with bricks and stones. Many residents ran to the emergency exit door and were suffocated, leading to death.
In this case, the emergency exit door turned into a death door. Unfortunately, due to lack of understanding, the situation of wedging bricks and stones to fix the emergency exit door to create ventilation occurred in many buildings.
Many people lacking understanding have wedged bricks and stones to keep the emergency exit door open. (Photo: Vietnamnet)
Therefore, according to regulations on fire prevention and fighting for high-rise buildings, the emergency exit doors must always be closed. The doors of the escape routes from the floor corridors, common areas, waiting rooms, halls, and stairwells must not have locks so that the doors can be opened freely from the inside without a key. For buildings taller than 15m, these doors must be solid doors or with tempered glass.
For stairwells, the entrance doors must have a self-closing mechanism, and the door gaps must be sealed. Doors within the stairwells directly open to the outside do not have a self-closing mechanism and do not need to be sealed.
The doors of the escape routes from the rooms or corridors must be solid doors equipped with a self-closing mechanism and sealed gaps. These doors, if necessary to be opened when used, must be equipped with a self-closing mechanism when there is a fire.
Why do emergency exit doors only open in one direction?
According to regulations, all emergency exit doors allow people to open in one direction for two following reasons.
Helping people escape quickly
People are very prone to panic when a fire occurs. If the emergency exit door can be opened in two directions, there will be a continuous flow of people coming and going in two opposite directions, leading to collisions, congestion, and slowing down the evacuation process, even creating situations of tug-of-war, with no one being able to escape. Therefore, this door is designed to ensure that the exit route only flows in one direction, helping the evacuation process become faster and more efficient.
In addition, these one-way doors will automatically close thanks to hydraulic arms, isolating the fire, preventing the spread of fire and smoke from entering the emergency exit.
The emergency exit door is only allowed to open in one direction. (Photo: Idighardware)
Ensuring security for the building
The emergency exit route usually leads from the floors down to the main lobby or basement. Therefore, the emergency exit door is only allowed to open in one direction to prevent thieves or criminals in general from intruding into the floors through the emergency exit route.
According to VTC.vn
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