Attempting to Close Propped Fire Doors | The Danger of Propping Fire Doors Open

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Hey guys, welcome back to another video.

[00:00:02]I'm in my dorm right now and check this out.

[00:00:05]This right here is one of many fire barrier doors that have been illegally propped open throughout the building. As you can see, this is a fire rated door to the stairwell and we're actually on the first floor here. Today, I thought it'd be kind of interesting to see if I can close these doors and get them to stay closed. As you can see, on both sides of the first floor, these doors have been propped open for convenience.

[00:00:23]I honestly can't even blame whoever propped these. I find it pretty convenient when I take the stairs cuz I don't have to open this door. But, in some cases, these can be illegally held open with electromagnets that will release the door on fire alarm activation. These ones are not. They're literally just propped like that. So, once again, I'm going to go around the building and close all of these doors and see how long I can get them to stay closed.

[00:00:51]All right, guys. I've gone ahead and closed all five illegally propped fire doors. I'm not going to lie, it's been kind of like that since the start of the year. I just really haven't had the time or energy to care cuz realistically, who has that kind of time on their hands?

[00:01:02]But, I was thinking about it and I was like, maybe this is a good opportunity to educate and an interesting social experiment. So, we're going to see how long it takes before those doors are open again. Right now, it's 5:52. So, I'm going to go to dinner and then after dinner, I'll check back and see if those doors are still open. My prediction is that the first floor doors are going to get propped open again immediately. In fact, as I speak, it's been like 5 minutes, but I'm sure somebody's already opened them again because uh lots of traffic there, but we'll have to see.

[00:01:28]All right, guys. So, just to show you why fire doors are so important, I've put together this very easy visual demonstration. So, it's literally just a picture on my iPad, but uh hopefully it'll show you why these are important.

[00:01:38]This right here is a building, a very simple high-rise building. It's literally just a 10-story building with a stairway and some floors. And as you can see, we have our floor plan. And what I'm going to simulate is a fire starting in one of these rooms. So, let's suppose we have a nice blazing hot fire like that. Um it's red. This is a horrible picture of a fire. And that fire is going to produce a lot of smoke.

[00:01:58]And we're also going to suppose that this is an unsprinklered building cuz a lot of older buildings don't have sprinklers, although most high-rise buildings are now sprinklered. So, that fire is going to produce some very toxic, thick, dangerous smoke. And normally in a fire emergency, it's not the fire itself that kills people, it's the smoke. So, the smoke here is the life safety risk. Now, typically in a room or a, you know, hotel or dorm, pretty much every room is going to be fire rated. So, there's going to be a fire barrier door at the entrance to the room and that's going to keep that fire contained to this unit. But, in some cases, people leave those doors open.

[00:02:28]They fail to self-close. And for whatever reason, um let's suppose that door fails.

[00:02:33]So, we're going to erase that fire door.

[00:02:35]And now the smoke and toxic fumes are going to enter the hallway like that.

[00:02:38]Now, these fire doors to the rooms also serve to protect the occupants of that unit. So, if we suppose that um that fire door failed, but all the others are still intact, all of these fire doors right here are going to keep the occupants of these rooms safe. So, theoretically in an emergency situation, your hotel room or your dorm is actually a fire rated capsule. It's always preferable to evacuate, but if you have to, it can be safe to stay in your room.

[00:03:01]So, we're going to suppose though that the fire spreads into the hallway like this. So, that smoke is propagating. The hallway is now full of smoke. That fire is ready to flash over. This is not a good situation. Um we get to the stairway and luckily in this situation, the stairway door has not been propped open. This fire is contained to this floor. This entire hallway is fire rated and unless there was some other issue where, you know, say like a crack in the wall was not properly fire caulked or something like that, this fire will not progress past this floor. That's how good our passive fire protection is in pretty much all buildings. So, at least this fire will not move to other floors and occupants on the other floors can still exit the building. Now, let's suppose we have a situation like what people in this building have done where this fire door is gone. It's open. An open fire door is basically a non-existent fire door because it's it's completely useless.

[00:03:49]So, now that fire is entering the stairway. And this is where the the danger happens cuz if we look at our front view of the building, that smoke, say it was on the second floor, is now entering the stairway. And if you've ever seen a chimney or you know the chimney effect, smoke rises up, right?

[00:04:05]So, that stairway, which is literally just a chimney from the first floor to the top floor of that building, is going to carry that smoke and it's just going to fill that smoke with top or the the stairway with toxic smoke. So, we're going to use red to simulate the spread of smoke. So, first it might start here, then it might move up, then up, then up, then up to the entire point where this entire stairway is now compromised. So, everything that is uh highlighted in red, this stairway is no longer survivable. Any occupants who enter the stairway will face very heavy conditions that are pretty dangerous. They'll face asphyxiation risk. And this is just a really not preferable situation. So, again, let's suppose you're on the 10th floor here and you're trying to egress the building. As soon as you open that stairway door, smoke is going to come out of it and enter the occupant floor.

[00:04:48]That's really dangerous. This is ideally what you want to prevent. And again, this is really what happens when multiple different things fail. Like there's no sprinkler system, fire doors in multiple places have failed. But again, this happens pretty frequently. I mean, if you walk into any building, you're likely to find some sort of violation like that. Of course, there is some redundancy. But uh generally, when you see something like a fire door on the first floor, which is what's happening in this building, propped open, that's pretty concerning cuz again, on a lower floor, um the chimney effect is a lot worse. I mean, if you prop a fire door open on the 10th floor, at least it won't really affect the people on lower floors as much. But, in this situation, the first floor fire door is a pretty critical fire door. I mean, all fire barriers are, but that's why this is such an important thing.

[00:05:29]Check this out. It's been not 10 minutes. I'm heading out to dinner and sure enough, somebody has already opened this door again.

[00:05:36]All right, guys. It's been a couple hours. Let's see if the doors are still closed.

[00:05:41]This one is still closed. This one is open again. This one is still closed.

[00:05:49]This one has been reopened. This one is still closed.

[00:05:53]All right, guys. It's currently 8:12 p.m. and it's been a little over 2 hours since I closed the doors and only two of the five have been reopened. So, that's not horrible. I'm guessing the ones that keep getting reopened are just going to keep getting reopened no matter what I do cuz um people really just don't know that much about fire doors. I mean, why would they? I can't really blame them.

[00:06:11]Don't think the average person is thinking about fire doors too much. But, we're going to try and change that. So, I'm not going to go around and start like, you know, telling people to close the doors cuz uh no one likes a safety Samuel. But, what I think I'm going to do is I work at the campus makerspace.

[00:06:25]So, I have access to a sticker maker.

[00:06:27]And uh for the doors that keep getting reopened, I might make like a quick sticker and that says like fire door, keep closed or something like that and see if um people then realize that it's a fire door and it shouldn't be propped open. Uh that way, you know, saves you the awkwardness of having to go around and be like, um excuse me. Like, I'm not doing that. But uh let's see if that makes a difference.

[00:06:47]All right, guys. Over the next few days, I closed these doors. I don't even know how many times. Pretty much every time I walked down the stairs, at least one of the fire doors was propped open again.

[00:06:55]I'd literally leave for 5 minutes to go do something. I'd come back and the doors would be propped right back open.

[00:07:01]It's almost as if every single person who passes through them propped them open. But, clearly something does have to be done.

[00:07:07]All right, guys. We're here in the makerspace right now. I have my colleagues here who assisted me in cutting this thing out. As you can see, we have our fire door stickers here that I'm anticipating will probably not do that much. Then we have our sticker maker. So, we're going to go ahead and uh start this process here.

[00:07:29]All right, guys. As you can see, we have our sticker vinyl cut. I have six of these and they're pretty simple. As you can see, when I peel them, you kind of see the general form. It's just a sticker that says fire door, keep closed, do not prop. So, we're going to go around sneakily and apply these to the doors and see if this makes a difference. And my hypothesis is it's probably not going to do anything, but you never know uh unless you try.

[00:07:54]Well, that's something. Well, I'm not done yet. All right, guys. It's about 2:00 a.m. right now and uh I have no class tomorrow. So, I'm going to go around and sneakily apply these decals.

[00:08:11]There we have it. Our first sticker is installed. So, let's close this and see if it stays closed.

[00:08:17]Here we go. Yet another one.

[00:08:25]Check this out. On the sixth floor, this door has been propped again. And this one's actually being held by the flow switch, which is pretty bad cuz this can cause some damage. So, we're going to go ahead and sticker this door, too.

[00:08:39]Well, there we have it. We've closed all the fire doors and put these informative stickers down here. So, we'll see if that's enough and I'll check back in tomorrow. All right, who am I here with?

[00:08:49]I'm Vivian.

[00:08:50]Okay. So, based on what I just told you about the little experiment that we're doing, what do you think is going to occur? And uh do you think it's going to work or not?

[00:09:00]I don't think it's going to work.

[00:09:01]There's like no punishment for them leaving the door open. So, why would they not do it? They're so used to it. I I don't I don't I just don't think it's going to work. Mm, okay.

[00:09:10]Uh Tiffany here.

[00:09:11]I think you know, like if if it was me, since I do it, too, if I'm like in a rush to class and I see that stupid sign, I'll take my time out of my day, put it in the trash. Mm, okay.

[00:09:26]Yeah. The Don Quixote here.

[00:09:29]>> [laughter] >> I really don't think I know we're not living in the ghetto no more, but I know for sure those stickers really not going to keep anybody from doing that. So. All right, good morning, guys. As you can see, that sign did absolutely nothing cuz it says fire door, keep closed and uh door is wide open again. So, as expected. Same with this one right here.

[00:09:58]As you can see, props right back open.

[00:10:02]This one, too, as you can see.

[00:10:05]This one has also been propped open again.

[00:10:08]All right, guys. So, unfortunately, as expected, those stickers did absolutely nothing to stop people from propping the doors. As we speak, those doors are propped open again. Um so, no. But, unfortunately, that is just kind of the reality of life safety and fire protection. Uh we kind of have no ability to guarantee any sort of full compliance with fire protection. I mean, even if you have code code enforcement go around the building uh maybe quarterly and check for things. As soon as they leave, uh the thing's just going to get propped open again. And this is technically not acceptable, but it is acceptable because we build redundancy into our building systems. So, redundancy is effectively the ability for us to continue to um achieve our goals even if certain things fail. So, for example, the entire premise of fire protection systems is redundant. If everybody followed fire protection orders and fire prevention rules, we would never have building fires in the first place. But, uh because accidents happen and inevitably things are going to go wrong, we have fire sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, fire alarms, and all of those good things that you're used to seeing in buildings. Now, unfortunately, once again, um it's never ideal for certain things to be bypassed, but generally it only becomes a really strong issue when it becomes a pattern of things being ignored. For example, um right now in this building, as you know, the fire doors are propped open. But, everything else is well maintained. The fire alarm works, exit signs are lit, and things like that. And this building is fully sprinklered. So, should there be a fire emergency, again, like I said, although it's not ideal for those doors to be propped open, it should theoretically be okay as long as the fire sprinkler opens, the room fire door contains the fire, and uh everyone has time to egress the building. Now, if this was a building that was poorly maintained, so that sprinkler system wasn't working, the alarm wasn't working, and the fire door was propped open, then you'd get a perfect storm that would probably lead to a tragedy. And unfortunately, that happens all too often. I mean, off the top of my head, uh modern example of that is maybe the 2022 Bronx apartment fire. In that situation, uh multiple fire doors in the building failed. The fire alarm system constantly malfunctioned, so people didn't take it seriously. And the building wasn't sprinklered. And in that situation, one fire in one apartment spread throughout the entire building. It wasn't even the flames, it's really just the smoke, cuz it's really the smoke that kills people.

[00:12:19]And I believe 17 people lost their lives in that situation. But, um generally, we try and build redundant features into the buildings. So, we prevent, you know, the entire fire protection system from being bypassed by uh only one thing failing. Uh cuz again, if you only rely on one or two things, then if those one or two things fail, then unfortunately, the entire system is now gone. But, if you have like, say, 10 different features, and only one of those fails, uh at least you have the other nine.

[00:12:45]But, other than that, I hope you learned something important about fire protection systems today. It is pretty critical to uh at least try and inform people about these things. Uh again, unfortunately, in a lot of cases, there's some some things out of your control, but I can't help and it can make a difference to at least try and educate. Thank you for watching.