A few months ago, I inspected a brand-new luxury apartment. Beautiful interiors, premium doors—everything looked perfect.
Until I checked one internal fire door.
No certification.
No smoke seal.
No fire-rated hardware.
Just a nice-looking door that would fail in minutes during a real fire.
And that’s the problem
Most people judge this door by how they look, not by how they protect. The life-saving features are hidden—and often ignored.
This blog reveals the 5 internal fire door features that actually save lives.
If you’re an architect, builder, or homeowner, don’t skip this.
These few features can be the difference between safe escape… and disaster.
First Understand
What is the purpose of an internal fire door?
An internal fire door isn’t just another door in a building—it’s a safety barrier designed to protect people and property when a fire breaks out. Its main job is to slow down the spread of flames and smoke so that everyone gets more time to escape, and emergency teams get more time to respond.
- Life safety: By slowing down the fire, these doors give occupants precious extra minutes to get out of the building. This added time dramatically reduces the chances of injuries or fatalities during an emergency.
- Reduce property damage: Implementing correct fire safety measures, such as installing fire doors, is vital for protecting property by containing and controlling the spread of fire. The introduction of the ID suffix mandates full insulation, which prevents radiant heat from endangering property. Furthermore, property damage like frame bending caused by mortar during installation can be prevented using battens, while applying a primer closes the seal on hygroscopic wood, stopping moisture exchange that leads to cracking. These correct procedures reduce structural degradation and maintain safety
- Ensure the building meets safety laws: Compliance with safety laws, such as the Regulatory Reform, requires buildings to have internal fire door with frame that are properly installed, maintained, and inspected. A key element of compliance is understanding the updated standards like IS 3614, which mandates transparency through suffixes like ID (fully insulated) to ensure doors meet required protection levels, as insufficient insulation poses a threat to actual safety in buildings
Where are internal fire doors required?
- Public and commercial buildings: internal fire door with frame used in busy corridors or staircases—like offices, malls, hotels, and public buildings—fire doors are a must. this doors that lead to escape routes should always be fire-rated to keep those pathways safe.
- Residential buildings: In apartment complexes, hostels, and assisted living homes, fire doors help stop a fire from spreading from one unit to another. In shared living spaces like HMOs, communal areas must also have fire doors to protect everyone inside.
- Industrial facilities: Factories and warehouses deal with machinery, chemicals, and flammable materials—so fire doors play a huge role in controlling any accidental fire and protecting valuable assets.
Here are top 7 features
Certified Fire Rating
Fire ratings like FD30 or FD60 denote the duration (in minutes) a door resists fire and smoke, based on tests under standards like BS EN 1634-1. The IS 3614 standard protects lives by mandating clear distinctions between doors: a door with a suffix ID (Insulated Door), such as FD120 ID, means it provides insulation for the entire duration of Integrity (120 minutes of integrity and 120 minutes of insulation)
Smoke Seals for Zero Smoke Leakage
Internal Fire doors are required on escape routes (like corridors and stairwells) to allow for safe evacuation. To ensure safety along these routes, a cold smoke seal should be installed around the door’s perimeter to prevent the spread of cold smoke
Fire-Resistant Core Material
The density of a door’s core plays a huge role in how well the door performs. It affects everything—how strong the door is, how much sound it can block, how well it keeps heat out, and most importantly, how it behaves during a fire. Doors with a denser, solid core naturally offer much better protection and overall performance than hollow-core doors. In short, the heavier the core, the safer and more reliable the door becomes.
Certified Fire-Rated Hardware
When we talk about “door assembly testing,” we’re referring to a special set of fire endurance tests done on the entire internal fire door setup—not just the door leaf. Fire door hardware includes the frame, the hinges, the locks, the closers… everything. The purpose is simple: to make sure the complete door system can resist fire and smoke for a specific amount of time so people inside the building have enough time to exit safely.
Intumescent Strips
When a fire breaks out, even the tiniest gap around a door can become dangerous. If the seals on a fire door are missing or damaged, smoke can slip through those open spaces almost instantly. This completely breaks the building’s fire compartmentation system, allowing smoke to spread far faster than it should.
Why Tufwud Internal Fire Doors Are Trusted in India
Driving and Implementing Enhanced Fire Safety Standards:
Tufwud identified serious flaws in the 2021 revision of the IS 3614 code which restricted insulation to only 30 minutes, a restriction they believed “posed a threat to the actual safety in buildings
Manufacturing with Chemically Treated and Durable Materials:
Tufwud ensures the durability and stability of its wooden products through specialized treatment, which prevents common issues and earns trust regarding product quality:
- Tufwud’s wood is chemically treated.
- This chemical treatment is used to avoid issues such as fungal, boral, bacterial, and termite infection, as well as bending, warping, shrinking, and cracking.
- Tufwud notes that even if a wooden batten were installed inside the flooring (where some might fear rot), in their case, it “will not rot because our wood is treated chemically treated”
- Promoting and Implementing Correct Installation Practices
- Tufwud highlights the “method statement issue” where frames bend inwards at the bottom when the space between the frame and the wall jam is filled with mortar (which contains water) instead of PU foam.
- Tufwud provides a solution: using a batten during installation to keep the frame straight until the shutter is installed, which will then maintain the necessary torque and momentum.
- Tufwud internal fire door also addresses cracking in seasoned wood, which happens because wood is a hygroscopic material that exchanges moisture with the environment. Tufwud’s solution is simple: apply primer to close the seal and prevent moisture exchange
- Tufwud is trusted because it not only manufactures chemically treated wood but also takes responsibility for correcting regulatory deficiencies and educating professionals on the precise installation methods required to ensure the long-term integrity and safety performance of its products.