Compartmentalization for Life Safety: What Schools Need to Know About Fire Doors and Crisis Response
By Laura Frye Weaver, DOIT
As a collaborator on the recent PASS white paper, Compartmentalization for Life Safety – The Role of Fire Doors and Secured Access During Crisis Events, I’ve spent significant time studying how the doors inside our schools—often overlooked—can play a critical role in both fire and active assailant situations.
What we found is straightforward but powerful:
The same doors designed to protect us from fire can also support security when used, maintained, and coordinated correctly.
This post provides a concise overview of key concepts from the white paper. For deeper guidance and practical tools, I strongly encourage school leaders, facility teams, and design professionals to read the full PASS white paper, which expands on every topic covered here.
Why Compartmentalization Matters
Whether a school faces flames or a violent intruder, the underlying strategy is the same:
Isolate the danger. Buy time. Protect life.
Compartmentalization uses fire-rated doors, smoke barriers, and separation walls to divide buildings into safer zones. Traditionally a fire-protection strategy, it has also become an essential part of modern school security planning.
In both fire and active threat scenarios, these compartments help:
- Limit the spread of danger
- Protect escape routes
- Reduce confusion
- Support emergency responders
Schools already have many of these components in place; they simply need intentional planning to make them work for both fire and security.
The Doors Already Working for You
Schools often have multiple types of interior doors that can serve dual purposes when properly configured and maintained:
1. Cross-Corridor Doors
- Close automatically in a fire to stop smoke and flames
- Slow or prevent an assailant’s movement through long hallways
2. Stairwell Doors
- Protect vertical egress paths from fire
- Restrict access between floors during a security event
3. Unit or Area Separation Doors
- Segment classroom wings, pods, or administrative areas
- Create secure, compartmented zones in an emergency
4. Smoke-Barrier Doors
- Limit smoke migration
- Add delay points that can deter or slow movement
These are not simply passageways—they are life-safety tools. To be effective, doors must close, latch, and operate consistently while maintaining code-compliant egress.
Fire Safety Lessons Applied to Security
Fire protection research offers insights directly applicable to human threats.
In a fire:
- Fire doors close automatically
- Seals prevent smoke spread
- Doors and walls slow fire movement
- Occupants evacuate along protected routes
Option-Based Active Assailant Response
In contrast, active assailant incidents require flexible, situational decisions. Depending on the threat location, occupants may:
- Evacuate if a safe, unobstructed route exists
- Shelter in place and secure their space when evacuation would increase risk
- Use interior compartmentation doors to isolate the threat
- Rely on established lockdown zones to limit movement
- Benefit from barriers that create time for responders to intervene
This approach ensures occupants can take the safest action available in real time.
Emergency Responder Access: A Critical Balance
While interior doors can provide meaningful protection, they can also create challenges for police, fire, and EMS if they cannot access secured zones efficiently.
Responders may face:
- Locked or magnetically controlled doors
- Electrified systems that fail unpredictably
- Multiple compartments that are unfamiliar or confusing
A key message from the PASS paper:
A locked door may protect occupants, but it can also delay responders when seconds matter.
Schools must balance containment with free, immediate egress and responder access.
Best Practices for Schools
To ensure doors function as intended during both fire and security events, schools should:
✔ Audit all compartmentation doors
Check latching, locks, closers, fire ratings, and overrides.
✔ Ensure free, code-compliant egress
Doors must open easily from the egress side—no keys, tools, or illegal barricade devices.
✔ Strengthen hold-open devices
Use appropriate magnetic holding force to prevent nuisance closures.
✔ Train staff on evacuation vs. lockdown
Not all emergencies require shelter-in-place; some require immediate escape.
✔ Maintain hardware consistently
Doors are only as reliable as their last inspection.
The Bottom Line
Compartmentation works best when fire safety, security, and emergency response are planned together. Fire-rated and secure-access doors protect our schools every day—often without anyone noticing. When schools understand their purpose and maintain them properly, they become one of the most effective layers of protection available.
For a deeper dive into the strategies and recommendations behind these concepts, I strongly encourage you to read the full PASS white paper, which provides extensive, actionable guidance.
