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A firefighter in Dallas told me our 5-minute door hold rule is a joke during a real fire
He said they see elevator doors fail under heat way faster, so now I'm pushing my crew to treat the 90-second test as the ONLY safe standard, not some minimum to beat.
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logan6583mo ago
We had a hotel fire in Austin where the elevator doors on the 3rd floor jammed shut in maybe 70 seconds. The heat was way more intense than the test assumes. That 5-minute rule is pure fantasy when things go bad.
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lewis.mila3mo ago
My old captain in Phoenix always said the same thing about those 90-second tests. Honestly, we saw a door warp in under two minutes during a training burn.
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Yeah, I always figured those test times had a good safety buffer built in. Hearing actual crews say they've seen doors fail that fast changes everything. It makes you realize how quickly a normal escape path can just vanish. That five minute window really does start to sound like a best case scenario, not a rule.
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