Fire door inspection checklist. A printable fire door inspection sheet covering the leaf, the frame, the gaps, the seals, the ironmongery, the glazing and the signage, with the gaps recorded as measurements rather than ticks.
This is the paper version. FireOptix does the same job on a phone, with the record filed against the building or the asset automatically.
What is on the sheet
- Door reference, location, what it protects and the certification or label found, where one is still legible
- The leaf: damage, distortion, holes, alterations and anything cut into or fixed through it
- The frame and architrave, fixings, and the condition of the perimeter seal between frame and wall
- Gaps recorded as measurements at head, jambs and threshold — a field for the figure, not a pass or fail
- Intumescent strips and cold smoke seals: present, continuous, undamaged and not painted over
- Hinges, self-closing device, latch and keeps, hold-open devices where fitted, glazing and beads, signage, and a defect and remedial-action column
Why this record matters
A fire door is a system, not a leaf. It fails as a system too: the door is sound, the closer works, and the smoke seal has been painted four times until it will not do anything at all. That is why the sheet walks the whole assembly rather than offering a single judgement at the bottom.
The gaps are the part most checklists get wrong, and this one records them as measurements rather than as a pass or a fail. The gap a door is permitted to have depends on its own certification and the standard it was tested to, so a free sheet that prints a tolerance teaches people to inspect to a number that may not apply to the door in front of them. A measured figure can be read against the right limit later, by somebody who knows which limit applies. A tick cannot be re-read at all.
The other recurring failure is identity. Doors are rehung, renumbered and replaced, and an inspection recorded against 'first floor corridor' will not tell you whether the door you are looking at is the one that passed. A reference, and a note of whatever certification or label is still legible, is what makes the next inspection a comparison rather than a fresh start.
Who should be inspecting, and how often, is not on the sheet. It depends on the building, its occupancy and its risk assessment, and the regime in England for certain multi-occupied residential buildings is set by the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022. The sheet is the record of an inspection, whoever carried it out and at whatever interval was set.
Use it with
- Fire risk assessment templateA printable fire risk assessment form, covering the premises, the people at risk, the hazards, the fire safety measures already in place and the significant findings that come out of it.
- Escape route inspection checklistA printable walk-the-route checklist for escape routes and final exits — clear, openable, lit, signed and free of the storage that accumulates in corridors.
- Fire safety audit checklistA printable audit checklist for checking that fire safety management is actually happening — the records, the testing, the training and the open actions — as distinct from assessing the risk itself.
- Fire log bookA printable fire log book: a cover, an index of what belongs in it, and record pages for the tests, services, drills, training and findings that make up a premises' fire safety history.
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© 2026 FireOptix. Free to print, copy and use in your business. Not for resale. Please keep this notice.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Written for England and Wales. General guidance, not legal advice. Checked October 2026.