In the late 1960s, Jay Smart began fire testing an acoustically rated folding partition. He was almost obsessed with the idea of engineering a sliding fire door assembly that would permit large openings in fire-resistive construction, yet would operate in accordance with special evacuation needs of persons with disabilities.

In 1988, the NFPA 101 Life Safety Code adopted provisions to permit horizontal sliding fire doors as a means of egress in selected applications. Since then, Won-Door products have been routinely specified in design projects around the world, including the pre-Sept. 11 Pentagon renovation project.

Structural demolition and the abatement of hazardous materials began in 1998, on Wedge 1 of the Pentagon, the first section to undergo renovation. It took approximately four years to complete. The one-million-square-foot area received new utilities, structural steel reinforcements, Kevlar wall inserts, blast-resistant windows and Won-Door's retractable fire doors as part of the renovation process.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, an American Airlines Boeing 757 struck the newly renovated Wedge 1 on the Heliport side of the Pentagon at the first and second floors. The plane went through Wedge 1 and into the un-renovated Wedge 2 before exiting the C-ring, the third ring of offices, and into a roadway (A/E Drive) that circles the perimeter of the Pentagon between the B and C rings.

Despite the impact of the plane and the ferocity of the associated fire, the “web” created by the blast-resistant windows, steel columns, and geo-technical mesh held the building together for 35 minutes, giving many of the people in this location time to escape.

The Pentagon Renovation Program later heard numerous accounts from personnel located in renovated areas directly above or adjacent to the area of penetration. A Won-Door employee remembers his encounter with a Marine General who had helped with the installation at the Pentagon. The General stated that on the morning of Sept. 11, he was working in his office adjacent to the hallway where one of the Won-Door doors was located, when he felt the building begin to vibrate violently. As he stepped out of his office into the hallway, all he could see was a fireball coming down the hallway towards him, until the door closed in front of him, blocking him from the oncoming blast. He felt no impact from the blast and detected no smoke or fire coming through the door.

The Phoenix Project, as the reconstruction of the Pentagon is now known, involved rebuilding the section of the Pentagon that was most severely damaged in the Sept. 11 disaster. Approximately 400,000 square feet of space required complete structural demolition and reconstruction. Within a week of the attack, the Pentagon Renovation Office had awarded contracts amounting to $1.3 billion dollars for the reconstruction of the damaged areas and the continuation of the renovation project. A not-to exceed (NTE) $520 million letter contract was awarded to AMEC, the original Wedge 1 contractor, for the rebuilding and restoration efforts in Wedge 1, and a base $758-million contract for the renovation of Wedges 2 through 5 was awarded to Hensel Phelps Construction.

The renovation will continue to include the installation of Won-Door fire and safety doors equipped with an audible instruction announcement that begins when the door is deployed and continues issuing exit instructions until turned off. The doors are also equipped with blinking LED lights to help locate the push-tab that manually opens the fire door, and with special electroluminescence (EL) exit signs located at the top and bottom of the fire doors for better visibility in heavy smoke.

Won-Door has begun marketing the doors to the security industry as “Steel Curtain,” with emphasis on their applications providing building compartmentalization in response to safety and security incidents.