Garage doors as an ember path

You are looking at a garage door that meets the slab. Light at a corner is an ember path. Weatherstrip is the usual first move. It is not an OSFM 8150 listing.

A garage door is a large hole in the wall. Embers use the gap at the slab, the sides, the header, and any extra cutout. CAL FIRE’s home-hardening page tells you to add gasketing (weatherstrip) and to treat gaps and penetrations larger than 1/8 inch as ember paths into the house or garage. A pet door is a penetration. IBHS Wildfire Prepared treats that work as ember designation, not adopted code and not an OSFM 8150 listing. See exterior doors.

Why the garage door matters

The overhead door is often the widest opening on the house. Garages store cardboard, fuel, and clutter. CAL FIRE says poorly sealed doors, and garage doors that lack gasketing, give embers a path inside. Once embers are in, the contents are the fuel.

This is envelope work. It is not a catalog of listed door leaves. Weatherstrip that is cracked, missing at the corners, or not touching the slab is the miss. A pet door, a mail slot, or a daylight crack at one corner is the same class of hole.

How embers use the door

1. Perimeter gap. The bottom seal lifts off an uneven slab. Side and header flaps warp or tear. Daylight is an ember path.
2. Extra penetration. A pet door, a cat flap, or a hole cut for a dog is larger than 1/8 inch. CAL FIRE names gaps and penetrations of that size.
3. Fuel on the inside. Embers that get in land on boxes, rags, and cans next to the door. CAL FIRE tells you to relocate combustibles and flammables so they are not next to ignition sources.
4. Glass and leaf (a later layer). Direct flame and radiant heat can fail glass or ignite a combustible slab. That is IBHS Enhanced door work, not the first weatherstrip job.

Zone 0 still applies at the apron. Bark, wood piles, and a combustible fence against the jamb undo a new seal. See fence as a wick.

Two documents, not one listing

Use the document the owner, the carrier, or the authority having jurisdiction (the building official) named. IBHS is not a listing body. A photo set is not a permit. See IBHS does not replace adopted code and ember versus flame versus radiant heat.

Do not spec 1/8 inch mesh as a garage-door product. Mesh is a vent path.

What people mix up

• Treating weatherstrip as an OSFM 8150 listing, or shopping 8150 as if it were a garage-door catalog. 8150 is a door-assembly listing. This page is the gap. Read how to read a listing.
• Leaving a pet door in the slab and calling the garage “ember-resistant” because the bottom seal is new.
• Treating IBHS “pet doors and beds” in the five-foot band as permission to cut a hole in the door. That exception is about limited movable objects in Zone 0, not a penetration through the envelope.
• Treating a 20-minute interior fire door, or an IBHS FORTIFIED wind-rated garage door, as this ember seal. Wind pressure and wildfire gasketing are different jobs.
• Treating IBHS Essential and Enhanced as two names for one certificate. Enhanced builds on Essential. The garage-door glass exception lives at Enhanced.
• Ignoring fuel stacked against the inside face after the seal is replaced.
• Copying this checklist onto a drawing as if it were a listed model. It is not.

How to check

1. Close the door. Look for daylight at the slab, both jambs, and the header. Corners fail first.
2. Press the weatherstrip. If it is cracked, flattened, missing, or not touching, replace it. CAL FIRE also names metal flashing at the jambs and headers.
3. Look for a pet door, mail slot, or other hole in the overhead door or the man-door. If you can see daylight, or if a gap is larger than 1/8 inch, it is an ember path on the CAL FIRE page.
4. Look at glass. IBHS Enhanced allows a single tempered pane on a garage door, or a solid panel. That is not the dual-pane window rule.
5. Look inside. Move cardboard, fuel, and clutter off the door. Open attached garages with exposed combustible walls are a different IBHS enclosure item. Do not treat storage as hardening.
6. Write which document you used (CAL FIRE home hardening, IBHS Essential, IBHS Enhanced). The next inspector should not have to guess.

No product table belongs here. This site does not inventory garage-door seals. Empty is correct.

Limits

This page does not pick a seal brand, a glass count for permit, or a door SKU. It does not size the opening. It is not an OSFM 8150 catalog. It does not decide Oregon R327 or California CWUIC door sections. Those live on exterior doors. It does not make the house fireproof. FireApproved is not IBHS and not the building official.