Sliding fire doors exist as certified products and they are used widely in industrial and some commercial settings. In residential buildings they are heavily constrained, and the constraint is not about fire resistance at all. It is about how a door behaves when somebody is trying to get through it in a hurry.
The escape rule
A door that is specifically intended as an emergency exit must not be a sliding or revolving door. The reason is behavioural: under stress people push, and a sliding door does not respond to being pushed. That rules sliding doors out of the positions that matter most in a dwelling or a block of flats, which are the doors on the escape route.
Where they are legitimately used
Openings that are not escape routes: between a kitchen and a living space in an open plan layout where the guidance permits a door, across a service opening, or as a compartment closure in a position nobody escapes through. In each case the doorset has to be certified as a sliding fire door assembly, with its own track, closing mechanism and seals tested together.
What a residential specification has to satisfy
The certified assembly including track and gear, a closing mechanism that operates on alarm or on fusible link as the design requires, seals appropriate to the opening, and a clear demonstration in the fire strategy of why a sliding door is acceptable in that position. Retrofitting a sliding door into a compartment line without that analysis is the failure mode.
The open plan question
Sliding doors are often proposed in residential refurbishment because an open plan layout has created a fire safety problem that a door would solve. That is a design conversation rather than a product one: the strategy has to work with the door in either position, and a door that is normally open contributes nothing unless it closes automatically.
Questions people ask about sliding fire doors residential
Can a sliding fire door be a flat entrance door?
No. The flat entrance door is on the escape route and sliding doors are excluded from that position.
Do sliding fire doors need automatic closing?
Where they form part of the compartmentation they must close in a fire, which means an automatic mechanism. A door relying on somebody sliding it shut is not a fire door in use.
Are pocket doors ever fire rated?
Certified pocket door assemblies exist for specific applications. The pocket itself is a hole in the wall and has to be part of the tested assembly, which is why ordinary pocket doors are not fire doors.