Several aspects of the fire service tend to be regional. Terminology of some apparatus and tools come to mind (what we in Toledo call a “dinky ladder” is called a “short” or an “attic” ladder in other fire departments). But even on a broader basis, operational issues tend to change from region to region. One issue that comes to mind relates to staffing. How is it that in Toledo, three-person truck companies (including the officer) work while in other cities they run with five- and six-person truck companies (including the officer)? Well, one reason is the required tasks the truck company must accomplish.
Because of security reasons, it’s hard to force a door to a commercial building and even some residential buildings in many bigger cities. In Toledo, there are not too many doors we can’t open with our shoulder, boots, or-at worst-the butt of an ax. You can drive down Toledo streets and rarely see security bars or roll-down shutters on commercial buildings. For the buildings that have them, we use key lock boxes. A few houses have security bars on doors and windows, but I have not heard many complaints related to delayed entry.
Hurricane glass has not entered our area. We have the occasional tornado (I can’t remember the last significant tornado that hit Toledo), but we certainly are not in a hurricane-prone area. I guess, when you come down to it, Toledo isn’t a bad place to live.
– John “Skip” Coleman, deputy chief of fire prevention, Toledo (OH) Department of Fire and Rescue, is author of Incident Management for the Street-Smart Fire Officer (Fire Engineering, 1997) and Managing Major Fires (Fire Engineering, 2000), a technical editor of Fire Engineering, and a member of the FDIC Educational Advisory Board.
Question: Today, structures are increasingly difficult to enter and exit. What is your department doing to assist your firefighters in addressing high-impact wallboard, hurricane glass, armored doors, and heavier and heavier security?
Ron Hiraki, assistant chief,
Gig Harbor (WA) Fire & Medic One
Response: We continue to train on current forcible entry techniques and have up-to-date tools for the job. A forcible entry training program along with newer, more powerful chain saws equipped with carbide-tipped chains and battery-powered reciprocating saws are some of our recent additions. We are not seeing a lot of high-impact wallboard or hurricane glass in our community. We are seeing normal upgrades in security measures such as doors and “coated” glass in doors and windows.
We have a strong key lock box program. Our fire district protects a small city and unincorporated areas of the county. Key lock boxes are required for all commercial occupancies. We have been successful in educating commercial property owners in unincorporated areas on the value of a key lock box. Most of these property owners have installed them. Our firefighters work hard to learn the locations of these boxes and then document them on preincident plans. This is our safest and best method for rapid entry to a structure.
Gary Seidel, chief,
Hillsboro (OR) Fire Department
Response: The answer is relatively simple-stay abreast of code and construction changes, community risks, and new methods in service delivery-and follow a Los Angeles Fire Department motto, “Train as if your life depends upon it … because it does!”
The first focus we see in Hillsboro often comes from the prevention side of the spectrum. Our inspectors continually keep up on life-safety concerns during construction, changes in occupancy, the issuing of permits, and during their routine inspections. Any issue that affects the operational side of the department is shared. From these issues, we develop or update our prefire plans, share these changes in daily lineup or at training exercises, and then insert them into the mobile data terminals for access during incidents.
We also have developed a good rapport with the construction trades so we can obtain new training aids for hands-on training purposes. In addition, our personnel visit other departments; attend training conferences and workshops; and bring back new concepts, ideas, and methods that keep us up-to-date.
We also bring in recognized experts to present hands-on training to our members and surrounding agencies. For me, this month’s question brings one individual to mind: Captain II Lane Kemper, Los Angeles City Fire Department, who has delivered an outstanding presentation on Forcible Entry (egress and ingress). Lane was a true firefighter’s firefighter, one who truly loved the job and was always looking for better, quicker, more efficient, and safer ways to conduct our business and save lives. Lane lost his battle with cancer on September 13, 2006. However, I will always remember Lane as a friend and a true leader in the fire service, one who ensured we stayed abreast of the need to effect operational change when present policies hindered our service delivery.
Craig H. Shelley, EFO, CFO, MIFireE,
fire protection advisor,
Advanced Fire Training Center,
Saudi Aramaco Fire Protection
Response: Our department has not addressed these issues on a departmentwide basis because they are not present within our response districts. With that said, I believe that for departments that may experience these problems, the best methods of counteracting them are training and equipment. When I was with FDNY, we were constantly on the lookout for unusual items that would affect our firefighting operations and our personnel. In the 1970s when security became a problem, store and residence owners developed unorthodox methods of securing their premises-steel plates on roofs, steel bars on windows, for example.
If we were to sit back and ignore these new arrangements, our job would be more difficult. The firefighters identified the problems and devised methods for counteracting these security measures. Ideas were passed from firehouse to firehouse, and the department would issue training and safety bulletins on the issues. Firefighters would encounter such problems at fires and would be back on the scene the next day studying the problem and refining the techniques for breaching the security. In instances where a specialized tool would be beneficial, firefighters would design the tool and manufacture it in-house. These tools are now the staples of our business.
Where the security measures were known but not available for hands-on training, firefighters would recreate the situation in the fire station and devise methods for best handling the problem. All shifts would participate in these drills, and the information was passed on. In today’s fire service, these techniques should still be viable options. Identify, study, learn, practice, and develop tools to assist you in mitigating the problem. These are the keys to success.
Rick Lasky, chief,
Lewisville (TX) Fire Department
Response: Today’s society is becoming more and more security conscious. It’s getting harder and harder to find a community or neighborhood that doesn’t have a home or business protected with burglar bars, scissor gates, security doors, or some means or device for keeping the bad guys out.
Our department prepares for incidents involving these types of materials in the following ways:
- Companies perform preplan or building surveys of commercial buildings, multifamily dwellings, and other buildings with the exception of single-family dwellings. Getting into a single-family dwelling is still a little tough in our area.
- The people in our Fire Prevention Bureau and Building Department keep us informed, and our fire marshal, with more than 30 years of fire service experience, understands what is important to line personnel.
- Our companies observe the district regularly for buildings (in many cases, single-family dwellings) that have added burglar bars, roll-down shutters, or other security devices.
- Our tower ladders and quints are prepared for these types of devices or security features. They carry forcible entry tools (metal cutting saws, portable hydraulic bar, and lock cutters, for example) that will allow us quick access to the interior of the building. We train on their uses.
In most cases, the outside vent man radios the presence of high-security features encountered to command. A decision on whether to remove them is made based on the size of the fire and whether is appears to have been knocked down. If there is any doubt, the devices are removed. I’d rather explain to a building owner later why we removed the bars or gates than to have to explain to one of our member’s families how we couldn’t get to their loved one who was trapped behind one of these protective features.
As for high-impact wallboard, this has been creeping into our area. Our training division addressed this issue a while back when some of our FDIC instructor friends made us aware of this type of wallboard when we were teaching the wall breach drill. Again, this is one of those areas for which we rely on our Fire Prevention Bureau and Building Department to keep us informed.
We haven’t seen hurricane windows aside from those in some of the hotels we’ve dealt with for years.
In any case, we have to stay in touch and communicate with our Fire Prevention Bureau and Building Department friends, continue to preplan, and get out of the firehouse and look around our still districts if we’re going to stay on top of these issues and keep our members safe.
Jeffrey Schwering, lieutenant,Crestwood (MO) Department
of Fire Services
Response: My department tackles this problem through awareness. Being aware of the hazards we face is key to our members’ survival.
Currently, we use preplans, district and street training, annual business and optional residential inspections, and hands-on training (when available) to provide our members with the training that familiarizes them with the hazards we face every day.
Our department is small; however, we deal with everything from office buildings and industrial parks to single-family residential structures. Our officers use business and residential inspections and familiarization with new construction as training tools to show our firefighters the utilities, means of access and egress, and other specific hazards related to a building.
High-impact wallboard has not made its appearance in our area yet, but we are aware of its popularity. We must, and do, educate ourselves and our firefighters by whatever means necessary to prepare for the future.
Today’s society dictates that we be aware of the security hazards of commercial and residential occupancies. We are forced to go back to the basics and develop new training programs to maintain a high level of safety for our members.
Thomas Dunne, deputy chief,
Fire Department of New York
Response: FDNY has been dealing with this problem for some time. Manhattan, for example, is loaded with heavily secured furrier and jewelry businesses. Commercial buildings throughout the city are encapsulated with steel plating in the floors, walls, and roof. Even our residential buildings are often protected with steel bars on the doors and windows. Recently, I had an apartment building fire where seven occupants were found piled up near a security gate they had difficulty opening.
Our department emphasizes the following to combat these situations:
- Discovery and Planning: If access/egress problems are uncovered during fire prevention activities, prefire plans, drills, and sprinkler recommendations are considered. In addition, this information becomes part of the data broadcast to fire units when they respond to the location for a fire.
- Specialized Equipment: Our units have a variety of hydraulic and electric forcible entry tools to assist in forcing doors and cutting steel bars and gates. To facilitate rescues, an additional tower ladder may be needed just to work on removing window bars and providing access to trapped residents.
- Altering Strategy: This is probably the most crucial consideration. Access or egress problems must be factored into establishing a safe and effective size-up. Heavy security will cause delayed entry, restricted ventilation, and greater potential for backdraft or building collapse. Any of these may call for the incident commander to consider a less aggressive fire attack or even an outside, defensive operation.
Heavy-duty security features and modern construction technology have similar effects: “Advances” in either usually translate into greater challenges and setbacks for the fire service.
Leigh T. Hollins, battalion chief,
Cedar Hammock (FL) Fire Rescue
Response: The new “issues” affecting our department related to “hardening” buildings include high-impact wallboard, heavily reinforced garage doors, hurricane glass, and hurricane shutters. We have not had to deal with armored doors or heavier security in general.
Our approach, of course, has been through training. We can’t judge the prevalence of high-impact wallboard in our area, since it is neither required nor identified after installation. We have had sample pieces of the various “thicknesses” of the high-impact wallboard for training, and we have determined that normal tactical operations in a structure with these materials installed may be affected. We are at least aware of the situation and how to deal with it.
Our district lies directly on the Florida Gulf Coast’s Intracoastal Waterway, just inside the barrier islands of Anna Maria and Longboat Key, so, as you can imagine, the hurricane-related features of reinforced/braced garage doors, hurricane glass, and hurricane shutters are very prevalent in the area.
Although we cannot “see” the reinforced garage doors or hurricane glass, we know that all houses built in this area since about 2002 were required to have them. If a new house does not have “hurricane glass,” it must have temporary hurricane shutters by code. At least we can “see” the shutters when they are installed and know what we are up against. The use of some fashion of temporary hurricane shutters on “older” homes has skyrocketed since the passing of Hurricane Charley 90 miles to our south and the near miss of Hurricane Hugo two years ago.
Again, our approach has been to address these problems through training. Several years ago, we acquired several windows with hurricane glass, built a “mock-up,” and learned how to deal with that issue firsthand.
Cedar Hammock did what may be the most extensive testing of temporary hurricane shutters and methods for overcoming them during fire operations in the winter of 2005. The results of these tests can be found in “Temporary Hurricane Shutters and Firefighting Operations,” in the June 2005 issue of Fire Engineering, 51-58.
Cedar Hammock has trained hard to overcome the “hardening” issues that have affected our firefighting operations. Training with hands-on practice is the key.
Mike Mason, lieutenant,
Downers Grove (IL) Fire Department
Response: Forcible entry and the size-up required for its success are getting tougher these days because of the increase in the different types of materials and applications of these materials on everything from commercial structures to single-family residences. Materials such as high-impact wallboard (also known as Lexan®) board, hurricane glass, metal and armored doors, security final windows, and a host of other products and methods are being used in the names of security and energy efficiency.
Unfortunately for most firefighters, the ability to train and work with these products and their applications usually isn’t available until they are encountered on the fireground. Take for instance Lexan® board or high-impact wallboard: The presence of these materials within a structure would more than likely be unknown to the unsuspecting firefighters unless preplanning during the structure’s construction phase revealed their use and application.
After its presence is known, firefighters have to apply forcible entry techniques to determine the best approach for the materials and construction-in other words, you need to acquire the product to work with it, which likely will not happen on a construction site with a foreman with a deadline and an allocated amount of the material for the job. We were fortunate to become familiar with this product during our national class Rapid Intervention Company Operations (RICO) class and have developed several techniques for getting through it and removing it with hand tools and other forcible entry equipment. This is the exception.
The number of forcible entry techniques needed for these new features in commercial and residential structures is almost limitless. Dealing with forcible ingress and egress involves everything from burglar bars to residential security bars, energy-efficient vinyl windows, commercial sectional doors, new case hardened padlocks, wired glass, metal armored doors, security-proof hinges, security roofing materials, as well as layered insulating materials on roofs and in walls.
Preplanning to size up the enemy is the only way to go. Get out there, look, and ask questions. Many times when our engine company is out on the road, I have my company pull over and get out to look at new construction and talk with laborers, especially if we see something of interest or that doesn’t make sense. Size-up is essential when dealing with these new products; we should know they are present well before the alarm comes in.
Keeping training in forcible entry consistent and up-to-date can be quite taxing on the Training Division. Not everyone in our department performs true forcible entry on items as simple as the common residential front door or vinyl security weather-type windows, since only a limited number are available in structures we acquire for training. After one company forces a door with a decent lock and deadbolt assembly, the next company applies its forcible entry methods on a door that has been nailed shut with 2 × 4s, giving it a whole different feel and unrealistic behavior.
It’s so important for company officers and members to ask for and collect different materials from construction sites. Talk to manufacturers; invite them to show and explain their products and their assemblies. Usually after their presentations, we will be able to determine which technique or method to use for the product or assembly. Such knowledge will provide added safety on the fireground.
J. Keith Slupski, captain,
Defreestville (NY) Fire Department
Response: Firefighters have been complaining about building materials and security features for centuries. We have, can, and will overcome challenges posed by new materials and methods.
Some of the ways my local communities and fire departments are accomplishing this are to require the use of a key lock box or similar secure entry system; increase the use of FAST/RIT; conduct municipal fire inspections, fire department walk-throughs, and size-ups based on knowledge, experience, and suspicion; and use modern situation awareness tools such as thermal imaging cameras and building sensing/monitoring/control systems. A plentiful supply of power tools and enough money in the budget for spare blades do not hurt. Improvements in investigation, search, suppression, and ventilation equipment and methods over the past couple of decades allow us to safely serve the public in structures containing these new materials.
Most of the buildings in which we are liable to encounter these new materials are larger, more modern structures where the more critical issues are size, occupancy, and value, as well as location, especially for new residential construction. These structures are built to more modern codes and often have more than basic fire detection and suppression equipment. The builders, owners, and occupants tend to be more concerned about the safety, integrity, value, and upkeep of the property. Given the high cost of some of these materials, we are less likely to find them in do-it-yourself remodeling on a shoestring budget.
We have never been able to safely, efficiently, and effectively breach every material on a potential fireground with just a traditional firefighter’s ax. We can be safe and effective in these modern structures if we use modern methods and tools for situational awareness, forcible entry/overhaul, extinguishment-and, most importantly, if we serve with caution.
Christopher Fleming, lieutenant,
Portland (ME) Fire Department
Response: As an older city in the Northeast, Portland has been lucky to avoid most of the natural disasters that have led to code changes that require stronger construction materials such as hurricane windows, shutters, and high-impact wallboard. However, with the increase in real estate values and the rise in income of our city’s inhabitants, we are starting to see some of these materials in new construction and building rehabs. We are also beginning to run into greater security measures in commercial and residential properties.
Although we don’t have any formal training program to assist our firefighters and officers in overcoming these obstacles, we have numerous avenues for the dissemination of information and training. As a part of our CAD system, we can “flag” properties that are of concern. We are moving toward mobile data terminals in all our apparatus; now, we rely on dispatcher notification. Drawbacks to that system are a heavy reliance on company building inspections and data entry. Informally, companies can e-mail every member of the department to notify them of building hazards such as truss construction and thermal-pane windows. Fortunately, we have heads-up people who make this happen.
As for the hands-on training component, it is done mostly at the company level. Just like fire departments everywhere, we have plenty of members who also work in the building trades, and sometimes we can get materials to train with through these connections.
We are also seeing increased security measures in our community and have made some adjustments to deal with these changes. For a number of years, we have encouraged the use of key lock boxes on our commercial properties and some of our higher-security residential structures. The validity of the keys is checked as part of building inspections as well as on fire and EMS responses. We have also expanded the tool selection available to our ladder and heavy rescue companies. Whereas in the past we could almost totally rely on traditional forcible entry tools (i.e., ax and halligan), we now have more hydraulic force tools and battery-powered and power saws. Having multiple saws with different blades allows us to make entry without changing blades. Once again, training is done mostly on the company level, where we do our best to get our members “saw time” on various materials and assemblies.
Joseph D. Pronesti, captain,
Elyria (OH) Fire Department
Response: My department hasn’t done as much as it should in regard to the changes in security. There is an excellent video provided by Assistant Chief Ed Murphy of the Roberts Park Fire Protection District in Justice, Illinois. His son did some research on high-impact wallboard, which is now becoming commonplace in new construction. The video is excellent; my shift reviewed it, and I hope to be putting a training bulletin out on it soon. I recommend that all departments try to obtain the video.
As far as armored doors and heavier security are concerned, I believe the only way a department can face these dilemmas is to have a fully staffed truck company responding on first alarms. It doesn’t matter if the crews are paid, part-time, or volunteer. We must have a crew with the training and tools to take care of these issues.
We can talk about armored door entry and heavier security forcible entry, but if a department responds understaffed, all the knowledge in the world will not make a difference and could get our firefighters in trouble. We must have a dedicated crew ready to open up the building by any means necessary.
I also believe that the two best ways to address these issues are to get your company out BEFORE the fire and look at the buildings in your district and to make a better effort to establish relationships with building officials and work together in studying buildings and the effect fire has on them. There will always be bigger and better building materials; and more often than not, these new designs will make our job more difficult. The key is getting out and learning about them; unfortunately, my department leaves that up to each individual officer and does not mandate this initiative. Know your buildings! It’s as simple as that.
Dan Cochran,
deputy chief of prevention,
Coeur d’Alene (ID) Fire Department
Response: To provide rapid access for our personnel at all hours, our Fire Prevention Bureau developed an ordinance that was adopted by the city on May 2, 2006. It requires key lock boxes on all commercial buildings and multifamily occupancies of three or more units. The key lock system operates on a master key basis that expedites entry into a structure during an emergency and helps eliminate forced entries into structures, thereby avoiding costly and time-consuming efforts in gaining access to locked structures during an emergency.
Terry Parker, captain,
Houston (TX) Fire Department
Response: As with any new development that will impact our department, we continue to try to educate our members about items such as high-impact wallboard. We research available information and disseminate it through departmental bulletins. We also try to incorporate it into ongoing training programs. Our rescue crews are especially adept in this area.
What we’ve found, though, in situations involving security type items as mentioned in this discussion is that they do not heavily impact our day-to-day operations, at least not yet. These increased security measures are typically installed in new occupancies or those undergoing large renovations; fire safety measures are also increased. For instance, I was told of one particular use of the high-impact wallboard in a hospital setting that also had a wet sprinkler system.
Our greatest problem is dealing with the reduced amount of building materials being used in today’s construction projects. This, coupled with the lack of appropriate residential sprinklers and sufficient smoke detectors, keeps us busy fighting single- and multiple-family residential fires with no relief in the foreseeable future.
We will continue to practice our forcible entry skills on tough subjects such as security doors and windows and will keep our collective eye on new challenges such as high-impact wallboard. Often, the knowledge that one or more of these items exist on an emergency scene is enough to channel our efforts in a different direction to expedite scene mitigation. Our best chance of keeping abreast of these installations is through our ongoing prefire plan program in which each station conducts bimonthly updates within its respective territory. Each apparatus maintains a book of these plans that can be used by any incident commander.
Ed Herrmann, lieutenant,
Boynton Beach (FL) Fire Rescue
Response: Since our department is in South Florida, we have become well acquainted with “hardened” and hurricane-prepped structures. We have an ongoing commitment to keep up on departmental and company-level training regarding forcible entry and egress. Whenever a structure comes available prior to demolition, we make use of it for every possible training aspect from forcible entry to search to ventilation. All of our engines carry a standard complement of reciprocating saws, 12-inch circular saws with a variety of blades, and chain saws, as well as hydraulic extrication tools, pry bars, and a variety of hand tools.
When these basics are not enough, we bring our Special Operations/Heavy Rescue into play. This unit is staffed with state qualified USAR personnel and carries equipment for all aspects of this task, including structural collapse. This package includes everything the engines carry and then a 14-inch circular saw with a variety of blades, a concrete-cutting chainsaw, chipping hammers, hammer drills, ultrathermic and gasoline-fueled torches, various jacks, portable hand-powered hydraulic door spreaders, top-of-the-line hydraulic tools, and so on. Because of its training and equipment, this unit is assigned as RIT on structure fires. This ensures that when access (or emergency assistance with egress) is required, it will be accomplished in the best possible time.
Last mentioned but obviously first considered would be our key lock box system. Our Fire and Life Safety Division has done an excellent job of helping us work smarter by requiring and monitoring these systems in all new businesses and our numerous gated residential developments. It’s not as much fun as knocking a hole in a wall, but it gets the job done.
Patrick T. Grace, battalion chief,
Escambia County (FL) Fire Rescue
Response: Our members are constantly encouraged to keep up with new technical commodities and training developments through department subscriptions to fire service publications. Each year, we send several company and Training Division officers to instructional conferences. We can send only a limited number at department expense because of financial constraints, but each year several enthusiastic firefighters pay their own way. Those attendees take classes that cover virtually every aspect of forcible entry. The members are required to bring that knowledge back to the department and share it with coworkers. Additionally, we bring in guest instructors three or four days to lecture and conduct hands-on drills. Our Training Division is very aggressive in securing acquired structures for forcible entry, search, ventilation, rapid intervention, and live-burn training.
We also strive to maintain open lines of communications with local builders, vendors, locksmiths, and demolition contractors. This is more often easier said than done. We basically have to hound them because if they don’t have something on fire, they aren’t thinking about the fire department. Our Inspections Division shares information with the operations side regarding new and different obstacles we might encounter in the field. Our members are assigned a department e-mail account through which we forward informative articles. We try to network as much as possible. We average approximately 14,000 emergency responses a year, and we make training as much of a priority as the emergency responses.
Randall W. Hanifen, lieutenant,
West Chester (OH) Fire-Rescue
Response: With the increased presence of security on buildings and the associated array of security devices, the best way to overcome these obstacles is through prearranged key boxes on each building. Our department is aggressively seeking the installation of the key lock box entry system on all new nonresidential structures and actively promotes their installation on existing buildings. We check the validity of the keys within the box during our annual fire inspections.
The one area in which I see a need for the fire service to push for a new requirement is proximity cards. With the frequency of change in the access rights of these cards, even an annual check during the fire inspection may not catch the deprogramming of the card in the key lock box. My suggestion is to have a master unlock key registered to the fire department. This would ensure that firefighters would not become trapped in an area secured by magnetic and electronic locking devices.
From a deployment aspect at a fire scene, I suggest carrying a rabbit tool at all commercial building incidents. This is often the only portable forcible entry tool capable of applying enough psi of force to overcome many of the magnetic locking devices, which can resist upward of 1,200 pounds of force.
Preplanning buildings within your response district will allow members to become familiar with the variety of securing devices present and develop plans to defeat these obstacles.
James Mason, lieutenant,
Chicago (IL) Fire Department
Response: In Chicago, we have had heavy forcible entry problems like armored doors on entrances, scissor gates on interior doorways, along with bricked-over and barred windows for decades. The entry problems presented by Vacant Property Systems (VPS) window and door security on vacant buildings that can contain construction workers is our latest fireground challenge. Chicago Fire Commissioner Raymond Orozco examined this system’s problems and solutions in “Security System Presents Egress and Entry Challenges,” Fire Engineering, February 1999.
The first part of our program involves preplanning with in-service company inspections to look for the ever-changing forcible entry problems in the response area. When companies do a complete walk-around of the interior and exterior areas of an inspected building, the fire crews can discover many issues. Identifying these security problems before the fire occurs will provide great benefits when the alarm sounds.
Our department will also issue additional equipment when necessary. We recently received a special wire cutter designed to open VPS systems. Our training for forcible entry will review old problems and determine if the old techniques will work on the newer challenges. The department is also always on the lookout for solutions from other jurisdictions. The new techniques are published in training bulletins.
