Forcible Entry: Outward Opening Door with Multiple Locks

In this video instructors Chris Collier & Nate DeMarse demonstrate conventional forcible entry techniques for outward opening doors. At first glance this door appears to be only locked by a key in the knob lock. The halligan is set approximately 6" above the knob but when the door is pried it becomes obvious that there are other locking devices in place. If you are prepared for, and expect auxiliary locking devices you will easily overcome them when they are encountered. In this case, there were FIVE locking devices securing the door. They are listed below from the bottom to the top:
- A foot-bolt (slide-bolt) that secured into the floor
- A vertical dead-bolt below the knob
- Key-in-the-knob lock
- Slide-bolt just above the knob (4 screw holes, lock fell off)
- Slide-bolt a few inches above the last lock shown in the video

All FIVE of these locks were forced in approximately a minute.

Had this key in the knob lock been a panic hardware device firefighters attempting the "framing square" technique would have been defeated and had to return to conventional forcible entry.

Fire service tools have been invented and modified over the years. A few were intended for fire service application and others were borrowed from other trades. Many fire service tool adoptions and adaptions are worthwhile and useful. The ones that we (Brotherhood Instructors LLC) disagree with are the ones that have a very limited scope of use and require extra equipment. Our goal is to keep fire ground operations simple and systematic while sticking with tactics that have proven themselves to be valid.

We apologize for the digital skipping and glitch while we were driving the adz to the frame. We shot this video from two angles, and this was the best with this segment.

[BrotherhoodInstructorsLLC]

@ChuckCh9: Certainly the hinges are an option, but not our first option as we teach to keep the integrity of the door in nearly all forcible entry operations.

Many firefighters think that the hinges are easier, because you can just "pop the pins". In commercial doors, the hinges are typically more secure and the pins cannot be "popped". This door had multiple locks engaged and was moderately secured, and was easily forced in under a minute.

Thanks for the response and stirring discussion.

[BrotherhoodInstructorsLLC]

Additionally, we teach to force and CONTROL all doors regardless if fire is behind those doors or not. This trains firefighters to the worst case scenario ALL THE time, thus keeping them as safe as possible when fire is encountered.

[BrotherhoodInstructorsLLC]

@The54catwoman:

We don't teach "check for heat" because in our experience of forcing hundreds of doors at fires we as a collective whole of instructors have never found a door with fire behind it that was not readily known when we approached the door.

100% of the time with fire behind the door AT LEAST the top 1/3 of the door has visible fire showing from the cracks, heavy smoke pushing, paint peeling, or the door buckling from the heat.