Fortified Door
Gabriel Angemi from Camden (NJ) Rescue 1 sent in these photos of something he and the brothers of Rescue 1 came across on a fire run. This door was fortified for something we don’t normally encounter… This door was made to keep people in!
Below is Gabriel’s first hand write-up on his experience with this door.
In my last ten years on the job, this is one of the most bad-ass doors I have encountered. This business had been robbed several times over the years and the means by which the thieves got in was thru an opening in the construction of the roof, so apparently this door is more to keep you in than to keep you out. This was the scene of a smaller working fire in an automobile salvage garage with a light to medium smoke condition issuing from the roof at about 2am, and our company was given orders by Battalion 1 to gain entry through this particular outward opening door. This door was thought to be the door that occupants/workers normally used to enter and exit the premises, Rule #3. We were told a key holder was in route, but were not about to wait for him...
Although these pictures do not show it, (I had forgotten to bring the digital camera to work and went back to take these the next day) we originally cut a triangle into the door after having observed rule #1 (try before you pry) already. Rule #2 had us not ignoring the obvious, since we saw a pattern of bolt heads three quarters up from the bottom of the door and then the same pattern a quarter up from the bottom, we were sure there was a set of drop in bars to deal with here...
...The pictures below show the backside of the door and allow you to realize what we found out the hard way. The initial triangle cut was made for speed, in an attempt to push up and out on the top drop-in bar and pull out the bottom drop-in bar, leaving the door primarily intact (rule #4: maintain the integrity of the door) and easy to repair cheaply.
Once the presence of the chain was discovered, we enlarged the hole to the size you see it in the pictures, in an effort to use bolt cutters on the chain and
still accomplish what we set out to do.
However....
...the chain itself was attached to the top drop-in bar and went up and over a steal I-Beam attached to a framework erected inside the building leaving no visible marks on the building’s exterior for us to notice. Once over the I-Beam the chain was then padlocked to the bottom drop-in bar and the drop-in bar holder, which was drilled out to accommodate the padlock and all fit snug together. The presence of the undetected I-Beam would have foiled any manual attempt to remove the top drop-in bar as well since reaching around it was not going to happen. Attacking the hinges and trying to pry the door out of the frame would have been useless, as would have been cutting the bolt heads that were holding the drop-in bar holders thru the door.
Upon the arrival of the key holder to the scene, members were led thru a series of other interior doors with varying types of locks, one of which was even more beefcake than this one pictured, proving we had attacked the right door at least. The padlock holding the whole deal together was opened by the key holder, releasing the chain and the drop-in bar system was then removed from the inside and our fire suppression attack began on a small fire in a big pile of scrapped engine blocks.
Our next step would have been to enlarge the opening further to allow for better lighting and space to cut the padlock, and attack the rest of the obstacles until we were successful. This just goes to show how time consuming forcible entry can be, and although this didn't take all that long to finally get thru and the fire was out quickly, it could have been much more serious under different conditions and breaching the wall may have become an option had the key holder not responded so quickly.
Gabriel originally posted these photos on a blog he runs for Camden Rescue 1.
In addition, the brothers over at Brotherhood Instructors posted Gabriel’s write-up on their blog.
We don’t normally like re-posting information, but this one was too good to pass up.
Thanks goes to Gabriel and the Brotherhood for sharing!