Combating Institutional Inertia In Forcible Entry

Institutional inertia is an amazing thing. Once an organization adopts a concept, standard, tool or tactic, it is hard to kill. And the longer it exists, the harder it becomes. Whether it be that shiny-as-the-day-it-was-made hux bar that has made an epic migration across every rig the department has ever owned, mantras like 'left for life,' or tactics like PPV attack that continue to be utilized no matter how many foundations they save, the Fire Service in general has an astounding ability to cling to the useless and the outdated with a compulsiveness that would make a hoarder blush.

In the realm of techniques, these are often passed from the semi-senior to the rookie as dogma, never to be critically examined yet often repeated, till the rookie becomes senior and the cycle repeats itself. Any challenge to the dogma is met with cries of 'But that's how we've always done it!', 'It works for us!', 'It's a tool for the toolbox!', and 'That's not how we were taught!'

Look around, and you can see institutional inertia at work. You can find the baggage we refuse to cast off in any department, discipline, or textbook. Many seem so benign that it is very tempting to leave it be. What harm could come from adding a few extra tools that don't fit any task well to the proverbial tool box?

Here's the problem with that line of thinking. We claim to be professionals, career and volunteer alike. Myriads of t-shirts, bumper stickers and coffee mugs proclaim it, so it must be true. Except professionals study their craft. They use evidence to build a skill set and examine how well it works before refining it even further.

So together, let's all be professional for a moment and take a look at some of the vestigial and sub- par techniques we continue to pass down from one generation of firefighters to the next.

For the purposes of this article we will focus on a topic near and dear to my heart, forcible entry. Over my time traveling, teaching, taking classes, talking shop, and spelunking into the depths of fire forums and Facebook comments sections, I have seen the same poor techniques repeated over and over, and heard the same lousy justifications ad nauseum. Try as I may to do my part in stamping them out, it always feels like a losing battle, so here is my attempt to stand on a taller soapbox and proclaim to the world that the job matters, how you do it matters, and if it matters, it's worth critically examining how you do it.

Shocking, or Sounding, or Something

Wait, what?!? But shocking is in the New York Forcible Entry Reference Guide (NYFERG) and that thing is basically the Bible so it must work! Except it isn't. If you go back through it, on page 60, you'll find that it mentions checking for resistance at the top, center and bottom of the door to find engaged locks, and on page 67, battering the door to 'loosen the door to allow the adz to be slipped in.' Well that's basically shocking, right? Here we come to our first problem with shocking/sounding/stutter-stepping/ creasing/battering/etc/etc/etc., and that is the problem of ambiguity in terms.

We have taught for so long to hit the bar on the door without examining why we're doing it that we have no idea why we're doing it anymore. Are you trying to loosen up the door? That's shocking.

Or battering. Which is not to be confused with sounding, which is trying to locate locks. Or stutter-stepping, which is trying to force the door open using the bar as a battering ram, but we can't call it battering because that name is already taken. And don't confuse that with creasing, which is trying to manipulate the door skin to pull it away from the jamb, which seems oddly close to the definition of shocking/battering, but not close enough to be the same.

Trying to do multiple at the same time? Too bad, because the location and force of each strike is different between each technique. See where students might be confused? So instead, all too often we just teach slamming the bar into the door. Some say hit with the forks, others say the adze. Let's clear it up a little.

First, we should do away with shocking. The justification for shocking is that you are ’pre- stressing’ the lock hardware. Unfortunately, the door is flexible, which absorbs most of the energy you are trying to impart, and the hardware is generally a little malleable, so it takes a fair amount of force without failing. Others will say you are 'exciting the atoms in the door,' preparing it to be forced. I may have failed high school chemistry, but I'm pretty sure atoms don't work that way. You might bend up the door a little, but generally not in a way that will be beneficial to your force. As for shocking with the forks, you are concentrating all your force on two very small, sharp edges. You are more likely to puncture or deform one very small area than transmit any force to the lock hardware.

Next, let's do away with sounding, too. The general idea is that through striking the door high, middle, and low, you will be able to hear and/or feel where the locks are.

All three of the groups I teach with have dropped teaching sounding. Why? Because none of us can present enough evidence from our personal experience to say that it works with any regularity.

It seems simple enough in theory, that like tapping on a wall till you hear a stud, you should be able to hear the difference in pitch when your bar hits over a lock. Failing that, you should be able to feel or see the change in resistance. The problem is most of the time the fire-ground is a very noisy place, and even when you can hear clearly, depending on the door's construction you may not be able to hear a difference at all.

Solid wood doors will return roughly the same pitch along the length of the lock stile. When striking hollow metal doors, the surface you're striking is not necessarily in any contact with the lock, so it is possible that the metal at the front with absorb the strike without giving a tell. As for feeling the difference, you are only in contact with the door for a fraction of a second before the tool bounces off. You are also holding a large (hopefully) single piece of forged steel. In essence it acts as a giant tuning fork, and vibrations have the effect of reducing the feeling in your hands. The more you sound, the less your hands will be able to feel.

I especially cringe seeing firefighters sound outward swinging doors. You are doing nothing but pushing the door into the jamb and will hear or feel no change along the length of the lock stile.

Stutter-stepping, however, does work, and for the same reason crap firefighters kick doors in; it sometimes opens the door. So why not keep shocking or sounding, since the door might open? Because the strikes high and low are nothing but wasted time and energy, and all the muddying of the waters does nothing but confuse students. If you are going to teach using the bar as a battering ram, call it by the right name and teach it the right way.

Attacking Next To The Lock

IFSTA's Essentials of Firefighting, Jones & Bartlett's Fundamentals of Fire Fighter Skills, and the NYFERG all roughly agree on this one. NYFERG says to start 'approximately 6' above or below the lock' If there are 2 locks close together, go between them.' Fundamentals just says 'near the lock.' IFSTA's newer additions say 'just above or below the lock'.

With all these books in close agreement, they have to be correct, right? Not really. My disagreement with starting close to the lock is based on what I believe is a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of much of the fire service of what Gap/Set/ Force really means.

Could you gap right next to the lock and eventually gap it enough to set your bar between the door and the frame? Yes, but why would you? The lock ties the door to the frame, so right next to it offers the most resistance to your gap of any place on the door. By moving away from the lock, either high or low, we can use the flexibility of the door to our advantage. Remember that the 'Gap' step is only about creating space between the door and the frame for your tool to be set in, not forcing the door.

Since creating that space further away from the lock is easier, why not just do that? I believe that much of this misunderstanding is created on the drill ground, using most of the commercially made forcible entry doors. Since the doors are constructed of solid pieces of steel that do not flex, any gap obtained is opened up the length of the lock stile, imparting no advantage to moving away from the lock. Additionally, many commercial door props have very limited forcing areas, sometimes as little as 12 inches, making it impossible to move away from the lock.

Gap/No Set/Force

Similar to my last point, I often see firefighters attempting to force the door off the gap, with the adz between the door and the jamb instead of between the door and the frame. Again, this comes back to improper understanding of Gap/Set/Force and training on unrealistic props.

Will this technique work on a heavy steel rabbet or concrete filled jamb? Probably, but we should strive to teach to probability instead of possibility, and when there are better techniques out there, and misapplication on a wooden frame can seriously complicate your force, we should leave this tool out of the toolbox for teaching firemen.

Taking The Hinges

Show a picture of an outward swinging door to one hundred firefighters, and probably thirty of them will blurt out 'take the hinges' as their plan A. And why wouldn't they? On the surface, this looks like a slick way to easily and quickly open a door and seems like a good way to be labeled as an outside-the-box thinker. However, ask any of those thirty if they've ever pulled the hinges on a real door, you'll get maybe five to say yes, and those five are lying. When you do try it on a real exterior door, hopefully not on a call, you'll find out how terrible pulling hinges really is. The fantasy that you'll be able to jimmy out the hinge pin quickly runs into the reality of sealed hinge pins and lugged hinges. No matter, you'll just use the forks to pull the hinges out. Best case, with a ton of straining and swearing and trying to pull on a bar that's over your head for the top hinge, it finally comes out. Worst case, the hinge only partially pulls out, wedging the door firmly in place or tearing the door skin. So now after you force three or four, you're golden, right? Nope. You still have to now conventionally force the hinge side, which is tighter than the lock side and now probably stuck with damaged hardware from the hinges. So to avoid one tough force, you have added three or four additional forces? Doesn't seem so slick anymore.

Doggy Door/Bird Beak/Cut 'Er Down The Middle

I've taken a few dozen forcible entry classes in my career, and not a single one has ever taught any of these techniques as anything but a Hail Mary, if they are taught at all. I would love to find out who is virulently spreading this misapplication of saw work all over the country so I can pat them on the back with the bumper of a truck. Seriously, who is spreading this bullshit? Beyond a single picture and partial explanation in IFSTA's Essentials, I've never seen anyone of authority advocate it, yet its proponents are legion. Just like taking the hinges, show a picture online of an outward swinging door and get ready to see some variation of taking a saw through the door vomited all over the comments section followed by impassioned defenses of the techniques by people who TOTALLY do it all the time and know it's way faster than the irons. Sure, let's assume you carry the saw with you every time you're going to be opening up a commercial door, whether you know it or not. Let's also assume the saw is in perfect working order and was properly checked out and refueled at shift change or weekly, depending on how your department works. None of this really matters, because no saw will cut through seven feet of door quicker than a set of irons in capable hands can force the same door. What blade do you have on your saw? Will it go though both the steel of the door and the concrete or other materialof the sill? That's one of the parts very few ever consider. The blade is circular. You may have
cut through the skin of the door facing you, but unless you start cutting in to the sill or frame, you will still have half an inch to an inch left to cut on the other side. Ok, we'll do a 'bird beak' around the lock because either our blade only cuts steel or we don't know and want to play it safe. What happens when that jamb was reinforced by something your saw can't cut? At best, your progress has stopped. At worst, your blade has suffered a catastrophic failure. Let's say you went for the 'doggy door'/'dutch door', cutting straight across under the locks and you made it through the frame successfully. Not only is your entry and egress now limited by low clearance, you have just allowed air to the fire but the top of the door is still blocking the products of combustion from escaping. Just stick with the irons for plan A. They always start, they're quick, and they get the job done reliably.