NYC Fire Department forcible entry reference guide [pdf] (2006) | Hacker News Reader

NYC Fire Department forcible entry reference guide [pdf] (2006)

ia800207.us.archive.org

155 pointsmhb43 comments

Amusing to see “check if the handle opens the door” as an explicit step called out multiple times.

From experience probably. something that is missed often, when you're focused on a protocol that says "forcible entry"

And you expect most doors to be locked.

It’s real though. When you’re making procedures “do the obvious thing” has to be the first step and putting it in there will prevent so many mistakes. Checklists work. Trusting people to do the obvious reasonable thing in repetitive or stressful situations does not.

Obligatory call out to "The Checklist Manifesto"

http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/

Thanks for this, I ended up down the rabbit hole of David Lee Roth and no brown M&M's backstage which is both an amusing story a) about how the media industry works and also b) of putting something seemingly innocuous but easily verifiable in the middle of a long checklist as an early warning sign of a process not having been followed properly, which obviously has applications anywhere something critical is being done.

Hopefully the surgeon insights in the book are equally valuable.

https://rockcelebrities.net/the-reason-behind-david-lee-roth...

Seat belt use* is the brown M&M of the US fire service community. If you don't see regular seat belt use in your local fire department, you should find out why. It typically means the company officers just aren't doing their job. If your department -

A. Wears seat belts; B. Chocks the wheels religiously; C. Checks if the door is locked before breach; D. Positions apparatus for, but does not initiate water supply properly at all credible alarms; they're going after some really pernicious problems, typically driven by sheer laziness, in the fire service.

*FFs, yes ice rescue, I know, edge case.

Amusing, but not strange in the least. Pilots sometimes need to remember in incipient emergencies that first, they should fly the plane.

I worked a bit in e-commerce and the first sentence I wrote in every incident response manual was "Does the potentially affected website work?" Because people would forget to check that!

There are many anecdotes of people trying to convince the firefighters that they can open the door normally, and the firefighters not letting them use the keys and breaking the door instead.

It can be frustrating for the homeowners but firefighters are probably trained to think that "every second counts" and damage is of course irrelevant, as the fire will destroy everything if it spreads.

But it's good that they would at least test the handle.

Keys I can understand, but handle is something inexcusable. Just getting the equipment or placement to break the door must take more time.

> Just getting the equipment or placement to break the door must take more time

Firefighters stroll up with a Halligan Hook and an 8 pound axe. Entry can be fast. Even a lot of medium-weight metal doors and frames will yield in less than 10 seconds of skilled use.

Not quite as quick as the handle, but if the handle usually doesn't work...

"Try before you pry" as the saying goes...

...as opposed to "kick in the door first, ask questions later"?

This is for firefighters, not the FBI.

It is the equivalent to the very important advice for engineers: "Switch it off and on again!"

That's not the same though. Switching it off and on might clear the problem for now but it doesn't explain why the problem occurred and how to avoid it happening again.

And “check if the handle opens the door” explains the problem and avoids it happening again?

Its the same thing in all CPR manuals. First check for pulse/breathing before doing anything else. Actually you should start by trying to wake them by yelling or shaking them around a bit.

This is very common in lots of emergency procedure checklists. First check if you actually need to do this procedure/use the tool/etc.

Definitely don’t shake an unconscious person around unless you’re sure that they don’t have a spinal injury.

if it is safe and you can control your motions, touching the face or holding the hands are a start

And you think you giving them CPR would not do even more damage (good luck holding them still while pumping their hearth through their ribs)? Obviously if you see them take some big hit treat them with that possibility but if you see some random person passed on the street making sure their brain is receiving oxygen is always the first priority. (after making sure the patient is in a safe place so remove them from a burning building first etc.)

Agreed, priority is to ensure there’s oxygen to the brain- but in the process of ascertaining if they’re indeed unconscious, don’t start by grabbing their shoulders and shaking them violently. Touching their hands and face as pointed out in a sibling comment is better, and after determining that they’re not breathing and have no pulse definitely proceed with vigorous CPR because potentially paralyzed is of course better than dead. Also, be aware of whether Good Samaritan laws protect you from liability before deciding to proceed.

Would really have helped the Uvalde police department.

My Halligan bar is my favorite tool I own. I've never used it for its intended purpose but it's super fun to hold and show people.

It's so strange that this was posted today (for me at least). Yesterday we had the FDNY break in to the house because there was a fire in a garage somewhat connected to the house. I heard some people banging around in the hallway and went out of the apartment to fin at least 3 firefighters. They had broken the lock on the gate and bent part of the metal, they broke the main wooden door, and they knocked down a part of the brick wall that separates our yard from the neighbor's yard. They also went into the cellar and tracked hella mud through the house.

Anyway, insurance will pay for the damage so whatever.

If this is your thing, check out Coastal Fire Training. They sell tools, courses, and put out lots of free info and techniques. https://www.youtube.com/c/CoastalFireTrainingLLC

If I've learned anything from TV, all doors can be kicked in by an average sized cop ;-)

You might be surprised at how true that can be. At least for many residential doors, outside of "high crime" areas where the resident may have beefed things up with a fox lock or something.

An average sized guy, who learns to "mule kick" well and aims for the right spot, can breach a pretty good percentage of doors in my experience. (Source: former firefighter here.)

Seeing all these tools & explanations is amazing.

Wonder if someone could make a fun firefighter video game about breaking into various properties using this PDF. The game would focus on gaining forcible access (so the first responder could save the day).

Previous discussion from 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11031303

Hm, it must be a different one to the one I saw years ago. That had the recommendation that if a door lock is difficult, think about going through the wall next to the door.

I am not a member of a forcible entry team (IANAMOAFET), but that sounds like a bad idea. Walls are likely to have plumbing and/or electrical wiring in them. Putting an axe or chainsaw through a 220v circuit would not be a good way to start fighting the fire.

It might make more sense if one wasn't in a hurry, though.

Dunno what they do in cities, but out here in the country cutting power is one of the first things we do.

Firefighters wear rubber insulated boots. There might be some sparks but they would be OK cutting residential voltage power lines.

Would that work for 220V lines to major appliances?

For those outside the US, our residential electrical service is a mix of 120V for lighting and general outlets and 240V for major appliances (ovens, HVAC, etc). Commercial is usually 3-phase at higher voltages (but, IIRC, there's a mix of several specs used - residential is more standardized).

if a door lock is difficult, think about going through the wall next to the door

Under what circumstances would the wall be the preferred way to penetrate a building? Just thinking of the homes in which I've lived (all typical US suburban builds), exterior windows or glass sliding doors would likely be the fastest access. Apartments were a mix of cinderblock wall skinned with drywall or wood/metal framing skinned with drywall - if you knew it was wood under drywall, that might be faster (but that's also ignoring utilities that might be contained in the wall)? But would you know that in advance?

It looks like this is a link directly to the PDF on one of our servers. You can link to e.g. https://archive.org/details/FDNYforcibleEntryReferenceGuide and it will serve from one of the servers that can source the item even if this particular server is offline, and will be valid in the future if the item is ever moved off of this server.

It's a good point to make. But dang, why must there be a built-into-the-page PDF reader that I have to fart around with? I'd rather just have a simple PDF that gets served from some load-balanced location, so I can use my own viewing tools. I'm sure there are good reasons, and I realize there is a download link in the "..." menu, so it's not too bad, at least. Just griping (:

There's a list of download options on the right if you scroll down.

I guess a more direct analog to the original link would be https://archive.org/download/FDNYforcibleEntryReferenceGuide... , which will take you directly to the PDF and provides the load-balanced benefits.

I linked to the item's main page, which has other download options for different e-readers, metadata, etc, in addition to the bookreader interface (which provides additional options like Read Aloud and Search Inside (and it's open source! https://github.com/internetarchive/bookreader ).

I’m sure it works pretty well on desktop browsers, but on mobile the web interface is pretty hard to use. The PDF link though works great.

Quick question: What is the caching / download mechanism like in bookreader? Does it only download each page as requested, cache a few pages around the current page, or download the whole thing before display? I am looking for something better than what we have cooked up to avoid downloading an entire pdf every time somebody wants to see a couple pages of it.

This is very cool but I just wish the NYFD would stop being so ultra-conservative and start allowing home batteries like the Tesla Powerwall in NY buildings.

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