Halligan Bar | Hacker News Reader

Halligan Bar

en.wikipedia.org

80 pointsmhb34 comments

As a volunteer firefighter in Pennsylvania the halligan is generally the tool I reach for when doing interior operations. Besides the obvious uses of breaking a door in / breaking glass, it actually can be used for near anything. Searching for a victim, poking small holes in the wall to check for fire extension, using it as a ladder to get out of a tall window, etc. I haven't found much personal use in carrying an axe in, but a common set of tools is called "irons" which is your halligan and a flat head axe.

For forcible entry the halligan is _the_ tool to use, check out how quickly it can pop a lock when combined with a flat head axe and a k-tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCAcCuLKE4

Exterior is a completely different story, where the pike pole or pike pole + multitool really shines. You'll use it to check the roof for stability, poke holes to find extension, and after cutting a hole using it to open up the roof and poking your way through the drywall / insulation.

Bunch of very interesting tools (both conventional and unconventional) that firefighters use can be found here: http://www.vententersearch.com/tips.htm

There aren't many things you can't open with a Halligan bar as long as you don't care how much damage you do.

But as my chief taught us back in our newbie days, "Before you swing the Halligan, try the doorknob."

This has turned out to be excellent advice.

I still can't stop laughing. What would be the software engineering equivalent of this? Something to do with Kubernetes I suppose.

'before using Apache Spark on a cluster, try using a single decent server and programming it properly'

bit nerdy but from experience

Before buying a server, prove the concept in VirtualBox.

Before designing a distributed serverless architecture on EKS, try a LAMP server.

Amusingly enough they're opening a lock on a glass door - I can think of faster ways than the halligan for that heh.

Also a volunteer firefighter here, if possible (and especially if not during an active structure fire) we try to keep property damage to a minimum. So it maybe that we could cause less damage to the door than breaking the window which is not always a guarantee. But always try (opening) before you pry (it open).

Yeah, it's a tricky tradeoff - glass may be cheaper/easier to replace than a torn out lock or broken frame.

I guess if you worry about it you could always install the fireman's key box you see on commercial buildings.

True, maybe faster, but there are considerations other than speed at play. Responders have to make decisions quickly about the best way to gain entry depending on the situation. Paraphrasing from the NYC Fire Department forcible entry guide, discussed here[0] earlier this week:

- Broken glass creates an additional safety hazard for rescue workers, people being rescued, and people cleaning up afterward.

- Breaking the glass would greatly increase cost of repairs for the building owner/insurance (professionalism)

- A door without the glass is harder to secure afterward ("Who will provide security for the occupancy after you leave?")

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32546810

This, a Halligan and a thermal imager were my go-to for interior operations.

POV of a German firefighter: I like that tool.

The versatility of the different ends/heads of the Halligan tool makes it much more useful than classic crowbars in combination with an axe.

For that reason we see more and more Halligan tools as default equipment on new cars or additional loadout if you find a place for it. Also training is focussing more and more on this type of tool.

Also no power required. I loved the hydraulic tooling I got to use, but almost every time we would turn to the manual option for simplicity.

Yeah, indeed. We had a crashed car (persons could be rescued without forceful entry) and had to we get to the batteries. We just went down on it with the Halligan tool, much easier than getting the hydraulic instruments. Car was done anyway. :-D

HN's interest must have been piqued after the forced entry guide from FDNY was posted here the other day.

But very cool tool. There's something I really like about brutally simple tools, theres a certain art form to making them. In retrospect a tool like this is pretty obvious, but it would be cool to be able to see the thought and design process around tools like these.

During my firefighting days the Halligan bar was the "go to" for SO many things. Forcing doors for entry into structures, opening (slightly) stuck car doors, helping make a "purchase point" to insert the Jaws of Life (hydraulic spreader) tips into very stuck car doors, opening car hoods on vehicle fires, etc. These things are iconic among firefighters for good reason - it's a great tool.

One thing I always found really handy was a down-sized Halligan bar, one that was only about a foot long instead of the normal sized ones. For very light prying / twisting / poking activities it was great, and much easier to carry around without getting in the way.

All of that said, don't underestimate the utility of a nice long straight prybar either. Between those and the Halligan (and throw in a sledge hammer for good measure) you can open a lot of things. If that fails, it's pretty much time to break out the K12 saw.

My father used to have his small machine shop down the road from Merrill Brothers in Maspeth NYC who were a big forging outfit he sometimes did work for. They made Halligan bars among other forged tools and I guess they had a bunch of rejects or leftovers as my father took about a dozen of them. I still have six of them in total. They certainly come in handy from time to time.

Shout out to Maspeth! I was born there and my moms family settled there and worked in various places from cemeteries to some of the industrial places.

As a teen I once demolished a single story 10'x30' wood frame building with one of these and a sledgehammer. Took less than half a day at a leisurely pace.

If it wasn't for having to haul the debris away I would have done it for free. Demo is so satisfying.

That seems to be a common feeling, that I somehow don't share. I gutted and rebuilt my last house and everybody wanted to come help me demo. I didn't want to deal with the liabilities associated with that so I generally declined.

I hate demo. I hate wearing all the gear required to prevent the debris and dust from entering my eyes and air passages.

For wilderness firefighters.

...and of course https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLeod_(tool)

This thing reminds me of the “cat claw” that is popular in construction, which is essentially a modified crowbar.

I had never heard of one until I did a project with a family member who does construction. He mentioned to me he has one in hand almost all day long and I can see why - it’s beautifully simple, but engineered to provide leverage in exactly the right way.

Love to see the appreciation for simple things that provide outsized value (er, leverage?)

Burke bar (mostly in construction use): https://youtu.be/5JnMO6-ql8o

Before I even clicked on the link I knew it would be Essential Craftsman!

I love his videos as much for his universally applicable life wisdom as much as for the specifics of what he's covering.

His listing of uses and the video of him taking apart that post covering didn't really convince me. I feel like a flat pry bar and a 3 pound sledge would have performed just as well, and they're smaller and more generally useful. I would have liked to see a video of the Burke bar in action on a bigger job, perhaps the additional scale would have demonstrated its niche.

Also the springiness of the pry part doesn't seem like a helpful feature (you want to transfer your shock force, not smooth it), but rather a necessity to prevent it shattering.

Training video in its use

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it91mJyo6ao

I really enjoy Adam Savage's tool tips on youtube, and he was just espousing the utility of these bars a few days ago. Apparently he relied on one quite heavily during the filming of mythbusters.

https://youtu.be/GAcFR3-CHXQ?t=471

It's so intertwined with firefighters in media (well, US TV of the 70s on up) that I assumed it had been around as long as the axe, originally carved from stone and flint :-). Surprised to learn that it was only invented in 1948. It'a a classic multitool.

I would expect to see it used by TV drug gang members too. And IRL.

Strangely enough I first learned about this tool through the zombie roguelike game "Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead"

Nice shoutout to the classic

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