IRONSandLADDERS.com

We have a series of doors (over the next few weeks) that can be used for size up practice. The exterior is shown first on the top of the page, then we placed the interiors lower down the page so that you can scroll down to see if your size up was correct. Solid practice in sizing up doors now can make a big difference in how quickly you identify characteristics of a door at a fire. Before a walk through, our crew will park at the back of a building and size up each door. Then we will go inside and see how close we were. You can become very comfortable at identifying bolt patterns and locks by doing this every time you go to a building.

The fire and training ground is where we should gain the experience in forcible entry. The knowledge should come from the constant study of doors and techniques before the alarm goes off.

Key points to identify every time you size up a door:                                           

–          Building Occupancy

–          Construction Type (mainly the wall around door)

–          Which way the door swings

–          Type of door material 

–          Type of frame and jamb

–          Locking devices and Bolt patterns (additional security)                  

Here is door number  #1-  This door is found on the backside of a strip mall. Located on a busy corridor  in a high crime area.

Here is the interior of door #1.

Here is a breakdown of what the outside is telling us.

You can see we have a typical door knob telling us that we do not have a panic bar setup. We also have a commercial deadbolt with a shackle guard which can slow us down getting a proper gap close to the bolt. In addition we have carriage bolts indicating drop bar mounts. These appear from the outside to be significant having four 3/8 inch carriage bolts for each mount. Fairly significant security, but nothing that an aggressive set of irons can’t defeat.