Forced Entry

Last night's class was quite interesting. Say there's a fire, or at least the threat of one (i.e. an automatic alarm is going off). Say the door's locked, (whether it's a business or residence), and nobody's there to open it for you. The class was all about forced entry, i.e. how to get past obstacles to either investigate or extinguish a fire.

Gone are the days of taking an axe and chopping a door down. Not to say that that wouldn't work, but there are much better ways of getting in, that do much less damage. And minimizing damage is certainly a concern. The basic ways of forcing entry are: 1) conventional (prying the door open), 2) through the lock (pulling the key cylinder out and messing with the mechanism), and 3) power tools (cutting holes in garage doors with saws, etc.)

And no, it wasn't lost on anyone that, as one guy said, "Hey, they're training us to be criminals". We're needing to know how to do what would be illegal in other circumstances. We're dealing with an "arms race"; making buildings more secure against criminals makes them less accessible when *WE* need to get in. Then criminals figure out how to get in, and we need to learn more advanced methods.