Triad Locks & "To Shock or Not to Shock"
Size-up is the first step of forcible entry for a reason - without a thoughtful size-up, proper selection of the appropriate tools and techniques is left to be a matter of luck rather than an informed decision. Unfortunately, size-up at a fire door is under less than ideal conditions - stress, smoke, adrenalin and more all tend to decrease our attention to detail, it's likely that something could be overlooked. With this in mind, we should all seek to keep our eyes open on "routine" calls, noting the types of forcible entry challenges common in our box alarm districts. The more we fill our heads with scenarios we've seen and the more we think above possible solutions in advance, the more likely it is that we will have a solution at the fire door.
While on a routine run on the engine, I observed this apartment door. This is a lock that has become common in many of our housing projects and is a "triad" style lock manufactured by Mul-T Lock Company. These locks secure not only into the side of the frame, but into the top and bottom of the frame as well. On the side, the door locks into the frame with a 3-pin style deadbolt. This shouldn't be much more difficult to defeat than a standard deadbolt-ed door. What will add additional challenge is that pins go into the top and bottom of the frame. These pins are a substantial solid metal and go about 1/2" to 3/4" deep. I found that the bottom pin doesn't always seat fully due to debris accumulating in the floor-level hole. The entire mechanism operates off of the cylinder key - both pins and deadbolt operate simultaneously. The handle is always unlocked and operates a slam latch only. If you are not aware of the presence of this lock style before the fire, it offers little outside evidence. The only thing you might notice is the label "Mul-T Lock" that is sometimes stamped on the lock cylinder.
Initial techniques of forcing the deadbolt area either conventionally (irons) or with a hydraulic FE tool should work well. The only issue is that if you have a good fire/smoke condition behind the door and you force the middle of the door first, you will deal with these conditions venting in your face while forcing the top and bottom after you discover they are locked as well. You will also be a little wore out and now have to work above your shoulders to force the top. Similarly to cutting a vertical ventilation hole, it would be better if we can work from the top down so our next work area is not in the venting conditions.
In our forcible entry programs, we teach the "SHOCK-GAP-SET-FORCE" method for inward opening doors. The first step, SHOCK, sometimes meets with some controversy and is thought by some to not be necessary. "Shocking" the door is essentially striking it in a battering fashion with the Halligan bar. For the few seconds it takes, I find it to be very useful. A couple tips:
Using the above techniques, our first step (after size-up) is to shock the door HIGH-MIDDLE-LOW, once each, in that order - AND HARD. This has a few functions: size-up for additional locks, and breaking things up a little so that our next step (GAP) will be easier to achieve. Without a good shock, I often see people needing to "tap the adz" into position with the axe before being able to gap. But I've found that with a good shock, you often get enough of a space to easily slide the adz in for the gap. For those of you who may like to kick a door, a good shock is just as much force as kicking - except you won't damage your knee or punch your foot through into the fire room and get it stuck (seen that), and you'll have the Halligan in your hand already when it doesn't work. As we SHOCK the door, we should be feeling for the feedback in the bar - is it rigid, or is there some bounce? Bounce will indicate that there are not locks in that area while a solid feel should cause us to consider there might be additional locking mechanisms in the area and we may need to modify our approach to address them.
It's the first here, finding additional locks, which has the most bearing on this triad lock situation. So in this scenario we come up to the door, it's a fire so we're a little amped up and maybe there is some smoke in the hall. We see the fairly standard looking deadbolt/slam-latch assembly and think it's normal business. Instead our shock is solid both high and low. What does this tell us? There is some type of lock both high and low, as well as the one in the middle that we already knew about. Maybe this clues us in to it being a triad lock, maybe it turns out to be slidebolts mounted on the back of the door, maybe something else. What it should do is cause us to modify the rest of our approach to start HIGH and work down the door rather than in the middle. Doing so will keep us out of conditions that may begin to vent. Further, it is more difficult to work high (above your shoulders) so let's do that early while we're more physically fresh. In this scenario forcing the pins and the deadbolt can be done with the irons, though the hydra-ram might be a good choice if available due to the multiple mechanisms, one of which being kind of high. Another option, depending on circumstances, might be to try to pull the lock cylinder and go through the lock to un-lock it.
Of course our best weapon is always strong COMBAT READY knowledge of our box alarm area that might lead to us already knowing the types of locks common in certain buildings. Second to that, the methodical "SHOCK-GAP-SET-FORCE" approach will assist not only in providing progressive force to the door, making each subsequent step easier, but a good SHOCK as our first step has the added benefit of being an additional tool to size-up the door's challenges.
While on a routine run on the engine, I observed this apartment door. This is a lock that has become common in many of our housing projects and is a "triad" style lock manufactured by Mul-T Lock Company. These locks secure not only into the side of the frame, but into the top and bottom of the frame as well. On the side, the door locks into the frame with a 3-pin style deadbolt. This shouldn't be much more difficult to defeat than a standard deadbolt-ed door. What will add additional challenge is that pins go into the top and bottom of the frame. These pins are a substantial solid metal and go about 1/2" to 3/4" deep. I found that the bottom pin doesn't always seat fully due to debris accumulating in the floor-level hole. The entire mechanism operates off of the cylinder key - both pins and deadbolt operate simultaneously. The handle is always unlocked and operates a slam latch only. If you are not aware of the presence of this lock style before the fire, it offers little outside evidence. The only thing you might notice is the label "Mul-T Lock" that is sometimes stamped on the lock cylinder.  |
| Sorry for the dark image. This is the pin on the top of the door, the receiving hole can be seen toward the top right. |
In our forcible entry programs, we teach the "SHOCK-GAP-SET-FORCE" method for inward opening doors. The first step, SHOCK, sometimes meets with some controversy and is thought by some to not be necessary. "Shocking" the door is essentially striking it in a battering fashion with the Halligan bar. For the few seconds it takes, I find it to be very useful. A couple tips:
- Understand that the shock may force the door if it is weak, be prepared to control it.
- Shock from the protected side of the door whenever possible, avoid having your body in front of the door in case it opens.
- DO NOT place your hand over the end of the tool - force can travel back and injure your hand. Grasp along the shaft.
- My preference is to shock with the head of the Halligan on wood doors and the fork on metal doors to avoid getting the fork stuck like a javelin in wood doors (lesson learned).
- When shocking with the fork, keep the adz/pick rotated away from your face while shocking.
Using the above techniques, our first step (after size-up) is to shock the door HIGH-MIDDLE-LOW, once each, in that order - AND HARD. This has a few functions: size-up for additional locks, and breaking things up a little so that our next step (GAP) will be easier to achieve. Without a good shock, I often see people needing to "tap the adz" into position with the axe before being able to gap. But I've found that with a good shock, you often get enough of a space to easily slide the adz in for the gap. For those of you who may like to kick a door, a good shock is just as much force as kicking - except you won't damage your knee or punch your foot through into the fire room and get it stuck (seen that), and you'll have the Halligan in your hand already when it doesn't work. As we SHOCK the door, we should be feeling for the feedback in the bar - is it rigid, or is there some bounce? Bounce will indicate that there are not locks in that area while a solid feel should cause us to consider there might be additional locking mechanisms in the area and we may need to modify our approach to address them.
It's the first here, finding additional locks, which has the most bearing on this triad lock situation. So in this scenario we come up to the door, it's a fire so we're a little amped up and maybe there is some smoke in the hall. We see the fairly standard looking deadbolt/slam-latch assembly and think it's normal business. Instead our shock is solid both high and low. What does this tell us? There is some type of lock both high and low, as well as the one in the middle that we already knew about. Maybe this clues us in to it being a triad lock, maybe it turns out to be slidebolts mounted on the back of the door, maybe something else. What it should do is cause us to modify the rest of our approach to start HIGH and work down the door rather than in the middle. Doing so will keep us out of conditions that may begin to vent. Further, it is more difficult to work high (above your shoulders) so let's do that early while we're more physically fresh. In this scenario forcing the pins and the deadbolt can be done with the irons, though the hydra-ram might be a good choice if available due to the multiple mechanisms, one of which being kind of high. Another option, depending on circumstances, might be to try to pull the lock cylinder and go through the lock to un-lock it.
Of course our best weapon is always strong COMBAT READY knowledge of our box alarm area that might lead to us already knowing the types of locks common in certain buildings. Second to that, the methodical "SHOCK-GAP-SET-FORCE" approach will assist not only in providing progressive force to the door, making each subsequent step easier, but a good SHOCK as our first step has the added benefit of being an additional tool to size-up the door's challenges.
