Truck Tactics: The Reality of Forcible Entry Props

When members don’t practice forcible entry, they easily can lose a step. Further, the fireground isn’t a place to relearn skills; it’s where members should implement previously covered skills and only deal with variables that are thrown at those skills in the moment. The question is, where and on what type of props do members practice those skills?

Fifteen years ago, forcible entry props were difficult to come by in firehouses. There weren’t many departments that had the props, mainly because of the cost of the props. Because of this, many firefighters who have welding and fabrication experience were left to design something in house to teach the mechanics and fundamentals of forcible entry, to just get by. Today, it isn’t difficult to find forcible entry props in firehouses, because many prop manufacturers achieved pricing that’s more affordable.

The problem today is bigger than the props themselves. The biggest challenge that we face as it relates to forcible entry training is having become too accustomed to these props, almost to the point where that familiarity inhibits our ability to deal with real-world doors. With these elaborate props, we no longer are trying to understand the mechanics of the tools that we use and the positioning of the tools in the door frames. Our mission shifted to test the tool’s breaking strength or the structural stability of the door props, usually leaving one or the other damaged or broken.

Forcible entry training has become a game of seeing how much wood we can get into a prop, how tough we can make the door and how strong the person is on the other end of the tool. The problem with this ideology is that it pushes us further and further away from the goal of understanding real door functions and tool mechanics. The reality is that real doors react differently than how props react. Consider this: Real doors that are set in block and brick walls move differently than doors that are set in studded walls and residential structures. Furthermore, the locking mechanisms that we usually encounter in residential structures generally have somewhere between two and four locks. Let’s also be real and
recognize that a lot of those locks are based on the type of area or neighborhood that we operate in.

So, what are some things that we must keep in mind when we train on forcible entry tactics?

Mechanics

Members who train on forcible entry must ensure that they have a good understanding of the Halligan and how it’s designed to be used for forcible entry tactics. The Halligan has features to adapt to certain door characteristics. Understanding the features and their positioning in the door’s gaps is crucial for understanding
the tool’s movements.

The next part of understanding is knowing mechanical advantages and how levers and leverages work. Each part of the tool has a mechanical advantage that helps in the process of getting the door to “pop” or not. The mechanical advantage of using the Halligan’s adz on an outward-swinging door is different than that of using the Halligan’s adz on an inward-swinging door.

The types of locks and the number of locks that we deal with also play factors in knowing whether the mechanical advantage that we go with will work or not. This is the first place to start when understanding training on forcible entry props.

Residential vs. commercial

Sometimes in training, we tend to get away from the reality of the doors that we force in real life versus the one door that we force in the firehouse. Remember to keep the training somewhat realistic.

Most residential doors don’t require so much force that our conventional irons and Hydra-Ram can’t handle them. If anything, we should train on commercial forcible entry tactics, which are more difficult than residential tactics. Often, commercial building owners/tenants use the most-fortified locks—and many of them—on the doors, and a lot of this is based on the type of product that’s sold and how many times the owner/tenant previously was attacked.

Remember, keep the amount of wood that you put in a forcible entry prop reasonable and respectful to the reality of what type of building or structure that you train on, to match what you deal with on the street.

Reps

The American fire service likes to use the word reps a lot when talking about training. As good as it is to get reps, reps also can be a bad thing. When we get so used to doing the same thing repeatedly, it can leave us a little unprepared when we face something different that we didn’t account for in training. Keep in mind the word rep is short for “repetition,” which in formal terms means “the act of repeating something or “a thing repeated.” This can be bad when we become so used to doing the same movements over and over on a prop that we miss the real moves of real doors on the fireground, or better yet, what the door doesn’t do that we’re so accustomed to seeing on props in the firehouse.

I’m sure that many of us have seen from time to time a member walk up to a prop and slam the Halligan in the already-gapped door and crack the wood, making the door’s simulated lock pop. With many real-world doors, it isn’t that simple. Don’t get sucked into always defeating the prop. Make sure that you can process understanding how to defeat locks without having any gaps.

Just like with any training that you conduct, be it advancing lines, throwing ladders, etc., you must remember that the training must be reasonable, relevant and realistic.

Reasonable

Sometimes with forcible entry training, you can find yourself making training tasks unreasonable—for example, in regard to locking mechanisms. The locking mechanism(s) of forcible entry props is the wood that’s put into the welded loops to simulate the locks breaking. Sometimes, there can be a tendency to go overboard with the amount of wood or what is done with the wood. One might ask, is the amount of wood that’s put into the prop for resistance or is soaking multiple pieces of wood in water to make the force more difficult good for reasonable force?

Most forcing of the doors in members’ first-due area could be accomplished with conventional tools. Running a member through forcible entry skills and having them walk away from a prop unsuccessful isn’t winning in training. Keep the complexity of forces to a reasonable state.

Relevant

Is the training that you do relevant to your response area? Do you usually encounter doors that are fortified as much as your prop is? Is such training worth spending a lot of time on? If the prop’s construction isn’t relevant to something that you would encounter in the real world, the time and energy that’s required to force entry could be put to better use on something that’s more relevant to your response area.

Further, what tools must members be ensured to have in hand? Tools that you have for outward-swinging doors might vary from tools that are for inward-swinging doors (Hydra-Ram in particular). Make sure that members bring the right tools to training and are proficient with those tools for real-world applications. Instructors bringing so many tools to a training that students don’t get to use them all on a regular basis is counterproductive.

Realism

There must be an element of reality. Members need to progress from standing in front of a door prop to working their way up to addressing door props with challenges (e.g., walls on either side of the prop, a door that doesn’t open all of the way because of clutter on the backside). That said, members only can do this once they have the fundamentals down and instructors are comfortable with adding that element of realism.

Principles

When these principles are kept in mind, forcible entry training shouldn’t be so complicated that tools are broken and members walk away with dislocated shoulders. They should walk away with a sense of accomplishment from using sound judgement, proper body mechanics, and a good understanding of the tools’ advantages and disadvantages versus just gaining reps.

When instructors keep these principles in the forefront of forcible entry training, the training culture is focused on training to defeat the props. Forcible entry props are good for focusing on the basics and the mechanics of the skill, to have members ready for real-world doors, but instructors and members alike must keep in mind that props react differently than doors that are encountered in the response area.