I encountered this door the other day while running around off duty. At first glace I was not peaked by any odd appearance of the finish or hardware of the door or store front. Take a closer look at this store front and make note of the features that are unique to this entrance door.

Photo 1. The front door as I walked up to it, unaware of the modifications

As I walked up to this store front, a 200 foot long, 1 storystrip mall, I was unaware of any possible entry modifications. The store owner had taken a lot of time and effort to make sure that all his modifications had blended in with the appearance of the original door. As I entered the store, a high end car audio/remote car starter dealership, I looked through the front door and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. This strip mall looked like just another pre-engineered block structure. Side by side doors (photo1) looked identical to the eye, with one door leading to one business and the other to a second business. As I walked in to the car audio store the modifications still did not jump out at me and raise the "red flag". So I went about my business talking with the store owner for about 10 minuets. I got my questions answered and proceeded to exit the building when the first hint that something was odd caught

Photo 2. At about head level, a larger (7/8") bolt and nut combo.

my eye. At abouthead level, a larger (7/8") bolt and nut combo (photo 2), all nice and shiny nickel reflected off the showroom lights and got my attention. As I started to look at the door with a little bit more attention to detail I noticed six bolts total, two on the right side of the glass, two on the left and one at the top and bottom.

As I stopped to look at the mysterious bolts and the pattern, it still was not clear as to what the bolts were attaching to the door. So I took a step back and noticed some welds and white steel tubing that appeared to be decorative. After looking at the steel a little closer it was easy to tell that this was no decoration. This modification to the door was to prevent criminals and in the process firefighters from entering the building. Attached to the door was 1 inch steel tubing, welded to mirror the decorative plastic grid in between the thermo pane glass.

After contacting theproprietor of the business, I asked for permissionto photograph the modifications and get some back history as to why the need for this modification.The shop had had several break-ins early in the morning on several different days, at about 4 am, and some high dollar

Photo 3. The main showroom windows. Located just to the right of the entry door.

items were removed. After the lastrobbery, the thief's entered in through the store's front windows (photo 3) by breaking a small protion of the glass and opening the double hung window. With no trouble at all the store owner decided to fight back. After looking at the windows as they are today I noticed that the same modifications, steel tubing welded together to mirror the decorative trim, was attached to all three windows. Each window had 5/8" lag bolts

Photo 4. 5/8" lag bolts attaching the steel tube grid in six seperate places to the structure of the building.

attaching the steel tube grid in six separate places to the structure of the building (photo 4). The entire grid is held together by 3 inch angle iron and spray painted white to conceal the appearance.

It goes without saying that we are all in the business twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year. Even when we are considered “off duty” it really means we not in our nice blue uniforms with a patch on our shoulder and get to ride in three quarter of a million dollar fire apparatus.

I found this problem by chance. I was in no way spending the day doing a building survey just the fun of it, but what I did do is make a mental note of the property. On my next shift “on duty” we took a ride over to investigate the situation a little more. Now it didn't take me or the guys I work with a lot of effort to get on the apparatus, drive over to the location and take a look at what was modified.

Several members of the fire service have been quoted in saying make every day a training day. As you can see this one just fell in to my hands, and turns out to be a significant problem had we not known about it.

Be Proactive, NOT Reactive.