Keys

[Smokeater95]

I'm looking for ideas on how to organize and store the keys our department has to businesses in our area. We only have a few Knox-Boxes. The keys are currently kept in little envelopes with the business name and address written on the outside. These envelopes are just laying in a metal box on a shelf in our truck. They used to be in alphabetical order, but not now. Any ideas?

[H2oAirRsQ]

[QUOTE]
Personally speaking, from a liability stand point, you should not be in possession of those keys.
By your own admission, there is LITTLE or NO security of those keys.
All "property keys," personal or commercial, should be in possession of the local law enforcement agency.
I suggest that you consult your department's legal advisor on the matter.
You are sitting on top of a case of liability dynomite which has a very short fuse.

[axman51]

All property keys should not be in the possession of local law enforcement, the best thing that you could do is to look in to the knox box system, then the keys would be secure, unsecured property keys are as much of a liability for law enforcement as they are for the fire service.

[AntiG]

Our dept has a metal storage box mounted in the cab of our first-out engine. All the keys are mounted to numbered plastic tabs that hang in numbered slots and there's an index for the keys. I agree with the other posts that it is a huge liability. We are a volunteer fire company and any member can access the keys. We also have a knox-box key in our collection of keys, another liability because we don't have the system that locks the key and requires a dispatcher to release it. With that key on the loose any building with a knox-box is accessible.

Another problem with the keys is we never get a new key when a business changes locks making most the keys useless. Contacting a key holder is becoming the new way of getting in. If we sense a problem we use the forcible entry key.

[Waterboy620]

We make all businesses buy a knox box. The keys to that business are in the box. We have one key that opens all knox boxes. The knox box key is secured into a black box on all vehicles and can only be released by dispatch sending a special tone. Which keeps a record of every time we use the key. Which makes one person accountable...the officer. If the business refuses to buy a knox box throw bricks through the window the next time they have a false fire alarm....which brings up another point. I hate fire alarms. I hate businesses that use low bid fire alarms. I hate fire alarm companies that build sub standard fire alarms that go off every time a piece of lint crosses the electronic eye. By the way, we average 5 false alarms per shift, and I have NEVER been to a fire alarm that actually turned out to be a fire. As a matter of fact, the last structure fire I went on had a fire alarm THAT DID NOT ACTIVATE when the thick cloud of black smoke rolled past it. I hope I don't sound bitter, I really do love my job....I JUST HATE FALSE FIRE ALARMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And EMS calls at 3 am for "my tummy hurts"

[firefighter26]

We don't have keys to buildings in our area. We do, however, carry keys for foresty gates, access gates, and provincial park gates. Right now we carry them on a key ring with everything labled. In the next week or so they are moving to a type of fishing tackle box. Each key will have its own slot and eac slot is labled. The box can be locked if needed, but we have never had a problem.

We have the same problems as everyone else in trying to keep them updated. We just simple explain that if we don't have a key, we use our chop saw, AKA the gas powered key.

Most people understand the economics behind giving us a gate key vs replacing the gate , well, most people.

[Captain 12]

We only have ONE SET. we call them THE IRONS

Captain 12

[mongofire_99]

Knox box is the way to go. They have a new system out that dispatch has to encode before you can get the knox key out of the apparatus to open the building box. Looks pretty slick and may reduce some of the questions by business owners.

But if you don't wanna spend the money on that, a 3-ring notebook with photographic slide pages does OK. Just put the building key into the slide pocket and place an identifying sticky label with the business over the slit to seal it up.

[LACAPT]

Knox box are the only way to go. It covers you legaly and you only have to carry one key with your rig. Make the owner put in the exterior master, an interior master and the key to the fire panel. We carry a number of fire panel keys ie. Edwards, Simplex, Notifier and so on, but with the number of new panels coming out on the market it gets a little tough to carry that amount of keys and can get a bit time consuming also trying to find that damn key in the dark If the owner does not want to cooperate in this program remind him the price of getting the front door replaced because we always carry the MASTER KEY in the back of the rig!