North Little Rock firefighters are replacing rapid-entry key systems at more than 200 businesses at the city's expense after a master key was stolen from a fire marshal's vehicle in September, North Little Rock Fire Chief Jim Murphy said Tuesday.
The loss of the key compromised the security of 224 Knox-Box Rapid Entry Systems, Murphy said, adding that there haven't been reports of any breaches. A Knox-Box is a wall-mounted safe on a building that holds keys to a business, school, hospital or residence in the Fire Department's coverage area.
The stolen master key also could unlock 91 padlocks on chains or gates, he said.
A Knox-Box, produced by the Knox Co. of Phoenix, enables firefighters to enter commercial or private property in cases of emergency without damaging doors or windows. The Fire Department has additional sets of the master key.
The city will pay $15,769 to change out the department's master keys, the padlocks and the cylinder on each Knox-Box because the master key was stolen from an unlocked city vehicle, city spokesman Nathan Hamilton said Tuesday.
Ordinarily, a property owner pays to have a Knox-Box installed and keyed to master keys held by the Fire Department.
Replacement locks with new master keys ordered from the Knox Co. are to arrive possibly by today, Murphy said. It will take two to four days to re-key all of the Knox-Box safes in the Fire Department's coverage area, he said. A change in department policy for securing master keys also has been implemented, he added.
"There's a process for the ordering and production of the locks," Hamilton said of the time it has taken to receive the equipment. "We are at the mercy of Knox."
The Knox Co. supplies its rapid-entry systems to more than 11,500 fire departments and governmental agencies across the country, according to its website, knoxbox.com.
The city didn't initially notify property owners with Knox-Boxes about the missing key, Hamilton said, explaining that officials weighed security and fire safety concerns against making the information public.
"We chose not to notify businesses because of the safety issue," Hamilton said. "We balanced that probability that the person who got into the vehicle even knew what they had, against knowing we would have to remove every [existing] key out there. In case there was a fire, the Fire Department would still have to have that access available.
"We made sure that the Police Department knew about it, so if any issue with a Knox-Box came up, they would be aware of the situation," Hamilton said.
The unlocking of a Knox-Box, even by the Fire Department, would set off a building's alarms and initiate an automatic police response, Murphy said.
A police report was filed Sept. 21 by city Fire Marshal John Pflasterer, who told police that the Knox-Box key was taken from the glove compartment of his unlocked Fire Department vehicle between 10:30 p.m. the previous day and 7:40 a.m. that day, according to the police report.
Latent fingerprint cards and a disk of photos were the only other items missing, the report said.
"The type of person stealing change out of your car is not likely to know what they had," Murphy said. "We thought the best course of action was to wait it out."
Metro on 02/08/2017