Knox-Box Fire Department Emergency Access to your home or business

The Bedford Fire Department encourages the purchase and installation of a Knox-Box system for residents and business owners. This system provides a reliable and rapid method of accessing your residence or business to firefighters during an emergency when owners are unavailable to respond to an activated fire related alarm.

Reasons to install a Knox-Box unlocking system:

• Eliminates needless, costly forced entry damage that may not be covered by your insurance deductible.
• Assure immediate building entry by firefighters without delay of waiting for building keys.
• Reduce liability for lost keys.
• Protect inventory, equipment and supplies from unnecessary water damage caused by delayed sprinkler shut-off.
• Satisfy local fire codes and emergency access ordinances.
• Save time and aggravation by not having to drive to your building at odd hours.
• Feel secure about emergency coverage when your building is left unattended.
• The fire department holds the only key to the Knox-Box at your location.
• Maintain building security after a fire alarm investigation by simply re-locking the undamaged door.
• Protect your property from thousands of dollars in damage with this one-time relatively low cost investment.
• Depend on the highest lock box security technology available with attack resistant, UL tested reliability.
• Over the past 25 years, Knox-Box has been the chosen solution in 7,500 communities nationwide communities just like ours!

How does it work you ask?

During the early morning hours your building alarm system transmits a signal to your alarm monitoring company, who in-turn contact Westchester County Fire Control and the Bedford Fire Department is immediately dispatched to your alarmed location. Bedford Fire Department arrives a short time later and conducts an initial size-up of your location. Officers on the scene determine that an entry is warranted. If a Knox-Box system is in place a signal is transmitted to the box and it opens and the key inside is used to unlock your protected location. A brief interior inspection is conducted and no problems found. Firefighters simply lock up the building when leaving and return the entry key to the Knox-Box. Fire department officers then radio county control that no fire was found, and then leave the scene doing no damage. If the Knox-Box system was not in place windows may be broken or doors forced. This causes owners to repair the damage and for a time this location will not be as secure as it might otherwise be.You can see that with just one use the Knox-Box system could pay for its self in dollars and peace of mind.The Knox-Box system could also be utilized if someone at your protected location has a medical emergency and EMS is required. This system would allow immediate access to those who may need rapid emergency medical intervention.

Additional information on the Knox-Box system please go to their website at http://www.knowbox.com

Below are the models of Knox-Box that we  recommend for our community to use.

Model 1661 - Residential Box (Aluminum Color)

Model 1658 - Residential Box (Black)

Model 3502 - Gate Key Switch

For additional fire protection information please contact one of our Fire Chiefs at Bedford Fire Department.