From Toolmonger’s excellent post on Halligan tools, When You’re Outside And Need To Get Inside

When you absolutely positively need to be inside a building two minutes ago, you need a Mini Pro-Bar. Fire and rescue crews commonly reach for this Halligan-type tool

as a one-stop multi-tool for forcing entry into a building.

Whether you need to snap padlocks, rip down plaster, rip out recessed or flush cylinder locks, or pry open doors, the Mini Pro-Bar has you covered. Made from 4130 aircraft steel, the knurled shaft recesses into both the fork and adz/pike ends and is heat-pressed and welded. The adz and fork also double as nail pullers and gas shut-off tools.

Fire Hooks Unlimited sells the Min Pro-Bar in two versions: the 16? bar weighing 3-1/4 lbs and the 20? bar weighing 3-1/2 lbs.  Either Mini Pro-Bar will run you about $75 — getting caught with one in your trunk while wearing a black ski mask will probably cost you a bit more than that.

Toolmonger’s post has, as always, good pricing and  source information.

To engage in a small amount of local chauvinism, the Halligan tool is named for Hugh Halligan, its designer, First Deputy Chief, FDNY. As is the Kelly Tool ,  “named after its designer, Captain John F. Kelly of H&L Company 163 (FDNY). ” (Quoting Wikipedia article on Kelly Tool, accessed 16 June 2007).

The Kelly, Halligan, Denver Tool and K-Tool are all familiar to volunteer firefighters and other first responders – and part of the training, and usable and available tools of CERTs and other community-based groups. As we’ve seen in reports from Iowa, freeing a trapped person or animals from a flooded house has frustrated a number of people trying to rescue their own neighbors. We propose that perhaps these tools, and others, shouldn’t solely be in the province of professional responders.