My Firefighter can't enter the building

[SimPoseyYum]

I'm trying my first firefighter and have run into a problem.  She has been sent on her first big house fire (apartment building in SV) and was given two tasks: extinguish fires and rescue 3 Sims.  Unfortunately, she can't get inside the building.

She extinguished all the fires (even the ones in the yard) and got a checkmark in the box.  There was an axe icon on a set of double doors, so she broke down one of them.  I assumed that would be enough to enter the building, but apparently it wasn't.  She broke down the adjacent door.  She still could not enter the building.  She opened the garage door but could not go in.  There were icons of axes on doors inside (I could see them in the windows), so I assume she needed to break those doors down to get to the sims but she could not enter the building.

I have walls cutaway but I can't even get the camera in the building.

I tried clicking on sims through the windows but the message was "no interaction".  By now, she's been on the scene for over 8 hours (by the way, where are her fellow firefighters???).  Her grade (and my mood) is abysmal.  The only option open is "Visit the whateveritscalled household".  But when she clicks on that, she just waits and waits and no one comes to let her in (even though the double doors have been destroyed and in real life, she could just waltz right in).

Grrrrr this is frustrating!

Am I doing something wrong?  Have I missed something?  Or have I run into a glitch?  Maybe I'm just not cut out to play firefighter...

[Sportsfan]

I would say if youre having this problem don't put the walls down, put them up. It sounds like it doesn't make sense but sometimes there's something on the outside that you can't see while the walls are cutaway.
Other than that, I don't know how to help.

[MarianT]

At this point, the game probably considers you an uninvited guest, rather than the caring firefighter we know you to be. It's possible that if all the fires are outside, then once you've extinguished them, the emergency is over. I had something similar happen in my test game. There were two people I couldn't rescue, who didn't really need rescuing, but were still jumping up and down. I just sent my firefighters home.

[ClayMask]

One thing you could try is clicking on the building for map view and saying to do the job again.  If I arrive at a scene but haven't clicked on the job sometimes it doesn't start for me.

[SimPoseyYum]

Actually, that makes great sense, Sportsfan.  I don't know if it would have solved the problem, but it's always good to explore all avenues, and that is one that didn't occur to me.  Unfortunately, I can't do that now, since I ended up exiting without saving.  I'll definitely keep that in mind for next time.  ((If there is a next time ).

You may be on to something, Marian.  There were no more flames but Madison Vanwhatever and someone else were still doing the freak-out dance inside.  Maybe it was the smoke or something, but surely, with all the fires extinguished, they could have walked out.  So much drama .

I *think* the job had registered, because I had the box with the tasks detailed and, once I extinguished all the flames, that box was ticked.  But it never hurts to try all possibilities.  Obviously, something I was doing wasn't working.  Thanks Claymask!

[Vegangeekgirl]

I have had the same problem, sometimes it helps to restart the job as said earlier in the thread but in order to do so you might need to get your sim just outside the lot before you can restart it!

[Bogie74]

I had the same exact problem earlier today actually! 
I think it has something to do with the length of time it takes to complete the first task. 2 Sims ended up perishing so I quit and returned to my last save. My problem was my firetruck was SUPER and I mean SUPER slow. My Sim could have jogged to the fire faster!  I don't understand it because my truck is upgraded to level 3, and he has mastered his handiness skill, and the maintenance was at 99%. Not sure why it took over an hour to get there! It really stinks that I am using the testingcheatsenabled true cheat and it won't let me teleport him!!!  Somewhere half way, he decided he would rather go to a bar because I was too busy watching my actress.  I honestly had to wipe the tears from my eyes because I was laughing so hard!!  I mean I was sitting here thinking "GET IT TOGETHER MAN! PEOPLE ARE DYING" and there he was ordering a drink!!! 

[grimsoul]

I hit a problem once where my sim couldn't get in the house also. It was a fire and rescue at the Alto house. My problem was the only outside door with the axes icon on them to break down was on a second floor balcony with no was to access them from outside.
I ran around the house checking every door and window and there wasn't any options available on any of them.  I exited and reloaded to a previous save and got the same job again. But the door to break down was on the ground floor this time.

[ced1106]

Is this Sunnyvale from the base game? It's entirely possible that it's a problem with the house and possibly lot layout confusing your Sim or something. I had a custom world where the Sim could enter some houses, but not others. I wouldn't be surprised if an EA world designed *before* the expansion pack had these sort of bugs. Does the same problem happen in Twinbrook (the Ambitions world)?

[cherise605]

Something similar just happened to my sim (couldn't enter the building, there were no axes on the doors, etc.)

I tried several of the things that previous posters had suggested, and none of them worked for me.  However, what ended up working was I made my sim return to the fire station (which was luckily, right next door), and came back to the burning building.  Instead of clicking the fire icon "respond to emergency", I simply allowed the building to load, and clicked on the fire itself "Extinguish Flames".

Hope this helps! 

[SimPoseyYum]

Thanks, Cherise!  And welcome to the forums!

[auutmnsong]

I just ran into this problem and found this board - thank goodness!
I had my sim leave the lot and come back, and it let me come inside the house.
I hope this helps someone else in the future!
 

[lindseyrene22]

Just an FYI - i walked off the lot and clicked the fire icon from the house instead of trying to click the fire itself and it finally allowed me to start the job, sadly got a C because of all the trouble of trying to put out the fire from a house right next door to the station, sigh.