THERMAL IMAGER PROGRAM

This project began after our department was called to a Mutual Aid call in a neighboring town.  My partner and I were assigned to do search and rescue on the second floor while the first floor was totally involved.  We made it into the apartment about twenty feet when we heard the air horns of the trucks signaling us to get out of the building at once.  Due to the intense heat and smoke from the fire below us we became lost, confused and disorientated.  With many attempts to find our way out and no success we wanted to lie down and give up, we were that scared.  We finally made our way out with only minutes to spare.

When I sent a letter out to five different Thermal Imaging companies we received two responses, Cairns® and Fire FLIR®.  With Cairns® we looked at a helmet-mounted version, which we tested in a live burn.

We also looked another company, Fire FLIR®, which was another helmet-mounted model.  We tested this model in a live burn also and between the two models we had even more questions than before.

  The question was brought forward about a hand held model, at first I was totally against having a hand held model, but after doing more research on this and we looked at one.  Weighing the pros and cons of each unit we decided on the hand held model.

 This project has been about a year and a half in the making and approximately 150 hours of personal time. We are currently training on the imager and hope to have it in service with in one month.

Kevin Brown, 

Chairman

Visit our PHOTO GALLERY to see more pictures, including the imager training with Safe-IR.

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