• Location: I'm not sure
• Mood: thankful
• Music: "Smokin' in the boys room"

Thermal Imager

Some of you may have wondered, what does it *really* look like inside a burning building? It looks like this:





This is "fake" smoke generated as part of a training exercise in the soon to be demolished former Albion Police/Fire Department building. In an actual fire, visibility isn't quite this good.

Now, here's the same room, with the picture held a few inches from our high-dollar thermal imager camera:





What you're seeing is a space heater in one corner of a room, simulating the heat of a fire. Not nearly as hot as the real thing. Here's a group of firefighters on the other side of a large room, in zero visibility:





So, with the thermal imager we can see sources of heat -- whether open burning or hidden in the walls and ceiling -- other firefighters, victims, holes in the floors, escape routes ...

Without the thermal imager, which costs about $10,000, we can see .... nothing. Any questions about why we really love those things? There. I've done my part for Fire Prevention and Education Week. :-)