From locating victims to helping find the source of a fire, thermal imaging cameras provide the Daviess County Fire Department faster, more accurate rescue responses.
“A lot of times, the smoke is banked down so hard in the house, you can’t see anything,” firefighter and EMT Jacob Vanover during a video demonstration shared Wednesday on the Daviess County Fiscal Court Facebook Page. “This is one of the main things you want to grab when you come off the truck.”
Vanover said thermal imaging cameras are used during search-and-rescue operations in homes, as well as in locating lost children or elderly individuals at nighttime.
The thermal imaging camera can sometimes prove beneficial during car accidents as well. Vanover said the camera can help first responders locate children or at-risk individuals in the back seats of a vehicle.
Using a gas stove at the Daviess County Fire Department, Vanover demonstrated how the thermal imaging camera could pick up the temperature of a fire.
Using a hotspot feature, Vanover also showed how the camera could show first responders where a person had been at the time the fire started. Through thermal detection, the camera was able to show the outline of a human who’d been laying in bed at one point.
“This is a good option on a quick response where we can get in, get this camera in there and obviously tell if somebody was in that bed and hasn’t made it out,” he said. “Then we can start searching for them.”
The hotspot option also gives firefighters the ability to see where fires haven’t been put out all the way, Vanover said. It also gives firefighters faster, easier access to the source of the fire at hand.
A retractable lanyard makes the thermal imaging camera easy to carry around on scene, while a photo-capturing option gives first responders the ability to take still shots of the scene.
“We could take some quick, live-action shots while the fire is happening,” he said. “Our investigator can review these pictures that can help him with the case.”
