By Carl Nix
The next time you have some downtime at the station, think about engaging your newest recruits in a few simple training exercises using a thermal imaging camera (TIC).
Although TICs are becoming more and more entrenched in the fire service, the technology of this tool needs to be well understood so firefighters can make the best decisions when time is of the essence. Hands-on training conducted by an experienced firefighter at the firehouse is extremely valuable for all firefighters but especially for our newest recruits. This is not to say that I don’t recommend having firefighters attend formal classroom instructions for TIC training, because I do. I’m recommending in addition to classroom training that your firefighters engage in 15 to 30 minutes of TIC exercises two or three times a month to help provide them with a greater understanding of this tool. Let’s look at a few training drills that you can conduct at the station in a short period of time.
Temperature Sensing and Reflectivity
Understanding that your TIC can only measure surface temperature, not air temperature, is critical when using your TIC in structure fires. Here’s a quick exercise to help your firefighters understand this concept. Take your firefighters to the kitchen. Turn the burner on high on your gas stove and position your TIC so the display is looking through the flames. The flames are not being measured by your TIC and therefore have very little effect on the temperature being displayed. Now, place a cast iron frying pan on the burner; your TIC will provide a temperature measurement because it has a surface to measure.
Firefighters need to be aware of how reflectivity can impact temperature readings on a TIC as well. If you have an electric stove, try covering one burner with aluminum foil with the shiny side up. Turn on that burner and another burner that is uncovered. Point your TIC first at the covered burner and then at the uncovered burner. The TIC will give you different temperature readings because of the reflectivity of the aluminum foil. Reflectance (or reflectivity) is defined as the amount of heat bouncing off the surface of an object. The more reflective the surface, the less accurate the measurement on your TIC.
While still in the kitchen, grab an aluminum sauce pan and fill it with water. Place it on your stove burner on high. Now, grab a cast iron skillet and place it on a burner next to your aluminum sauce pan. Turn both burners on and wait for the water to boil and the sauce pan to heat up. We know that water boils at 212°F. Point your TIC at the side of your sauce pan and the temperature reading will be below 212°F because of the reflectance of the outside of the pan. The TIC is reading the reflected temperature of the room, not the temperature of the pan.
Now use your TIC to look at the reflection of the skillet on the side of the pan and you should see the temperature (extreme white) of the skillet in the pan. If you point your TIC to look at the pan where you see the reflection of the skillet, your TIC will read the temperature of the skillet in the reflection from the pan. Identifying reflection can take some getting used to, but with consistent training your firefighters will quickly master this skill. Your firefighters will most likely experience reflection in a fire so they need to know how their TIC will interpret this scenario. Other examples of reflectivity include glass, metals, wet surfaces like a tile floor, concrete, and even brick, which all can trick firefighters into misinterpreting the temperature of an object.
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