The Progression of Fire Service Thermal Imagers

Edward Teller said, “The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.” Technology originally developed to help war fighters target opposing forces on the battleground has evolved to become a vital life-saving tool for firefighters. Looking back on the advancement of thermal imagers (TIs) for the fire service offers more than just a retrospective on technology evolution. It provides insight into the future adaptation of thermal imaging for the 21st century firefighter. First, though, let’s start with the retrospective.

An Evolution of Usability

Thermal imaging use for fighting fires dates back to the 1970s with use in aerial operations for wildland firefighting. In the 1980s, TIs were deployed sporadically in certain fire departments in the United States and Western Europe and more extensively in military, specifically shipboard, firefighting. These products were very large and heavy and suffered substantial performance limitations. As the United States military began declassifying newer technology, better, less-expensive systems emerged. By the late 1990s, thermal imagers had adapted to become relatively ergonomic, low-cost devices accessible to fire departments that had the funds to acquire them.

By today’s standards, TIs of the 1990s were large, fragile and lacking in capability and features. But as with most technology lifecycles, the pace of change has slowed in the last few years. The fire service enjoys a range of handheld thermal selections with most units now weighing three pounds or less and incorporating technology that yields clear imagery in cool, bland scenes as well as high-temperature environments encountered in interior fire attack. Some firefighters now ask if the TI really needs to get any smaller, more powerful, or more feature-rich.

While the answer to this question is debatable, there is no denying that thermal imagers continue to evolve. The ability to make the devices even smaller, more integrated and more capable will only increase in the coming years. The question that manufacturers need to answer is: how they will evolve? Handheld TIs have become good enough for most firefighters and practical advancements are not easily determinable. However, those who have used thermal imagers in any number of fire operations, particularly interior fire attack, still await a viable hands-free thermal imager.

Early attempts at hands-free firefighting thermal imagers were dreadfully clunky. These units, deployed as helmet-mounted TIs, were large, heavy and generally unwieldy, and they realized limited market success. A refined helmet-mounted TI emerged years later, and although much smaller and lighter, wasn’t compelling enough in usability and performance to gain traction. Perhaps even more importantly, the prices charged for all of these hands-free products proved to be a barrier to mass-market adoption since large-quantity purchases didn’t accommodate fire department budgets.

Mass Deployment of Thermal Imagers

Once technology prices decline to points that enable deployment on a mass scale, like the deployment of self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBAs), and as this technology shrinks in size and weight, the opportunity for the first truly market-penetrating, hands-free products will materialize. We are not there yet.

None of these insights is particularly novel. The notion of hands-free being something of an “end-game” for thermal imagers has existed since before most fire departments even owned TIs. In the 1990s, virtual-reality simulations and military night-vision goggles coaxed many to believe that hands-free TIs would dominate the market long before now. That hasn’t happened. The aforementioned barriers that caused the demise of early hands-free entries, though, are now starting to fall away. The emergence of an entire category of hands-free thermal imagers in the not-so-distant future is plausible.

While technology progression and declining prices are market drivers, so too is user acceptance. Fire service purchasing decision-makers must “buy-in” to the principle of thermal imaging as a critical life-saving device and an important tool for firefighting use. More firefighters with thermal imagers put more eyes in structure fires. This offers tremendous advantages for personal navigation and safety from hazards such as holes in the floor, ceiling collapses and even flashovers (interpreting the latter requires an advanced understanding of thermal imaging). More TIs also means increased ability for accountability. Taking this idea further, thermal imagers bolster efficiency since interior firefighters can easily maintain visual awareness of team members operating in multiple areas or even separate rooms. Firefighters using thermal imagers on fire suppression can coordinate hose streams for maximum effectiveness. All in all, more TIs mean a safer, more effective fireground operation.

What Happens Next?

Thermal imagers today are powerful, multi-purpose devices capable of providing a wealth of information to a firefighter. Some would argue (this author among them) that manufacturers are prone to offer too many features and options to firefighters in the hopes that one or more of these features will drive a decision-maker to choose their products. Versatility is fine, but excessive complexity is counter-productive. But, whether it is computers, smart phones or thermal imagers, the trend in a maturing market is to load on more features and more capability. Expect more of this in the coming years. Whether it’s ultimately good for firefighters or not, is up to the market to decide.

For fire attack, the most beneficial innovation is integrating the thermal imager somewhere on the firefighter. While TIs today are often deployed tethered to gear, they still require handling to use. If designed exceptionally well, TIs that are actually integral to the firefighter’s personal protective equipment (PPE) and do not require handling promise the ultimate in usability and ergonomics. Such devices afford the firefighter to free up his or her hands, which can be used to hold tools, pull hose or otherwise work and operate unencumbered.

Integrated Facepiece Thermal Imagers

Manufacturers must consider how firefighters do their jobs and determine the optimal approach for a hands-free thermal imager. Obvious options are on the helmet or integrated into the SCBA facepiece. These have been conceived and developed in different forms by various entities over the years. As stated earlier, however, no hands-free product has made a significant, enduring impact on the market.

Many firefighters assume that thermal imaging technology will ultimately integrate into SCBAs, most likely the SCBA facepiece. The facepiece provides a logical place to house an infrared engine and, coupled with advanced display technology, may yield the most seamless heads-up viewing possible. Firefighters would simply look through the SCBA facepiece or off to a side to view a thermal overlay of the scene they are navigating.

Still, there are plenty of constraints on size and space in an SCBA, even with smaller devices emerging, so doing this in a way that doesn’t feel forced or cumbersome is not an easy challenge. Additionally, bringing new SCBA products to market is no small task. Product design, engineering and testing take time and achieving NFPA 1981/1982 standard certification is long and difficult.

Perhaps most important, SCBAs are a limited use item. While essential for use in fire attack, outside of this activity, they are used only when absolutely required. The SCBA adds weight and bulk that most firefighters want to avoid or shed when performing other tasks such as size-up, investigations and overhaul, although the use of SCBAs for overhaul is increasing.

Helmet-Mounted Thermal Imagers

Another apparent location to house thermal imaging technology is on the helmet. Helmet-mounted models emerged as early as the mid-1990s, but suffered from usability issues. As newer technology develops, TIs could be small enough and light enough to integrate ergonomically into the helmet. For instance, as with previous helmet-mounted TIs, the unit could be housed on the helmet brim with a drop down display.

The advantages of helmet-mounted TIs are that, like SCBA-mounted units, the image is in the firefighter’s normal field of view. Additionally, structural fire helmets are used in just about any fire-related activity and wouldn’t necessarily be removed for operations such as investigations or overhaul.

Helmet-mounted TIs do pose weight and balance issues that manufacturers will need to solve. This has proven to be a challenging prospect and one that hampered even newer generations of helmet-mounted TI models. Additional weight on a firefighter’s head is felt more readily than on other parts of the body.

Body-Mounted Thermal Imagers

The head and face are not the only possible options for a hands-free product, though. Products could conceivably be engineered to interface with hands, arms, shoulders or perhaps elsewhere. Which approaches ultimately prevail will be a function of how users move and operate and how well such approaches interact in this environment. Likewise, shrinking form factors could enable firefighters themselves to innovate how to utilize and stow the TI.

What Does It Mean For the Fire Service?

Like with just about any forward-looking assessment, nothing is for certain. The continued progression of thermal imager designs and feature options is predicated on customer demand. Where the customer leads, the market will follow.

It seems clear, though, that thermal Imagers of the future will be better, more capable, less encumbering devices that enable firefighters to navigate to and extinguish fires more quickly and more safely. Rescues will be made easier with features that augment the firefighter’s ability to perform various operations in a scene. New designs will enrich usability, whether units are deployed as traditional hand-held devices or as integrated, hands-free designs. Prices will continue to drop, and fire departments will help fuel or stall the pace of this decline with their stance on the importance of increased deployment of TIs throughout their operations.

We all have a stake in the future of thermal imaging in the fire service and one thing is for sure: it will be a fascinating journey.