New Tools For Firefighters
Firefighters around the country now have a powerful weapon at their disposal. A thermal imaging camera, which measures heat and temperature, actually seeing through smoke, and gives firefighters a virtual-reality image inside a burning building.
The only problem, CBS News Correspondent Russ Mitchell reports, is that many fire departments can't afford the new, lifesaving technology.
For nearly three decades, Tim Coble has been risking his life fighting fires in Franklin, Indiana. Now he and his firefighters are hoping the thermal camera will make their job safer.
"I've been on the fire department for 29 years and some of the technology they've come up with is alright and good, but this is so much ahead of its time," said Coble.
The thermal imaging camera proved to be a lifesaver for 2-year-old Zachary Sheets.
Last October, firefighters used it to save Zachary from a smoky house fire.
Said Coble, "I hadn't been in the house more than two minutes and he popped up on the screen…and so from the time we crawled off the truck and made entry he was out to the hospital."
But Franklin, Indiana is the exception: less than 15 percent of the country's 32,000 fire departments have a thermal imaging camera, which cost an average of $20,000 each
Firefighters are desperate for thermal imaging cameras because today's fires are hotter and more dangerous: each year 4,000 people die and 24,000 are injured in fires—in part, because of materials used in furniture and building construction.
The fiery trend is dangerous for firefighters, as well.
Last year, 121 died in the line of duty. In December, the nation mourned six Worcester, Massachusetts firefighters killed while searching for homeless people in an abandoned warehouse fire.
Worcester had no thermal imaging camera. Firefighters believe it could have made a difference.
"With those thermal imaging cameras, they wouldn't have had to breach the firewall they could have taken a step back and looked in and seen if there were any victims," said Worcester firefighter Frank Raffa.
One month after the Worcester fire, the department received four thermal imaging cameras.
New Jersey recently became the first state to begin supplying all of its fire departments with a thermal imaging camera.
"It allows us to do us jobs much more safely, much quicker," said Ken Kiel, a New Jersey firefighter. "We're not feeling for victims anymore. We can actually see a victim in a room and that's going to cut down dramatically on the time it takes to get to the victim."
Fire companies in the other 49 states are hard pressed to come up with the cash for the cameras.
Fire departments receive a fraction of the $11.5 billion in federal funding police get; in 1999, the nation's fire departments received $32 million in federal funds.
A proposed bill, the Fire Act, would boost that amount, pumping five billion dollars over five years into lcal fire departments.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-NJ, the bill's sponsor, said, "They are the first to respond and the last to leave and we've done a terrible job in supporting them."
In Worchester's firehouses, they're hoping Congress passes the Fire Act, a memorial to their colleagues who died in the line of duty.
"Because of tragedy on December third, I think the nation and the citizens have come to realize what a dangerous job we have. I think unfortunately this tragedy brought all of this to light," said Raffa.