Thermal Imager Training

This week I thought I would share some basic simple ideas to train with your thermal imaging camera.

This is not a comprehensive training program, but merely some ideas to sharpen your skills. There is much training that is given concerning the "technology" portions of the camera. I am not sure this is extremely important to most firefighters. While you should have a basic understanding of how the unit operates, you need to be able to distinguish what you are looking at.

* Train with changing batteries under black out conditions with gloved hands.

* Have members search while using the camera. At some point 5 minutes into the search, take the camera, telling them it failed. Have them find their way out without the camera.

* Have someone use the camera and look into the kitchen sink while someone else operates the water. Have them tell you if it is cold or hot.

* Search a room filled with roscoe smoke for a training mannequin and a live victim.

* Using old store dummy parts have a person search a room looking for shapes of hands or feet. Not only focus on temperature difference but actual physical shapes.

* Use the camera in live fire training scenarios. Look at the heat layer, hot doors, SCBA tanks and what FFs look like. Also see what a maniken looks like near a fire. The fire can be so intense it may be difficult to see the mannequin due to the lens flaring.

* Look at the engine of a vehicle running, to determine hot and cold parts.

* Look at a reflective object during a search. A mirror or even stainless steel. Train members to see the shapes and check for their own reflection or that of a victim or heat sources.

* Have members look at glass and see reflective nature of the camera.

* Look at plastic containers and attempt to determine the liquid levels.

* Look for heating pipes located behind walls.

* Heat an outlet or light switch with a hand held hair dryer and then have members come in an investigate the room to determine if they can spot this as if it were and investigation of an odor call.

* Use your camera until the battery fails while timing it. Do you know how long it will last and how that relates to your operating objectives.

* Look at a furnace or boiler and determine where water feeds, returns and other objects are.

* Do drills that focus on depth perception. Have members using the camera try to get objects while reaching with a halligan bar or even their hands. Depth perception is difficult.

* Have a person with the camera attempt to direct another team of two to locate the victim that they can see and the other team cannot. The person with the camera should direct them by voice and with an SCBA on.