Technology

Buying a thermal imaging camera (TIC) with too many or too few bells and whistles is not a good use of department money; here are 10 steps to help you get more TIC for your buck.

Fire Station 65 of the Deltona (Fla.) Fire Department was designed and built to be a fire station that helps pay its way. The $2 million, 11,000-square-foot fire station opened for service in August 2012 and has many green technologies that reduce its carbon footprint and save big dollars in operating costs each month.

The use of UVGI in the fire station environment for sanitizing and decontamination has several attractive features. UVGI light is clean and green (no potentially harmful chemicals that require special use and protective equipment). There are no dangerous odors or residues from harsh cleaning agents to affect staff or patients and offers decontaminated spaces can immediately be reoccupied (less downtime for ambulances).

Here are five game-changing technologies in fire apparatus that will have a major influence on firefighter safety, efficiency and operations for years to come.

The Charlottesville (VA) Fire Department is opening a new fire station that uses innovative "green" technologies to minimize its carbon footprint and save money in operational costs.

Solar-capturing technology has made it easier to keep fire truck and ambulances fully charged without leaving them running, and saves money.

Helmet-mounted video cameras are all the rage these days, from snowboarders zooming down the slopes to firefighters disembarking their apparatus to make fire attack on a structure fire. The manufacturers of these mighty midgets continue to make their products smaller and lighter and packed with operating features.

One of the core responsibilities for any emergency services organization is the proper training of its personnel for safe over-the-road operation of emergency vehicles. This is especially true for fire and EMS organizations operating large trucks, when roughly 25 percent of annual firefighter fatalities occur when responding to or returning from alarms.

If there's one thing that hounds the fire service it's our reputation for not being, shall we say, the best documenters of the work we do in our communities. Our lack of documentation prowess has several negative influences on our organizations, with the most debilitating being the lack of a comprehensive national fire response database.

I first heard this early in my career as a fire officer: "One technology year equals seven calendar years." Today, it's more like one tech year equals seven minutes; we just get our hands on the next big thing only to see the "nextest big thing" come on the market the following week.