by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
City Council president Jerry Holland and Council member Doyle Carter are co-sponsoring an ordinance that would give the entire Jacksonville Fire & Rescue Department access to one of the most sophisticated search devices currently available.
If approved, the ordinance would appropriate $300,000 from City reserve funds to buy nine thermal imaging cameras and accompanying equipment. Mayor John Delaney has given his consent by approving half the funds from his executive operating reserve while the other half will come the Council operating reserve.
The fire department already has one camera, courtesy of Carter, who bought one for his district, but Holland believes more are needed.
“If you take one of these into a smoke-filled room, you can find a body in a couple of minutes,” said Holland.
The camera detects heat, or rather the differences in heat, of virtually everything. Holland demonstrated the camera’s ability by having someone place a hand on a stack of paper about 20 pages thick. After just a few seconds and the hand was removed, the image of the hand remained.
“Look,” said Holland, flipping through the pages. “The image is still there and I’m about half way through the document.”
Chief Lorin Mock of Fire & Rescue said the cameras will prove invaluable in helping firefighters search for victims in what he calls “heavily charged” or very smoky conditions.
“Searches are conducted in the dark literally by feel even with a powerful flashlight,” explained Mock. “The firefighters are on the floor crawling around and bumping into obstacles. They crawl around the edges until they bump into the victims.”
Mock said the cameras would have been especially helpful at the 18th Street fire a few weeks ago when firefighters spent a lot of time searching for three victims.
“One of our firefighters is still in the hospital,” said Mock, adding the cameras can turn a room from night to day. “They produce major outlines and heat signals from bodies and fires. It can see through walls and tell if there’s a fire hidden behind them or above the ceiling.”
Holland said he took the borrowed camera to the beach the other night to test its nighttime abilities and said it worked great. The camera was able to differentiate clouds and water temperatures.
On humans, the image is surreal, like something you’d see on the “X-Files” or a night police video. Skin shows up white, while everything else is a shade of gray. The camera is also very durable, which Holland proved by purposely tossing it on the floor of his office.
Holland said he’d like to purchase nine new cameras so each chief in town can have one in their emergency vehicle. He also said he may introduce the ordinance as an emergency at Tuesday night’s Council meeting, but may opt to proceed business as usual through the appropriate Council standing committees.