UNION COUNTY -- New technology is helping hundreds of fire departments across the country do their jobs more effectively while keeping the firefighters safer, too.
And the company that developed has offices in the Carolinas.
Staff at Scott Safety says it typically costs about $10,000 for a fire department to buy just one hand-held thermal imaging device, but with advanced technology, they’ve developed a hands-free version for much less.
They say some quality and features aren’t as great as a hand-held one, but it still does the job.
“The technology is actually in two parts. There's technology in the mask thermal imaging camera on the outside and the in-mask display on the inside,” Longin Kloc with Scott Safety said.
With the thermal imaging camera, firefighters can see through the smoke, and with the hands-free version, have both of their hands free, so they can focus on knocking down hot spots or rescue victims.
Kloc said, “They can easily find the seed of the fire because they can see it now. They can easily navigate their way through rooms. They can very easily see their teammates. And they can find exits if they need to get out quickly.”
The U.S. Fire Administration says between 2006 and 2015 it received 69 reports of on-duty firefighter deaths from North Carolina.
Fifteen of those firefighters died while responding to a structure fire, and one of those was Pineville firefighter Richard Sheltra.
Many people hope the new technology will help to bring those numbers down.
“It is a potentially life-saving technology,” Kloc said. “When firefighters are in that environment, it's easy to get disoriented, so to be able to see your way out, it is a huge benefit.”