Firefighting and football: both rely on intense training, practice, proper equipment and a strategy for success. Each opponent is different, so extensive game plans must be prepared and practiced before the encounter.

One day in Texas, where football is as big as everything else, Randall County Fire and Rescue Firefighter Dickey Durr called a special play from his playbook. Durr and his volunteer crew of three responded to a call from the Attebury Grain Corp. about a fire in a flat grain storage facility. The building was literally the size of a football field and was filled with corn gluten, a high-protein cattle-feed supplement that is the end result of corn after all the sugars, starches and syrups have been removed.

Despite lack of visible flame, there was plenty of smoke. As his team started to exit the truck, Durr looked at their thermal imaging camera and said, “Let's put this to the test!'”

The department had acquired their thermal imaging camera the year before, but they weren't yet in the habit of operating it. “Until that day,” says Durr, “it was just another piece of equipment. We were unfamiliar with it, and therefore didn't really use it. Now, I don't get off the truck without it!”

Without the TIC, the crew's task of locating the source of the smoke would have been next to impossible. “There was so much smoke that you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you,” Durr says. “The hot spot was about the size of a truck bed, and it was smoldering alongside the 50-yard line.”

Hot spots in stored crops

According to Travis Miller, associate head and extension program leader of Texas A&M University's Soil and Crop Group, hot spots are not uncommon in stored crops. “Most hot spots, however, don't ignite,” he says. “They usually just spoil the stored product.”

High moisture content and insect activity are two primary factors in spontaneous combustion of stored crop products. “Drastic changes in temperature, either way, can cause moisture condensation and therefore favor microbial growth,” Miller says.

Whatever its cause, Durr knew that the hot spot was a Texas-sized problem. The TIC quickly pinpointed the target, which Durr described as looking “like a lit cigar.” Then it was put into operational use

The thermal imager was used to guide front-end loaders into the storage facility. A minimum amount of water was applied to the smoldering material before it was scooped up and deposited outside of the grain elevator. Then Durr's crew hit it with foam to fully extinguish the remains of the hot spot.

It certainly took a while to resolve this situation. Attebury employees worked with at least one firefighter every day for two weeks to complete the job. But by employing this novel technique, minimal damage was done to the building and the stored crop, which would probably have been lost if water was applied to the area in general.

Durr estimates the damages at a product loss of less than $150,000 and no structural loss. The building held approximately $600,000 worth of product.

The corn gluten is used as a part of cattle feed. Durr says that at any given time, you can find 500,000 to a million head of cattle in local feed yards. Although more feed would be made available if needed, if the stored grain that Durr's crew saved had been lost, it would have been costly in many ways.

“If there had been a 100% loss, not only would we have lost the $600,000,” says Dale Lock, superintendent of the facility, “but we also probably would have lost business. Most feed yards stay with the same supplier; you have to have the product available for them.”

Expanded uses

Durr says that his department's thermal imager is now an indispensable tool of the trade — and more. Although the Randall County Fire and Rescue purchased their camera to “see through smoke” and darkness to locate trapped victims and/or provide protection for firefighters, they have now greatly expanded its use to areas such as the Attebury facility.

The department's Evolution 5200 camera enabled them to undertake a sizeable quest with relative ease because of its advanced technology. It's designed to give high-quality images that maintain their acuity even in temperatures exceeding 300°F. Special colorization technology automatically activates at 275°F, allowing different contrasts to better assist the user in locating the source of the heat. The “heat seeker” function interprets the hottest parts of a scene and shows them as red on the screen. For example, the “lit cigar” of a hot spot that Durr described was red on the imager screen.

The latest models (brought to market after Randall County bought theirs) employ an even-higher degree of technology, giving users a wider high-sense range (better image quality over a greater temperature range), better image quality in higher temperatures, and colorized pixels. In effect, if Durr had viewed the “lit cigar” of the Attebury Grain hot spot with the latest model of the same imager, he would have seen the heart of the “cigar” as a very dark red, surrounded by reds, oranges and yellows, representing different degrees of heat.

In similar agricultural settings, imagers can be used proactively on a regular basis to detect developing or suspected hot spots. They also can be used to locate someone immersed/entrapped in a large amount of stored crop product or to monitor grain elevator fans to avoid overheating.

The Attebury fire was just the starting point for Durr's ideas for both fire prevention and firefighting. “I see many proactive uses for these cameras by a lot of groups,” Durr says. “For example, police could use a TIC to trace the path of fleeing perpetrators.”

However, small-town fire and rescue departments often have small budgets, too. Durr suggests a collaborative approach by various municipal agencies and volunteer organizations. “If you take all those entities that would benefit from the use of a TIC and divided the cost among them, the expense may be manageable enough for a community to purchase one.”

Randall County firefighters continue to respond to calls with their thermal imaging camera in hand. However, they are better equipped in other ways, too.

In appreciation, the Attebury Grain Corp. purchased duty jackets for the department — items that this small firefighter crew had never been able to afford.

---

Eric Buzard is the thermal imaging product line manager for MSA. He also recently appeared on firechief.com in the “Ask the Expert” feature.