The Youth City Council, a past grantee of the Community-based Organization Learn and Serve America Program, sponsored a dance to benefit the Cedar City Fire Department and its purchase of a thermal imager. A thermal imager is a relatively new piece of technology that allows firemen to detect hot spots and locate and rescue individuals in rooms filled with smoke and fire. Youth also had the opportunity during the dance to see how the thermal imager functions. While looking through the device, they were able to see hand prints left on pillars, their name traced on a wall by the finger of a firefighter and even the body heat radiating from others as they walked by. The imager is a camera that detects thermal energy similar to the way the human eye detects light.
All objects have a certain temperature and emit waves of thermal energy called infrared radiation.
The imager can detect as little as .05 degrees difference in surface temperatures, allowing a firefighter to see heat signatures as small as a foot or hand print. The contribution by the youth of Cedar City makes a big dent in the remaining balance. According to the National Fire Data Center, each year fire kills nearly 5,000 people, injures another 25,500 and permanently disables more than 11,000. In 1999 there were 112 firefighters in the United States killed in duty related incidents.