"Captain Bob Tillman of the Grand Prairie Texas Fire Department was on his way home when the call came: an aircraft wing remanufacturing facility, with a fully involved structure fire. Weeks earlier, James Smith (of MSA-authorized distributor CASCO Industries) had arranged for the loan of an Evolution® 4000 TIC (thermal imaging camera) through Lisa Orr, MSA’s fire service sales manager in Houston. That TIC was now in Tillman’s car. Tillman handed off the TIC to an attack crew entering the building and went to “bunker out.” When he returned, the crew had found fire but not the seat of it. Their stream of water wasn’t having much impact, and the situation was worsening. The steel deck roof above the fire had collapsed. Battalion Chief John Wagner ordered his crew to abandon and go defensive. But Tillman’s recent training and experience prompted him to grab his MSA TIC. Quickly, he located the seat of the fire. Then he saw something no human eye could see. “With the Evolution 4000 TIC, clear as day, I could see the roof above our position was intact.” This meant keeping the crew safe and taking a shot at knocking the fire down. Tillman continued, “So, Lt. Ed Nalepka radioed, ‘No, we’re in here. We can make an attack.’ The Evolution 4000 enabled our attack crews to remain in the building, in the offensive mode, resulting in a knockdown of the fire. Good thing, too! The room of origin contained large vats holding thousands of gallons of hydrochloric and nitric acids. Knocking the fire down prevented the acids from being released. “We came out feeling really pumped,” he wrote afterwards. “A serious Hazmat situation was averted--with substantial structural damage to the room of origin, and minimal structural damage to the attached main structure.” He gave his crew credit for “staying with it and being aggressive,” and had high praise for the Evolution 4000 TIC. “[It has] the biggest screen, so the guys could see what I could see. It saves firefighters’ lives . . . you can see if the building is going to fall. [And, the] confidence level is unbelievable, [especially] in a zero visibility atmosphere! It worked great.” You didn’t do so bad yourself, Bob.
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