Best light to cut through smoke

Hi all, not having been in any fires before, I was wondering what light would be the best for cutting through smokey environments? Any fire fighters out there can advise??

Thanks

Hi Hyperloop,

one of my bothers is a firefighter and he carries a streamlight survivor LED (and a polystinger luxeon - I don't know wheter he still carries that one). As backup and searchlight he also carries a Fenix TK 10.

The streamlights - especially the survivor - have an extremely tight spot and little spill. Little spill is most important, cause if u illuminate the smoke, you won't see anything. Big buttons, good grip and ugly as the night 90 ° ...

Recently he told me he'd prefere incan for his next ligthts, cause the effect of blinding spill is stronger with LED. Haven't seen this myself, but thats what he told me. Think he is after a BigEd (thats Peli I think)

regards

Tobus

I would think typically what lights work best for fog would work similarly for smoke. The idea is to get under the smoke if possible and avoid blinding yourself. yellowish orange color may be better perhaps too. Incans are more yellowish than LEDs usually are. Probably something with a tight optic... I haven't seen the UKled zoom model but from what I have heard it is tight and has two levels which a lower light level may actually be better in some cases to blind you less.

pelican
recoil led

Not to be the guy that just posts a link for a response, but... :naughty:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2653045

There were some pretty good responses over in that thread, hopefully you'll find something helpful there. I posted a reply over there comparing using your brights in a foggy situation to using a too bright light in smoke. Someone once used that to explain it to me and I think it is a good comparison. Anyhow, good luck and let us know what you decide!

I have a Streamlight Survivor LED on my gear. Its got my vote of anything I have used so far.

Thanks for the replies guys, reason i asked was because there was a fire nearby and it was the first real fire that i have seen, man, the smoke was incredibly black and thick and i was wondering to myself if this happened, whether during the day or during the night, what light would be used to navigate to safety?

I'm not addressing the smoke inhalation issue yet. Would be incredibly sad if all the lights you owned couldn't help you escape.

Seems like the majority of the firefighters here are using LEDs with good throw and less spill, think i might want to consider getting an aspherical set up on a 3D Mag (KD modules) purely for this emergency purpose. It would be fun to play with too

Narrow beam and lower color tempreature seem to be the two main things to help cut through smoke.

So maybe a warm white Cree behind the Aspherical lens.

hyperloop said:

Thanks for the replies guys, reason i asked was because there was a fire nearby and it was the first real fire that i have seen, man, the smoke was incredibly black and thick and i was wondering to myself if this happened, whether during the day or during the night, what light would be used to navigate to safety?

I'm not addressing the smoke inhalation issue yet. Would be incredibly sad if all the lights you owned couldn't help you escape.

Seems like the majority of the firefighters here are using LEDs with good throw and less spill, think i might want to consider getting an aspherical set up on a 3D Mag (KD modules) purely for this emergency purpose. It would be fun to play with too

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You're worried about this fire in a building in which you live? I think a better plan would be to know that you will be able to get yourself out of the building by feel. No flashlight will be able to pass light through petrochemical smoke.

Yeah, the cold hard truth is that in most fires, there isn't anything to be seen because it is pitch black. In fact, in rookie school they didn't even let us carry lights, and to this day when my dept. trains we blackout our masks. Get low and go baby go!

"I read somewhere" (hate that line) that the redder the better for penetrating airborne particulate matter. Longer wavelengths "wrap around" the bits of floating crap, much like longer radio waves go over mountains and around trees and don't need to be used line-of-sight.

So a very red filter attached to any light would probably work.

Shore08 said:

Yeah, the cold hard truth is that in most fires, there isn't anything to be seen because it is pitch black. In fact, in rookie school they didn't even let us carry lights, and to this day when my dept. trains we blackout our masks. Get low and go baby go!

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I knew a volunteer firefighter who said his first fire was so shocking because it was utterly pitch black and roaring loud inside. Terrifying.

LukeA said:

You're worried about this fire in a building in which you live? I think a better plan would be to know that you will be able to get yourself out of the building by feel. No flashlight will be able to pass light through petrochemical smoke.

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Well, it would probably be more an electrical fire than anything else, doubt that there would be any petrol fires where i live

hyperloop said:

Well, it would probably be more an electrical fire than anything else, doubt that there would be any petrol fires where i live

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Petrochemical smoke. Most of the items you own have petroleum-derived compounds in them. Those compounds don't combust very cleanly. That's where the black smoke comes from. A fire in a home sparked by electricity will create just as much smoke as a fire started during cooking.

Great news! Streamlight has upgraded the led in the Survivor to what they say is a C4 (either a Cree or K2 TFFC)and puts out 100 lumens on high. Try finding one of these guys.

testing testing... is the damn token reset yet?

8 1/2 years later -- what are firemen using these days?

hyperloop said:

Well, it would probably be more an electrical fire than anything else, doubt that there would be any petrol fires where i live

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There really isn't anything called an electrical fire. What is commonly called an 'electrical fire' is really a fire caused by an electrical problem like a short or overheated wiring. The heat created starts surrounding materials on fire, or in the case of some transformers and large capacitors, the internal contents. In any case, after the first couple of minutes it is a Class A (combustible material) or Class B (flammable liquids or gases) fire for the most part, with Class C (electrical) consideration only if there are live wires involved.

And yes, it is a matter of the wavelength of light involved. The lower color temperatures also have longer wavelengths, which means they are less likely to be reflected by things like mist droplets (fog or rain) or smoke particles than shorter wavelength lights. And tighter beams are also better, because bright nearby spill will cause the iris in the eye to adjust to control that light, which makes it harder to see things farther away unless they are very bright.

Carrying down by your hip or high overhead helps as well. Light carried at eye level hinders your ability to see through smoke or fog, even ones with tight beams.

It doesn't shine any better but aiming the light towards the distant object when not near your own eyes lessens what you see illuminated nearby.
Try it on a foggy night sometime.

I carried a SL Survivor and a Fire Vulcan. EXTREMELY tight spot with little spill is key.

According to physics, red light will reflect back less, so you will see best in smog or smoke with a red light. Fog lights on cars are yellow because tail lights are red, and yellow is closer to red than white. Blue is the worst. The other thing that will help is to keep the light as far from your eyes as possible. So a headlamp will be worst. That's why fog lights are always mounted low on a car.