A different firefighter flashlight thread

Hi Guys,

I'm pretty new here on CPF but I have been reading a lot. I'm both a professional as a volunteer firefighter and I'm looking for good flashlight. Now, I know a lot has been written about firefighter flashlights on this forum because I have read a lot of those posts. The consensus seems to be that a "throwy"light "cuts" true smoke and works best for a firefighter.
I have been a career firefighter for 16 years, the last 5 of them also being a volunteer. 10 of those 16 years I have been an instructor. In a smoke filled enviroment I prefer not to use a flashlight at all. Most of the light reflects right back at you making it even harder to see anything. If you are looking for the seat of the fire true thick smoke, you are better of using now light at all. When locating a possible victims in a smoke filled house a throwy flashlight does seem to work a little bit better then a floody light. But these day we are no longer using flashlights to locate body's in a smoke filled building, we use thermal imaging cameras. If you have ever used one of these things, you know it will hands down outperform any flashlight in fire conditions.

One thing I haven't seen in any of the "firefighter flashlight" threads is what color light helps me see the true color of the smoke? Smoke or fire gases are combustible and with todays insulating materials and many different plastics, its even more combustible as it was before. Nowadays its highly important to "read" the smoke. What is the color of the smoke? How dense (optical and physical) is the smoke? What is the volume of the smoke? How does the smoke "flow" true the structure (laminar or turbulent)? Firefighters need this information in order to determine what stage the fire is in and how the fire is developing. This information needs to be as accurate as can be. A rule of thumb is that thicker, darker (dark gray to black) smoke is more combustible. This has a lot to do with the amount of CO and Carbon/soot in the smoke. But, light gray colored smoke can also contain dangerous levels of combustible gasses. Smoke can even color yellow or brown which could indicate that the ignition temperature of the smoke could be lower then the usual 600 to 650 degrees C. Hence the importance of a good flashlight that has good throw in order to asses the density of the smoke and has the right color in order to see the actual color of the smoke.

Now, it is my experience that incandescent lights have a yellowish color so they tend to mislead you when you are trying to determine the color of the smoke. LED lights usually are better but they also have many different colors.

I don't have much experience with different LED flashlights. We use to have MAG lights, later followed by Streamlights SL-20XP with a halogen light and 3 small LED's. These lights are rubbish. The light color of a new halogen light is reasonable but after a couple of burn hours or when the battery starts to drain, the color turns brown. Furthermore, where do you put those Streamlights on/in your turn-out gear when you need both hands to do a job!? And when you lay them on a table they always role of...
At work we have Streamlight Survivor LED lights. Huge improvement. Good bright beam and good throw as well. A right angle light with a clip on the back is simply great. But sometimes I'm not sure about the color. It seems a bit blue. Does it provide the right color of light to determine the actual color of the smoke?

Does anyone have an idea on what color light would be best to determine the actual color of smoke?


And maybe someone can explain why firefighter flashlights are so much more expensive in Europe then in the US? In the Netherlands the cheapest Streamlight Survivor LED I could find cost €113,- ($123,-) and a quick search for a US based seller tells me one only needs to pay $63,- for the same light! that's almost a 100% price difference! Does anyone of you Americans plan on traveling to the Netherlands any time soon? And if you, do you have some spare room in you luggage the size of, lets say a Streamlight Survivor?

Hope to hear from you guys!

Streamlight sells a line of lights specifically meant for hazardous conditions called their "Haz Lo" series. They have a couple angled lights meant to be attached to your turn out gear to give you hands free use. I do not know of any EU sellers of Streamlights. I couldnt tell you why they are double the price there other than most Streamlights are built in Pennsylvania not China so shipping costs etc. I guess. As for telling the true color of smoke that is a tough one. Whatever light puts out the closest kelvin rating to actual daylight would give the most accurate detail I think....Im no firefighter though. I just know that to cut through thick fog I use yellow glass filters over the end of whichever light. Tough spot. Identify smoke characteristics and correct color balanced on smoke that may also ignite...wow....will do a little research here on my end and try to find out what the local FD uses on their load out...

edit to update they use a few different Streamlights.

Ps: I am no firefighter, but a very longterm flashlight user...

First: cost: that is - unfortunately - "normal". And it's why ordering via Internet boomed.

Light recommendation: get an 1*18650 light, with a custom "p60" led engine in a color tint suitable for you.
(you will get used to how your smoke looks under That tint)

My rec.:
Go to www.customlight.com,
Get solar force 18650 host body and
A p60 led insert (Cree xm-l2 led, 4000-5000 k tint, op reflector, your level choice (at least high/low, but 3 level better)
+ 18650 Li-ion battery + charger

That setup is the best compromise at the moment, no question.


Sure:
No hazard level (way more rugged than the hazard lights, and good watertight, does that equal?)
Metal body (induction?) (but a useful led light MUST have a metal body)
"cutting through fog/smoke" - if really needed - can be added by a simple hack. But imho compromises the overall usefulness of the beam so much, that it makes no sense at all)
... Imho the 4000-5000 k tint is the best, very neutral white light. There is choice of lower number (more to the yellow light) or higher number (more on the blue)


That setup, with a body and a custom led engine can always be easily upgraded to ones needs, simply with another led engine, while any "ready made light" is a throw away item...
The solar force hosts are a reasonable compromise of price and build quality, you sure can get much better (expensive) ones
;-)

Ps: yellow filter/lens to "cut through fog" WAS WRONG and still is.
Proof: are there any fog lights on cars other than white nowadays?
To go through fog one has to get rid of the spill part of the light, the color is not relevant (and white simply is brightest)

yellow said:

Ps: I am no firefighter, but a very longterm flashlight user...

First: cost: that is - unfortunately - "normal". And it's why ordering via Internet boomed.

Light recommendation: get an 1*18650 light, with a custom "p60" led engine in a color tint suitable for you.
(you will get used to how your smoke looks under That tint)

My rec.:
Go to www.customlight.com,
Get solar force 18650 host body and
A p60 led insert (Cree xm-l2 led, 4000-5000 k tint, op reflector, your level choice (at least high/low, but 3 level better)
+ 18650 Li-ion battery + charger

That setup is the best compromise at the moment, no question.


Sure:
No hazard level (way more rugged than the hazard lights, and good watertight, does that equal?)
Metal body (induction?) (but a useful led light MUST have a metal body)
"cutting through fog/smoke" - if really needed - can be added by a simple hack. But imho compromises the overall usefulness of the beam so much, that it makes no sense at all)
... Imho the 4000-5000 k tint is the best, very neutral white light. There is choice of lower number (more to the yellow light) or higher number (more on the blue)


That setup, with a body and a custom led engine can always be easily upgraded to ones needs, simply with another led engine, while any "ready made light" is a throw away item...
The solar force hosts are a reasonable compromise of price and build quality, you sure can get much better (expensive) ones
;-)

Ps: yellow filter/lens to "cut through fog" WAS WRONG and still is.
Proof: are there any fog lights on cars other than white nowadays?
To go through fog one has to get rid of the spill part of the light, the color is not relevant (and white simply is brightest)

Click to expand...

^^ seriously???

Wow!!! Where to begin...

First off, Solar Force? Are you kidding me?

And get used to the tint? Seriously? There isn't time for learning curves in the all or nothing scenario.

Metal bodies conduct heat.

Rechargeables turn off suddenly.

Ready made lights are designed for specific conditions. Streamlight engineers accel at that. Their niche is leo/fire and rescue lights and there are literally millions being used for that reason.

And yellow fog lights are the most popular in real world scenarios, but are not seen as cool by the fast n furious crowd who prefer the most annoying exhaust sounds, most blinding lights and obnoxious stereos they can find trying to out cool all the other kids at the shopping mall on Saturday night.

I could keep going but won't.

Like said before, the Streamlight specialty lights are built in the US. So my guess is the Netherland retailers are jacking up prices because they can. That's a shame.
I suppose the alternative is to buy from an internet site that does overseas shipping.

I do not know if it is allowable to post names here. But I'll do some research as well and send a PM to you RNLAF. Thanks for the wealth of info.

Thanks for the replies!

Those SolarForce lights look really nice, I had never seen them before. They look solid and they should be able to take a beating. However, I think there are certain aspects of the SolarForce lights that might not be ideal for this specific job. Nevertheless, thanks for bringing them up!

Bykefixer, I indeed want something which can take non-rechargeable batteries. The fact that a metal body conducts heat is not a problem for me but I guess it is not good for the batteries or the light itself. We used to have SCBA face masks with metal brackets and those got really hot. The fix is easy, don't take of your gloves before you take of your face mask ;-)

As for the price difference, the strange thing is that the "non-firefighter" flashlights don't seem to have those huge differences in pricing at all. That said, there are a whole bunch of lights that we can not get at all in the Netherlands, especially those right angled flashlights.

Searching the net I was able to find a few of these right angle firefighter flashlights. Here is a list of what I was able to find:
- NightStick XPP-5570R (http://www.baycoproducts.com/index.php/product/intrinsically-safe-angle-lights/item/xpp-5570r)
- FoxFury Breakthrough BT 2 and BT 3 (http://www.foxfury.com/catalog/products/lights-by-type/right-angle-flashlights)
- Streamlight Survivor LED (http://www.streamlight.com/en-us/product/product.html?pid=309)
- Streamlight Knucklehead (http://www.streamlight.com/en-us/product/class.html?cid=31)
- Streamlight Poly Tac 90 (http://www.streamlight-zaklampen.nl/streamlight-polytac-90led-oranje.html)
- Brightstar Responder RA (http://www.flashlight.com/responder-ra-right-angle-2/)
- Pelican Little Ed 3610 (http://www.pelican.com/us/en/produc...s-headlamps/right-angle-light/little-ed/3610/)
- Pelican Big Ed 3700 (http://www.pelican.com/us/en/produc...ghts-headlamps/right-angle-light/big-ed/3700/)
- Pelican Right Angle Light 3715 (http://www.pelican.com/us/en/produc...ts-headlamps/right-angle-light/standard/3715/)

The only one that spec's the light color is the Foxfury, 5800K which should be good.

My favorite at the moment is the Nightstick. It has long runtimes, easy UI, has an added floodlight and is not as expensive as most of the others. I just whish they would specify the light color.
Second is the Foxfury P2 (that thing is build like a tank) closely followed by the Streamlicht Survivor LED.

Being able to read the smoke has become very important these days. I hope manufacturers of firefighter flashlight pick up on that and maybe do some research to figure out what light color would be best for reading smoke. I will see if I can email some of those manufacturers and see what responses I get. Could be interesting.

Of all the lights mentioned above, I was only able to find the Streamlights and some of the Pelican lights here in the Netherlands. So for now I will just have to wait until a friend of mine will travels to the US next year and hope that he's willing to bring me a Nightstick XPP 5570R. Shipping could be an option as well but when you add shipping costs and taxes (21%) it quickly becomes an expensive light again. I don't mind spending money but for a product that my employer should provide me, I don't want to break the bank.

Hi, just wanted to share some observations from an experienced Firefighter here in the US. A little background, I've been a volunteer FF for 14 years mostly running with a truck company and running with the engine off and on. I currently hold the office of Captain for our Fire Dept.

I have seen many lights used by various guys and gals over the years for their T.O.G. Some like the right angle lights because our coats have a large pocket to hold it, others clip theirs onto the hook on top of the pocket and let it dangle. The other side likes the helmet mounted lights. I've seen all types and brands strapped in with an actual manufactured bracket all the way to using a velcro strap to hold those lights in. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Construction wise I've seen both metal and plastic bodied lights from surefires, streamlights, to pelicans, and everything in between. I'd say most guys like to use plastic from what I've seen. Yes I have seen a few melted but in my opinion it's not really a factor with them being less reliable or tough. It a rarity to see one melted

As far as color of light emitted I would agree that neutral is the best for determining type and color of smoke and for SAR. A close second would be warm tints from halogen bulbs. For awhile my department used new LED pelican ED style right angle lights and the tint was unbearable for heavy fire suppression due to the ice blue tint. Now we have streamlight's and they are acceptable.

Good luck in picking a light and please be sure to share a pic or two of your set up! Be safe out there brother!

yeah OP keep us posted this is a most interesting thread. To my eyes my yellow glass filters on my ET kit lights do a a good job of cutting through thick fog. Yes there are varying color tinted fog lights. Different strokes for different folks especially when you are color blind.

So the local cops all use Surefires, the county FD use Streamlights and some Pelicans. The thought of smoke igniting into flames is pretty hard core...

Pelican makes good lights as well.

I read many firefighters prefer the Streamlight. But apparently the aa battery pack shell can have issues.

hahaha, lol ...
4*AA / 6*AA battery powered lights ... thats a bunch of loose cells (which together offer less energy, than a single 18659 Li-Ion, by the way)

my rec stays to also try one of the host light + P60 insert combination from nailbender's shop, as there surely are hundreds of other illumination chores for a firefighter than jumping into a burning house (where anthing else than a hazard light surely seems no good idea).
Three days with a that and You will deny ever not having wanted rechargeable ...

and finally, when the makers see enough demand, there will be hazard level ones, too


PS: ~5.800 K is already going to the blue side


PPS: check that "smoke cutter plug" at the Survivor light!
That is exactly the "hack" I would have typed for "cutting away the spill light".
How often have "better knowing ppl" laughed at that idea, and now even a real firefighter light producer innovates it

A round cut adhesive can be added to any light, just for testing that in fog ...

Unnecessary long quote removed..........Bill

Hi I'm new here too and am also a volunteer firefighter. I have the streamlight survivor alkaline series (non rechargeable) and it works great. It has a more focused beam. They've come out with one that has a thinner profile. The knucklehead is a waste of time and money. It scatters the light too much in my opinion

^^ have you experienced any trouble with the battery pack Kk?

bykfixer said:

Rechargeables turn off suddenly.

Click to expand...

Some do, but many don't.

It all depends on the type of driver: Current controlled, direct drive, boost, all behave differently.

If you look at the run-time graphs for various flashlights that are published here, you will see that some DO hit a point and then drop like a rock, while others just slowly decline down to 0% output.

The survivor rechargeable comes with back up alkaline ability for a reason.
I'll leave it at that.

bykfixer said:

^^ have you experienced any trouble with the battery pack Kk?

Click to expand...

Not a single problem in the 4 years I've had it

The last two weeks I have been searching for an EDC light and have not been very active with the "work" related lights. I did however contact a friend of mine who has been very active in researching fire behavior. He was one of my instructors from the fire academy during training sessions at our own fire training ground as well as in Skövde, Sweden and has a lot of experience in reading smoke.
I never was very comfortable reading the smoke color with the Streamlight Survivor. While discussing this with my friend it became clear why that was. The color of the Survivor is well above 5000K making it a cool white light. It's pretty safe to say the more neutral white colored lights are better for seeing the colors more truly (is that correct English?). But that wasn't the biggest issue. There was something else I couldn't put my finger on. It was like the light was too bright. My friend was able to describe what I was experiencing. The narrow focused beam caused the smoke to be overexposed. It was so simple that it bugged me a bit that I wasn't able to figure that one out myself. My friend told me that he always used the spill light of the beam to determine the smoke color, not the focused beam itself.

So my favorite light still is the Nightstick XPP-5570R because of the fact is has an added LED which serves as a floodlight. This does not only comes in handy reading smoke but, as Yellow mentioned, also for many other chores we have to do. However, I do want have just one light that does it al and not different lights for different chores. Conditions can change pretty quickly and so can the need for a different flashlight. I want one that can do it all.
I'm not a native English speaker so I had a little trouble understanding Yellow's post. But I do want to comment on hazard lights. We don't use them much. We use our vehicle to create a safe zone by parking it in a fend off position. We use blue or orange flashing lights so it stands out and it's attracts the attention from the other motorists. But you don't want to distract the other motorists to much because they still are driving a vehicle. It is well know that a distracted driver is a dangerous driver. Furthermore, people tend to steer where they are looking at. So besides the lights on the truck, we don't use road flares or other hazard lights.

As to the use of Alkaline cells, I'm no expert but it could have something to do with the fact that Li-Ion cells are less stable and shouldn't be exposed to heat. Other then that, I agree that Li-ion's are a much better choice for powering flashlights.

My personal preference is a angle light which clips to my jacked or SCBA. I don't like helmet mounted lights for two reasons. First of all it is my experience that helmet mounted lights tend to blind your colleagues more then angle lights attached to a jacked or SCBA. Secondly, your head is often exposed to the highest temperatures which makes helmet mounted lights more susceptible to damage. I agree that this doesn't happen very often and when it does, it's often during training.

Kkirwan71: I have seen the new Survivors from Streamlight with the black and amber plugs. These plugs could be very helpful during SAR but for reasons stated above, I would rather keep the spill light.

Bad JuJu: It might take a while before I can get my hands on the angle light I want but when I do, I will certainly share some pics ;-)

As for my firefighting background (1999-present), I'm a professional fire fighter for in the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF). I work on the Main Support Base in Woensdrecht as an On Scene Commander. I'm in charge of the daily management of our fire station. We have 3 E-One build crashtenders, 1 Rosenbauer domestic fire and rescue vehicle and 1 On Scene Command vehicle. We are usually on duty with 12 to 15 fire fighters. Before my job as an On Scene Commander I was an Instructor for 10 years at the RNLAF Fire and Rescue training center. During that time I have been to training centers in Germany, Belgium, Sweden and the UK. As an NATO evaluator I have evaluated German, Finish, Belgium and US fire fighters on several Air Force bases in Germany and Belgium. Over the time I had the pleasure of meting a lot of great fire fighters.

In the town were I live I'm the head of the volunteer fire station. We have 18 volunteers and 1 fire and rescue vehicle. Furthermore, our station provides logistic support (food and drinks) during incidents day and night.
The Dutch and US fire service is completely different. We don't have engine and truck company's and we don't use the same ranks. At times this makes it difficult to explain what I do in the Dutch fire service to friends in the US ;-)

In the beginning of 2015 I spend a couple of months in Mali (Africa) on a United Nations Mission. We used special "out of area" ARFF vehicles. You can see them in this video we made during my deployment.

Thanks to everyone who replied to this post. Your input is certainly appreciated.:thumbsup:

I personally would go with a light that is proven and battle tested. Check out Elzetta.com and check into the Charlie or Bravo with the AVS HEAD. Or check out a Malkoff MD-2 or MD-3 at Malkoffdevices.com with your choice of drop ins. Go with a light that is modular and can change with your needs. I think you will be happy with one of those choices.

RNLAF said:

Does anyone have an idea on what color light would be best to determine the actual color of smoke?

Click to expand...

I would think you want a high CRI emitter at the very least. CRI stands for "color rendering index", and in simple terms, the higher the CRI, the more accurate the colors will appear to your eye. As for color temperature, you probably want a neutral source around 3700K since some studies have shown that this color temperature does not artifically color an object. In other words, a white object illuminated with a 3700K source will appear white to the human eye (it's actually the recommended color temperature for art museums).

In summary, I think a 3700K high CRI emitter would be the best for seeing the color of smoke, but I don't have any actual experience in firefighting, so this is just an educated guess on my part.

As for recommendations, the only company I would trust is HDS Systems. Henry makes some of the best lights in the industry that will easily survive the rigors of firefighting, and he offers a 4000K high CRI custom option. He also offers an 18680 tube if you want super-long runtimes. Unfortunately, lights of this quality don't come cheap (around $300US plus shipping).

Thanks for the replies. I haven been reading about CRI and it is very interesting. From what I can tell CRI doesn't necessarily have anything to do with color temp. in Kelvin. Two LED's with the same temp, lets say 4500K, can still render colors quite differently. Nevertheless, Hi CRI lights are indeed something to look out for.

As for flashlight manufacturers, As much as I appreciate Elzetta flashlights and as much as would love to have an HDS Systems light for EDC, I don't think they are suited for this specific job or at least not for my specific needs. They would probably be good mounted on a helmet but most of them are simply to small for using by a gloved (fire fighter gloves) hand. Malkoff Devices does have bigger flashlights but like I mentioned before, I want an angle light. That said, I would love to own one of those (Elzetta, HDS, Malkoff) lights but unfortunately they are to expensive for my budget (Well, maybe a MD2 or an MDC for EDC use ;-))

Furthermore, I don't really need the absolute reliability these lights provide. If my flashlight fails it's annoying but not life threatening, we'll just use another one (we always work in pairs). In thick smoke conditions, flashlights are practically useless. For that reason we practice SAR with zero visibility using blindfolds or we use thermal imaging cameras.

I find round flashlight such as the Streamlight SL-20XP to be a PITA for our job. Where do you put them when need both hands to do a task? We used to have Maglite ring holsters to put them in but these things are hard to find just by feel. And when you put round lights on a table they always roll off. Angle lights have big clips on the back so you can clip them on you SCBA or bunker gear quickly and have both hands free to do a certain task. Furthermore, a angle light will still shine it's light forward instead of in your face when using a round light in a Maglite holster.

I admit, I'm pretty picky about my flashlight but that doesn't main I don't appreciate your input! :thumbsup:

With your job, you need the right gear. Gear that works with you, not against you. Although I know quite a lot of flashlight companies, on this subject I only know the Streamlight you already use.

Just remembered Foxfury. Don't know about the CRI though.
http://international.foxfury.com/catalog/products/lights-by-type/right-angle-flashlights