Mimicking visualization of smoke

[DanTCFD]

I am going to be making a presentation to people that know pretty much nothing about fire fighting. One thing I wanted to do is show how you do not have the visibility like in movies. I am going to have an SCBA mask with me, and I was wondering some ways to show the effects of a smoke filled building. One way I heard is three layers of wax paper over the shield. Anyone know if this works? Any other suggestions welcomed. Thanks guys!
~DAN

[fireflyer]

Do you have a fog machine? You could fill up a side room and then have them search for a teddy bear wearing the mask. The kind wal-mart sells for halloween runs around 40 dollars, very inexpensive and effective. We use it for SCBA drills at our station. We just have to tell dispatch what we are doing or we get calls our station is on fire.

[tshayes]

My instructor likes to have us in our mask and then take our nomex hoods and pull them over our mask so we can not see almost anything. This is one simple and esay way. It works really good and is about as close to the real thing you can get. Just make sure that the hoods are thick and not to thin. Less light gets through. Turnout the lights in the room and jut have some low light with the mask covered and they will be lost for ever. Good luck.

[Airborne]

tshayes that is the same way we did it. Also the instructor had a tape he made of background noises that you normaly hear at a Fire scene that added alot to it, excepecialy that home fire alarm sound made talking almost impossible.

Then he would drop things on our head, noting to heavy to simulate dabre falling.

[Bones42]

DanTCFD, unless you are training firefighters, keep with the wax paper. Yes, it works, it does not allow you to recognize anything, but it lets a minor amount of light in. One word of caution, make sure no one is claustrophobic as to not cause yourself (and them) any harm.

[fireflyer]

You might also try the new ziplock scrunchie like container top bags...can't think of the exact name, but the ones that look like shower caps that you can use to cover food with that have the elastic? They just wrap right over the edge of the lens of the SCBAs and you can buy different colors, yellow might work best, would be hard to see through but allows some light... could work and be easy to pop on and off the masks. It would lower visibility without freaking them out as much and still allow you and everyone to see them at all times.

[DanTCFD]

Hey guys, seriously thanks for all of your suggestions! I went with 3 layers of wax paper because of the price (free!) and the fact it didn't take much work to accomplish. Looks really good! Thanks a lot guys!