One week after the Devonshire Apartment fire in Millbrook, Millbrook fire chief Larry Brown is still taking it hard.
"This is my community and I take it personally," says Chief Brown.
It's a burning question that may never find an answer; how could a fire rekindle after firefighters put out a blaze especially when firefighters spent the next 5 hours using a thermal imaging camera to look for hot spots.
"We can use this camera and 'see' through smoke and we used it for several hours at the complex last week," says Chief Brown.
The camera is so sensitive it can detect the slightest impression of heat.
"I can take this and see where you've been standing the last two minutes and see where you weren't," Brown says.
The thermal imaging camera is designed primarily to help firefighters find people, but it can also detect potential flare ups by penetrating through thick black smoke. For some reason it didn't work on this fire. One reason may've been the weather that night.
"The wind we had that night was a little strange, a little stronger than we expected and it was blowing in from the east rather than the west," Brown says.
The thermal imaging camera isn't cheap. A new one costs around $25,000, and yet despite all the technology behind it, a house fire can still trick it.
"It just shows you a fire is a different animal," says Chief Brown.
Chief Brown still believes in his department's only thermal camera. In fact, this type of camera has been known to save lives, lives worth far more than $25,000.
