The Brighton Fire Department has upgraded their technology to be better equipped to help people in the community.

They received a $7,500 grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation to replace their thermal imaging camera. Brighton Fire Chief Bill Farmer describes the camera, “The thermal imaging camera allows us to see through smoke. It’ll give us a better, clear picture. If everybody’s seen them on TV they usually call them FLIR on TV. This is just the handheld version of that. We can see through smoke we can find hot spots if there’s a person inside of a house full of smoke, it would show us where the body is, so there’s multiple uses for the camera.”

Their former camera was 15 years old and outdated. The new camera cost $9,510, and can film in color and has photo and video capturing capabilities. Farmer says these functions will be useful in critiquing fire scenes. Farmer adds “It’s a good tool to have. It’ll help not only fires but search-and-rescue at night on the river. If you would have a truck with hazardous materials or any liquid leaking you can actually kind of see where the liquid’s leaking. There’s just so many things that they will do.” The fire department received the camera June 14.