Camera finds the hot spots

Press, 26 May 1984, Page 3

Camera finds the hot spots

Nelson reporter The New Zealand Forest Service yesterday' brought in its thermovision camera to pin-point the extent of a fire smouldering deep in the sawdust, bark, and timber at the Nelson Pine Forest chip mill site at Richmond, near Nelson. Since the fire began on Tuesday afternoon the Fire Service has poured hundreds of thousands' of litres of sea water on to an area of about half a hectare covered in combustible material. The area surrounding the chip mill has been reclaimed using waste products from the mill and in

some parts is more than two metres deep. The fire poses no threat to the mill but could spread if not extinguished. Mr David Jarrett, of the Nelson telecommunications section of the Forest Service, uses the thermovision camera to detect infra-red heat near the fire. The camera, one of only two in New Zealand, can detect a temperature difference of 0.2 of a degree. It can detect a cigarette hundreds of metres away. Normally the camera is used from a low-flying helicopter but yesterday it was run from the roof of a vehicle.