Do BLUE lights cut through smoke better?

Has anyone heard about BLUE LED helmet lights?

The local FF shop has them in stock on the theory (from the salesman) that the blue cuts through smoke better than white light... the store was waiting to test them out in a smoke house (the store is owned by firefighters) but they haven't been able to try it out yet.

Is this true?

Or is the flashlight supplier blowing smoke? (pun intended)

I looked for a previous discussion on this but couldn't find it.

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Permalink Reply by Rusty Mancini on July 25, 2010 at 1:48pm

Derek, the battery wire has a take out the slack rubber ring, works well. We did have some slip problems, some of our members did one of two things. One would use a piece of rubber inner tube as a band around the helmet first, then apply the light, then cut two pieces of leather like shoe strings tied down the light to the rubber strap.

Some of the others used velcro to help hold it in place. Now the thing about velcro it tends not to do well in high temps. It has the tendency to melt. Haven't seen any melt yet, but it could happen. I did the first, and so far have had no problems.

Hope to have answer your questions.

R.

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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on July 25, 2010 at 1:59pm

yup, thanks Rusty, I didn't see the rubber ring for taking out the slack. I'll take a close look when I'm there tonight. That was the main concern, getting the wire hung up on something.

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Permalink Reply by Capt.Jocelyn Chiasson on July 25, 2010 at 7:38pm

We have a few firefighter here that have LED light on there helmet , they said that in tick smoke enviroment that it didn't help but for other firefighter in the room i found it was easier to see them with blue or LED light than it was with regular white light !!

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Permalink Reply by Ron King (Fire Chief) on July 25, 2010 at 9:08pm

I love flashlights and I have tryed almost all that are out there at one time are nother. But there is no light that will cut thru heavy smoke.

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Permalink Reply by andrew shapiro on July 25, 2010 at 9:53pm

There is an article at firerescue1.com January 1, 2009 with regards blue lights and their effectiveness in being seen through smoke etc. From this article it would seem that the blue lights could be more effective.

Do BLUE lights cut through smoke better?

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