MARTIN LUTTRELL
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

After nearly a decade of development and testing by a team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a personal locator device and other safety equipment for firefighters are being scrutinized for possible production, according to WPI professor David Cyganski.

Mr. Cyganski, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, told about 30 members of the Old Tech Timers alumni group yesterday that the desire to design a device that could be used to track the location of a firefighter or other emergency responder came after the December 1999 Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. fire. Six city firefighters died in the vacant, windowless warehouse when they became lost and the inside of the structure flashed over with fire.

He explained that two firefighters entered the building looking for homeless people known to have slept there. They became lost, and two more firefighters were sent in search of them. When the second pair could not find their fellow firefighters and became lost themselves, another rescue team entered the structure.

"None of them made it out alive," Mr. Cyganski said.

Mr. Cyganski, a member of the team developing what is formally known as the Precision Personnel Locator for First Responders, pointed out that the conditions firefighters work under are disorienting and dangerous.

"The conditions are not what you see on TV, with the inside of the building lit up by flames," he said. "It can be so dark with smoke you can see a couple of inches."

In a burning building, firefighters often have to crawl on the floor, as the air temperature a few feet above can reach over 1,000 degrees, he said. Entrapment is the third-leading cause of firefighter deaths, he said. Heart attack is the leading cause, due in part to physical exertion, trapped body heat from wearing protective clothing and the stress of being in a life-threatening situation, he said.

Along with the personal locator device, professors and graduate students on the WPI team are also developing a sensor that would alert fire officials to flashover conditions inside a building, as well as telemetry equipment worn by firefighters that would transmit vital signs to a computer, alerting command officials if any are reaching critical stress levels.

Following yesterday's hourlong program, Mr. Cyganski said that a piece of rescue equipment the WPI team has been developing is now being tested by a private company to see if it meets the company's standards for commercialization. He declined to say more about the equipment or identify the company, but said there could be an announcement early next year.

After meeting with fire chiefs from around the country in 2005, researchers found that the technology used for finding stricken or lost firefighters often does not work in the challenging conditions of a structure fire. Radio signals are ineffective inside buildings with metal frames and wiring because radio waves reflect off them, giving false readings to those trying to discern the location, he said.

Global positioning systems, popular with motorists and outdoor enthusiasts, are also ineffective inside a building, he said.

"Using a radio signal inside a building is like trying to find someone holding a candle inside a house of mirrors," he said.

The locator devices would transmit data to receivers placed around the building or on firetrucks, with a command staff monitoring the data on a laptop computer.

Although the locator technology has not yet advanced to the stage of commercialization, the most recent tests - conducted with firefighters searching multistory buildings wearing masks that obscure their vision - had rescuers finding lost victims before using up a bottle of air, which generally lasts about 20 minutes, he said. Time is critical, especially with a lost firefighter exposed to heat and smoke, he said.

"If someone is lost, they've already been using their air, and they've been out there a while," Mr. Cyganski said. "If you can't save them on your tank of air, they're not going to get saved."

In August, the research team held a two-day conference on the locator device, with demonstrations and workshops and about 140 participants from public, private and academic research organizations.

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November 11, 2010