Thermal imaging cameras are coming to some fire departments across Ohio, and the South Zanesville Fire Department is one of the recipients.

The Aladdin Shriners Hospital Association takes the extra funds it has accumulated throughout the fiscal year and distributes the excess. Half of the leftover funds goes back into the hospitals and the other half is given to local agencies throughout the association’s jurisdiction, which encompasses 33 counties throughout Ohio.

This year, the association chose fire departments as its donation recipients. About 57 fire departments are receiving a thermal imaging camera courtesy of a grant worth roughly $7,500 per department.

Agencies are chosen based on need that aligns with the hospital association’s goals of helping children.  

“We give grants for anything that goes along with our cause, which is helping children with orthopedic issues, burn care, stuff like that,” Chad Dennewitz, Executive Direction and Secretary/Administrator of the Aladdin Shriners Hospital Association said. “And the thermal imaging camera, we thought, just fit in because it can help with prevention of children being burned.”

Thermal imaging cameras are used by firefighters to detect areas of heat in the body through smoke-filled rooms and dark places.

The cameras were ordered in a bulk purchase and distributed to each of the 57 departments through Finley Fire Equipment out of Morgan County. Representatives from Finley Fire will distribute the cameras to each of the 57 departments and provide some training to the firefighters on how to use them upon delivery.

The South Zanesville Fire Department was one of multiple fire departments in Muskingum County to receive the grant from Shriners.

“We are very excited that Shriners were able to donate a thermal imaging camera to us,” South Zanesville Fire Department Captain Russ Taylor said. “It will make a great difference in being able to locate victims, whether it be adults or kids, that might be in a house fire, or even lost in the woods … we’d be able to pick up on the heat signature that the body puts off.”

SZFD currently has an older piece of this equipment that replaced a thermal imaging camera that was lost in the fire at The Muddy Boot a few years back. With the new piece of equipment, both the fire trucks and the EMS squad will have a thermal imaging camera.

All of Taylor’s current crew members are trained on how to operate and effectively use the thermal imaging cameras. Any on-boarding members to the SZFD will be fully trained on how to use the equipment, Taylor said.

Other fire departments in Muskingum County that publicly announced they received the thermal imaging camera grant from the hospital association include Falls Township Fire Department, Roseville Fire Department and Frazeysburg Fire Department.

For the past few years, Dennewitz said thermal imaging cameras have been a need among many fire departments in the district. The piece of equipment, bought individually, can cost a department about $10,000.

“We found out, through talking to fire departments, this is something that most of them need,” Dennewitz said.

The grants given to each department totaled close to $1.4 million donated by the Aladdin Shriners Hospital Association.

“The idea is that the fire departments will be able to use them when they go into a fire to help locate children that may be in the fire because they have a different thermal pattern,” Dennewitz said.