Firefighters Use Infrared Camera in Rescuing Woman

PANORAMA CITY —  Firefighters saved an elderly disabled woman from her burning bedroom Tuesday, using for the first time an infrared camera they were given earlier in the day that locates victims by detecting their body heat, authorities said.

Los Angeles firefighters at a Van Nuys station received the camera Tuesday morning. Another station in Chinatown received a similar camera the same day, said Capt. Steve Ruda, a Fire Department spokesman.

The fire began about 4:35 p.m. at a house in the 8500 block of Stansbury Avenue. Arriving firefighters were alerted by neighbors that an elderly paraplegic woman might be trapped inside.

Armed with what looks like a small video camera and crawling on their stomachs through heavy smoke, a four-man team of firefighters searched the house and found the woman unconscious in her bed, Ruda said.

The woman suffered smoke inhalation and burns to 50% of her body, Ruda said. She was taken to Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City but was later transferred to the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital. She remains in critical condition, he said.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation, but fire officials said it appears to have started from an electrical short in a bedroom lamp. They estimated damage to the house and its contents at $7,000.

The thermal-imaging camera can detect anything that gives off heat at up to 2,400 feet, Firefighter Charles Boswell said, but is most effective between 5 and 10 feet.

The department plans to use the camera to detect victims in structure fires, people thrown from cars in accidents, victims in swift-water rescues as well as fires hidden behind walls or hillside hot spots in a brush fire.