FIREFIGHTING has come a long way since the day in October 1871 when Mrs O鈥橪eary鈥檚 cow knocked over a lantern and started the great fire that devastated Chicago. But, more than a century later, firefighters face many of the same problems. It is still just as difficult to pinpoint the position of firefighters in a burning building or to know when a structure is in danger of collapsing.
Now Chicago鈥檚 fire department has teamed up with NASA to find space-age solutions to these age-old problems. Officials in both organisations believe that devices NASA has already developed for use in space could be adapted for use in burning buildings. NASA鈥檚 expertise in handling liquid oxygen, for example, could help to improve breathing apparatus for firefighters, allowing them to work for hours at a stretch.
NASA might also be able to adapt the Global Positioning System to track firefighters, says Harry Craft, manager for technology transfer at NASA鈥檚 Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. GPS is a set of navigational satellites that can pinpoint people to within a few metres.
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Knowing someone鈥檚 location in a blazing building is not enough, says Craft: two firefighters could be only a few metres apart but separated by a wall. Detailed plans of the interiors of buildings will have to be compiled and fed into computer databases. Craft says that a prototype system could be ready within a year.
NASA could use accelerometers to measure the vibrations in buildings and produce a vibration 鈥渟ignature鈥� that would be used to monitor a building鈥檚 structural integrity. Any change in the pattern of vibrations could warn of structural problems, says Craft.
NASA and the Chicago fire department signed an agreement last month to develop better firefighting technology. However the fire department does not have the money for large-scale research and NASA only has limited funds to spare. The two organisations hope that industry will help to finance demonstration projects.