Illuminated Fire Hose

[NJFFSA16]

I found this small blurb on the newswires....if anyone has more info about this, please post it. Sounds interesting.

They're invaluable during a fire, and now the fire hose is going high tech,
thanks to a New Jersey man's new invention.

Firefighters say when they have fatalities on the job more often than not it is
because the firefighters couldn't find their way out of a dark and smoky
building

The fire chief at Lakehurst Naval Base in Ocean County, New Jersey knew this and
thought he might be able to do something about it. Chief Rich Strasser says he
came up with the idea to add lights to a fire hose while he was rolling up a
hose at work one day.

The light is generated in an illuminator on the side of a truck. A fiber optic
line attached to the hose carries the light inside right through the smoke.
Strasser figures the firefighters lost in a smoky fire can follow the light out
to safety.

The technology will also allow for the color of the light to change as a warning
to escape immediately when a situation becomes too dangerous. Strasser hopes his
hose will eventually make a big difference for firefighters everywhere.

[leadlo]

It's hard enough to come up with money to buy regular hose! When we buy a new truck, they are on a 20 year depreciation cycle, we order them with enough hose to equip 2 trucks. This keeps most of our hose replacing out of the general budget. I thought the idea of taking a hose line into a structure was two fold, one put the fire out and two find your way out if you got in trouble. I've also heard something about energized fiber optic lines that break could be a vision health hazard?