Firefighters put their lives on the line in some of the most
dangerous conditions on Earth. One of their greatest challenges,
however, is seeing through thick veils of smoke and walls of
flame to find people in need of rescue. A team of Italian
researchers has developed a new imaging technique that uses
infrared (IR) digital holography to peer through chaotic
conflagrations and capture potentially lifesaving and otherwise
hidden details. The team describes its breakthrough results and
their applications in a paper published in the Optical Society’s
(OSA) open-access journal Optics Express. Firefighters can see
through smoke using current IR camera technology. However, such
instruments are blinded by the intense infrared radiation
emitted by flames, which overwhelm the sensitive detectors and
limit their use in the field. By employing a specialized lens-
free technique, the researchers have created a system that is
able to cope with the flood of radiation from an environment
filled with flames as well as smoke.