In a house fire, the blinding, disorienting smoke that seizes the free air can often be the greatest obstacle in a resident's escape or rescue. Victims who are unconscious may lie obfuscated by an impenetrable smokescreen, remaining invisible to even the keenest firefighter.

With help of a state grant, however, the Jericho Volunteer Fire Department has been able to obtain another pair of eyes capable of extraordinary vision in the thickest smoke or blackest night.

It's called the Argus Thermal Imaging Camera, which allows firefighters to locate objects and people through heat detection. Looking through it makes the operator feel a little bit like the alien in Predator. The more warmth an object emits, the brighter its outline will appear in the camera. Using this camera, a human figure can be easily spotted.

But that leads to an obvious question that most sensible people would ask. In a fire, wouldn't there be heat sources coming from everywhere confusing the cameraman?

The camera, explained fire department personnel, wouldn't be used to find bodies in the midst of flames. Often a house fills with smoke much quicker than the flames spread, and it's smoke that causes most fire casualties. "You don't see the smoke," explained Captain Mike Perrino, "because smoke is at a constant temperature." Furthermore, though the room will be hot, the heat will rise, leaving the floor cooler. A quick pan of the camera will detect if there are any heat sources in the shape of victims lying on the ground.

The flame-retardant, battery-operated, bright yellow camera is also good for detecting sources of smoke or heat when they are concealed within a wall, where most electrical fires begin.The fireman with the camera only needs to look for a part of a wall to glow brightly to know where a fire is first starting to spread.

The Argus is heat-sensitive up to a half-degree, meaning even a small differentiation in heat will be picked up. The camera can even pick up the heat left from a fresh hand print on a wall.

The $18,000 piece of equipment was attainable via a $15,000 grant from Senator Carl Marcellino's office. The Board of Fire Commissioners authorized the purchase, after fire personnel concluded that the Argus was the best of this breed of camera.

"It's fairly light compared to others [and] it allows you flexibility," said Perrino. "You just press the button and in 15 seconds it's in operation."

Second Assistant Chief John Lottes said that when this camera was tested in a training fire, the cameraman was able to help direct the other firefighters as to where to douse the flames, which were difficult to find. "You could see when the firefighters weren't putting the blue stuff on the red stuff," he said.

Few fire departments on Long Island have this state-of-the-art camera that was used in the Gulf War before its use became more widespread. Hicksville is believed to have the only other nearby department with this equipment.

The Argus will be on display, and perhaps demonstrated, at the Jericho Fire Department's Fire Prevention Week open house this Sunday, Oct. 11.