Recent news
March 22, 2013
Fire Cam was recently featured on "FireCritic.com" as their Company Snapshot! You can read the article HERE or below.
Fire Cam
FireVideo.net / FireCamera.net
Facebook Page – 8k+ fans
Youtube (username BobbyBushae) - 3k+ subscribers and 1.4 million video views
Fire Cam Owner Rob Schield
Fire Cam is owned by Firefighter Rob Schield who took some time to answer our questions about his company and products.
What products to you manufacture and/or sell?
We manufacture the Fire Cam 3 HD, Fire Cam Mini HD, Fire Cam 1080 and Fire Cam HD Dash Cam
Can your products be purchased from local dealers?
No, only through a few distributors like The Fire Store and on the FireVideo.net online store.
What makes your products better than others in the market?
You can go to the front page of www.firevideo.net and see “Heat Test” video on the front page which will show you other helmet cameras failing fairly quickly and ours passing with no problems. Also, with being a full time firefighter I knew that we needed to build a product that would be able to stand up to multiple fires and other incidents. It needed to be NFPA compliant and also intrinsically safe. We spent a lot of time testing different product designs in which some have failed in the past. The new “Fire Cam HD” line of camera is the best yet. ALL of our cameras have been tested by professional testing facilities such as the Maryland Fire Service Institute and Texas A & M Fire University just to name a few. We are proud to say that our cameras have passed heat testing and IP68 pressure testing.
Also, we added the “Fire Cam Damage Warranty” which if your cameras components accidentally get damaged in a fire, or however its damaged, you are covered for a FREE replacement. There is no other warranty on the market like it! How can you go wrong?
Where is your company located?
Belleville, IL. just 20 minutes from St. Louis MO.
How long have you been in business?
I have been a full time firefighter for 14 years in East St. Louis and we see a lot of fires. After coming up with the idea of putting a small camera on my helmet in 2006, I shot a video that went viral over the weekend which was posted on Break.com. Here is the video – http://www.break.com/index/fire_helmet_cam.html . You can see the date was Oct – 2006. That video was the 1st fire helmet camera video and was only a 320×240 VGA camera and it looked SO bad! Technology has changed so much. Due to the response I had from firefighters around the USA, I knew I had a good chance to develop something for the fire service that no one else has done before, so I developed “The Fire Helmet Cam™”. The first website you can see here at www.firehelmetcamera.com . We used to resell the ATC-2000, but after finding out there were copycat companies trying to resell the same thing and take over our idea, we hired a few engineers and now manufacture our own. Now we manufacture our own “Fire Cam” brand of cameras. We make sure that our customers know this because our cameras are stamped with our trademark “Fire Cam” and can be identified on the side of all of our cameras. We did this because a few companies are reselling their cameras as “Fire Helmet Cameras” which they buy off of eBay and resell to customers who do not know any better. These knock of cams are really hurting people who buy them because when they fail, they call our company wanting a replacement, but then they realize it’s not ours and they are out of luck with no fire footage and a failed camera. You can see a list of these on our website at www.firevideo.net under the “Compare” page.
Are your products made in the USA?
Since no high component electronics are manufactured in the USA, our cameras are engineered and designed in the USA and manufactured in China.
What is the best experience your company has had in relation to providing products to the fire service?
Over the years we have had so many. They range from Fire Investigators thanking us for designing a great product due to arson litigation where our cameras were used in court and also the high amount of calls we get from Fire Chiefs thanking us due to the way the cameras and free SOP/SOG’s we have provided them with have helped their dept with training, critique, review and investigations.
Are any of your employees firefighters? Where?
Yes, we have several employees that work in Volunteer and Paid fire departments in our area. Most of them work with customer service or technical support for Fire Cam.
Does your company get booth space at conferences? If yes, what are some of the highlights of those shows?
Yes, we go to the Firehouse convention in Baltimore sometimes and always try to go to FDIC every year. We will be there this year hopefully showing of some really cool new products. The best part of FDIC is the firefighters that we meet that tell us about their experiences with our cameras and of course it give us a chance to get out and see other new products and meet new people. Fire Cam will be with BlackJack Flashlight Holder at FDIC (booth #3038)
What new products can we expect from your company in the future?
Ahhh, one must wait for good things to come! We actually have several new products that will become a “game changer” that only a handful of people know about. These will definitely bring video technology to a new level in the fire service. We might have a prototype ready to see at FDIC if you want to stop by our booth!
Building the Fire Cam 3 HD
Rob Schield March 2011
Before high definition electronic boards were readily available for cameras, Fire Cam engineers had developed the FC3 Fire Helmet Camera. At the time it was the smallest helmet camera in the world and the sensor was 640 x 480 VGA. It recorded onto a Micro SD card which the capacity was from 4GB to 16GB at the time and it was water resistant and heat resistant to 500F for short periods of time. We also partnered up with BlackJack who specializes in professional flashlight mounts and we designed the FC3 to fit exactly into the BlackJack 003 mount. We specifically designed the FC3 with an exterior anodized aluminum shell for interior firefighting conditions. The FC3 fire helmet camera passed some rigorous test burns, and went into production. A few issues came up with the a on / off button where it could melt or warp in higher temperatures. But these were quickly replaced. After being in production with the FC3 for a year, the new HD chip was available and Fire Cam implemented it and is now called the “Fire Cam 3 HD”. It records 1280 x 720 HD video at 30 frames per second and has a 120 degree FOV which is far better than the FC3 previously had. Using the same exterior outer housing, the Fire Cam 3 HD almost looks identical to the FC3. The heat resistant rating on the Fire Cam 3 HD still remains at 500F for short periods of time. It also has better battery life and is more user friendly. It can use a micro SD card up to 32GB in capacity. Our company was alerted by customers about several “knock off fire helmet cameras” showing up on the market and on eBay in which chinese companies were “copying” what our engineers had created and were selling them with cheap components that would only last about 6 months and the lenses would not hold up in fires. To help our customers and fellow firefighters understand the difference, we started labeling all of our cameras with “Fire Cam” on the cameras themselves and also came out with the copyright “If it doesn’t say Fire Cam, it is NOT a fire helmet camera”. This helped tremendously and customers were able to decipher the Fire Cam from fakes fire helmet cameras. To this day there are companies who are still trying to imitate the Fire Cam 3 HD and our other cameras we have developed. Our Fire Helmet Cameras are NFPA compliant and are built by firefighters for firefighting. You can see an example of this in our “heat test” that we conducted to prove the quality of our cameras compared to the other “fake” brands out there. It is in our VIDEO section. Also the reviews from our customers state they have had superior customer service and one on one experience that Fire Cam has offered for over 6 years to our fellow firefighters. We offer FREE replacement lenses for LIFE for our customers and even if you are out of warranty, we will take care of you. Technical support is only a phone call away and is ALWAYS available to any of our customers.