PowerFlare lights prove to be an investment in safety
On a hot afternoon in August 2004, a disabled car pulled into the median of a four-lane highway in Northern California. Bent underneath the vehicle was a 2'-high growth of grass and weeds turned tinder dry by the summer heat. Add a catalytic converter as an ignition source, and you can guess the rest of the story. But, add the 40 mile-per-hour wind and you’ll understand how the fire jumped the highway and was off on a slight downhill run across a pasture almost before the driver was out of the car.
I drove by in my personal vehicle approximately 10 minutes later. By then, smoke obscured drivers’ visibility on the highway. Fire apparatus blocked one lane, and more units continued to arrive as the blaze scorched 25 acres. I worried that the smoke at times made it impossible to see the parked Type 3 rigs or the firefighters working alongside them. Traffic wasn’t slowing fast enough, and it looked as though some serious trouble was afoot.
I parked, turned on my yellow emergency lights and found myself reaching for a half-dozen flares before I realized how stupid it would be to light them. As a quick experiment, I set an unlit flare on the pavement and watched as it rolled off into the grass, propelled by the high wind. Giving that extra second to safety prevented an additional start for this fire.
As this incident illustrates, there are situations in which conventional flares don’t make sense, namely, anytime you can’t be right there to watch them, or when it’s likely the flares will roll into combustibles.
Flares have their admirers, however, and justifiably so. If you must close a traffic lane far back from an accident, flares do the job. You might need hundreds of them if the closure lasts more than an hour, but they only cost a buck a piece, right?
One product that provides bright emergency lighting without the disadvantages of conventional flares: the PowerFlare PF-200 Safety Light, designed by PowerFlare Corp. These rubberized, 4" plastic disks are studded with eight light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that are theoretically visible up to 10 miles away. Users can select from seven patterns, including Coast Guard SOS (Morse code) for rescue purposes, and the solid “on” setting for use as a lantern or task light.
The battery life varies, depending on the pattern selected. Specifically, you’ll achieve the shortest run time of five hours by using the solid on-high setting, and the longest run time of more than 100 hours by using the single-blink strobe. Additionally, you can use PowerFlare lights in hazmat situations and extreme temperatures, and they won’t break if you drive over them.
I keep a set of five PowerFlare lights in a small box in the trunk of my car along with a gang charger that keeps the lights charged at all times. The box includes a socket that you can connect to a car battery or AC power through an adapter. Use the magnet on the box to turn the PowerFlare lights on and off, and to change the flash pattern. Basically, you wave the light over the magnet to change its operating mode.
But a great device like this comes at a price. One box of PowerFlare lights (with the built-in charger) costs $500; individual PowerFlare lights cost $90 with a recharger; non-rechargeable units cost $40 each. Despite the high initial cost, the folks at PowerFlare say their electronic flares are actually less expensive than what you’re already using.
Here’s how they figure it: Bulk price for a 15-minute flare is about $1 per flare. One flare placed for one hour requires four units and costs $4 dollars. If a public safety vehicle responds to 20 calls per month and uses five flares at each call, the cost will reach $1,200 per year. With this in mind, the cost for a $500 PowerFlare unit seems almost cheap by comparison.
Five PowerFlare lights won’t go very far when you need to close an Interstate highway, but even when I use traditional flares, I set out the PowerFlares first. They come out of the box already flashing, making me immediately visible.
In my side-by-side testing of PowerFlare lights versus conventional flares, the PowerFlare lights proved to be quite bright, and the ability to set a flash pattern makes them more attention-grabbing than conventional flares.
I also tested PowerFlare lights in situations that never required me to use a conventional flare, such as attached to a person to aid visibility. I can imagine occasions when an engine crew might use PowerFlare lights to find one another in smoke or darkness.
I’ve attached PowerFlare lights to signs and, because of their long battery life, I didn’t have to tend to them every 15 minutes. Their long burn time gives them a major advantage over conventional flares. Additionally, you can use them under water, at landing zones and as road markers—places where you can’t, or shouldn’t, use conventional flares.
The downside: Unlike flares, which you can leave at the scene, you must take PowerFlare lights back with you. In practice, this means you end up doing some PowerFlare light-swapping when early-arriving apparatus are replaced with new crews, and this “pick-up” factor can be inconvenient.
In summary, the initial cost may be daunting, but some hands-on testing and forward thinking could make PowerFlare safety lights a useful tool for many departments.
