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Fire Cam
- FireVideo.net / FireCamera.net
- Facebook Page – 7k+ 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!
