Jim,
You have been pissing in a lot of people's cherrio's lately. I rarely come to the long-term forum, but since I had a number of emails and a PM directing me to your response to this thread I figured I'd stop by.

Now, first, Thermal Imagaing Camera's and "Heat Guns" are only so reliable. The chance that you leave hidden fire smoldering is high. While these tools do allow us to do less damage than before they were avalible, sometimes you have to pull some ceiling and open some walls to ensure the fire is out. Destructive, maybe but not as much as another fire.

Second, the european style helmets do offer more protection in some aspects but when tested here in America by a number of departments they failed miserably. Restricting hearing, failing debris and water from getting into coats, and not keeping water off of the SCBA mask restricting visibility.

For a number of reasons the we rely on interior firefighting vs. exterior firefighting causing the difference in our protective clothing as well as our tactics.