People above a certain age may remember getting burned by a hot metal slide as a kid during a summer in the 1980s. Since then, for safety and economic reasons, bare metal has been replaced with plastic in most modern playgrounds, but plastic can still cause thermal burns.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says that 30 thermal burn incidents were reported on playgrounds from 2001-2008, and only seven of them were associated with metal surfaces.
Using a FLIR thermal camera, AccuWeather tested a local playground and found temperatures as high as 164 degrees Fahrenheit on a plastic slide, on a late-July day in State College, Penn. This is far above the temperature threshold of 122 degrees for a third-degree burn.
FLIR, or Forward-Looking Infrared, cameras detect invisible infrared radiation emitted by objects. Unlike an infrared thermometer, which shows only the temperature of the spot it is pointed at, a FLIR camera shows the temperatures of all objects in view of it.
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