For the firefighting instructors of Insight Fire Training, the teaching isn’t just a job. As founder and lead instructor Andy Starnes says, the work is a calling.  

At Insight Fire Training, Starnes and his team “provide customized thermal imaging training that focuses on enhancing firefighter fundamental fireground skills to save lives, save property, and get firefighters home to their families.” 

Thermal imaging is the tool, but the mission is much deeper. “The concepts, education, and training we provide has been resulting in assisting firefighters in providing services to citizens in a more efficient and strategic way,” says Starnes. “It also provides an extra level of awareness that has been critical to saving firefighters’ lives.” 

Starnes says that extra awareness—being able to detect hidden dangers, locate victims faster, and read fire conditions more accurately—is what makes thermal imaging cameras (TICs) so powerful. But for Starnes and the Insight team, it’s not just about teaching how to use the camera. It’s about making the training matter.  

“To be a subject matter expert, one must make the subject matter!” he says. “It must matter in such a way to all those who hear that they know that this is not merely education; it is our calling to provide training that assists in saving lives.” 

That calling is shared by the entire Insight instructor cadre, a group Starnes says he is extremely proud of. “They have grown into the most compassionate, dedicated, and knowledgeable individuals that I have had the immense pleasure and blessing to work with,” he says. “We are focused on our faith and family in our training cadre. We take care of one another.” 

The training they provide goes along with Starnes’ commitment to always look for opportunities to learn. “The best piece of advice I have ever received was to always remain a lifelong student,” he says. “To constantly seek wisdom and understanding so that we are always increasing in our understanding and how we can help others.” 

That desire to have an impact is what drives Starnes. He says that for him, success means “To help firefighters win on the fireground and have a family to go home to. And when our students become instructors and begin assisting others around them—thereby improving the overall fire service—it is a true blessing! As John Maxwell says, ‘True success comes through succession.’” 

Even in retirement, Starnes’s commitment to the fire service hasn’t wavered. “I left my fire department, but I never left the fire service,” he says. “My heart’s desire is to serve others. I believe that all firefighters feel this calling, and they seek it out in their personal lives. To make a difference in others’ lives is not only a privilege, it is a moral responsibility that we take seriously at Insight Fire Training.” 

Thanks to groups like Insight Training, firefighters across the world are fulfilling that desire to help others.