Teledyne FLIR has reached a new milestone in thermal fire detection with its A40 and A70 Axx-Series thermal imaging cameras securing UL 2684 listing. The models have been evaluated and listed as thermal image fire detectors under ANSI/CAN/UL 2684, the US-Canadian standard covering video and thermal image detection technologies used in fire alarm applications.
The certification also creates a clearer pathway for integrating the Axx-Series into systems designed around NFPA 72, the National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code. The 2025 edition of NFPA 72 introduced a specific provision for thermal image fire detection under Section 17.12 and requires such systems to carry an appropriate fire-detection listing. This alignment between UL 2684 and NFPA 72 is particularly relevant across Asia-Pacific, where these standards are frequently referenced as part of fire safety design and approval processes.
The development comes as industries across APAC deploy increasingly energy-intensive infrastructure. Battery energy storage facilities, data centres, EV charging sites, solar installations and automated production environments can contain equipment where an abnormal temperature rise may provide an early indication of a developing fault or fire. Yet dedicated standards for evaluating thermal image fire detection remain limited across many markets in the region.
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Against that backdrop, the UL 2684 listing provides an independently assessed reference point for professionals evaluating the technology. Fire engineers, consultants, insurers and asset owners can use the listing when considering thermal image fire detection in performance-based designs, equivalency assessments and jurisdiction-specific approval processes. These include Australia’s Performance Solutions pathway under the National Construction Code and submission processes involving the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).
The listing does not replace national codes or local approvals. It strengthens the case made to them: independent evaluation against a published standard rather than the manufacturer’s own test data.
Conventional detection responds to the products of combustion: smoke, flame, or heat reaching a detector. By then a fire process is already underway, and in a data hall, a warehouse, or a covered charging structure, high airflow dilutes and carries those products away before they reach a ceiling-mounted device, delaying the alarm further.
A thermal image fire detector works earlier in that sequence: it measures the temperature of the asset itself, before there is smoke to travel. Measurement areas are drawn over the live image, and each is tracked for minimum, average, and maximum temperature. An alarm can be triggered by an absolute limit, by one area drifting away from another, or by rate of rise. That last matters most in practice: a machine that has always run warm is not a fire condition, but the same machine climbing steadily through a shift is an early warning.
In a battery energy storage system, that means a cell or module moving out of its normal thermal profile. In an EV charging hub, a connector, cable, or vehicle battery heating under load. On a rooftop solar array, a DC connector, a combiner box, or an inverter. On a production line, a motor, a bearing, or a hydraulic run. In a data centre, a busbar joint or a power distribution unit.
Finding a thermal anomaly early means it can be investigated and isolated while it is still a maintenance task: a single rack or container dealt with, rather than a hall evacuated or a container written off along with the ones beside it. On high-value assets, and on critical infrastructure where downtime carries a public cost, that difference is the business case.
Detection stays thermal, while an integrated visible camera provides verification, so an alarm arrives with an image of the scene at the moment it triggered. An operator can check it before anyone stops a line. Analysis runs on the camera, so an alarm does not wait on a server or a network link. When alarm conditions are met, the cameras initiate fire alarm events through compatible fire alarm control systems, and they integrate over the protocols the plant already runs. Coverage is line-of-sight, which makes this a tool for defined high-value assets, specified alongside conventional detection rather than as a replacement for general area coverage.
“Fire engineers across Asia-Pacific have been asked to evaluate this technology without a product standard to point to,” said Matthew Hasty, Global Vertical Director for Science, Automation, and Early Fire Detection at Teledyne FLIR. “The UL 2684 listing changes that. Performance-based submissions across the region now have independent, standard-based evidence behind them, and that is what owners, insurers, and consultants have been asking us for.”
The battery plants, charging hubs, data centres, and rooftop arrays being commissioned this year need that evidence now, and it is available today.
