NORTH COUNTY -- Last week's wildfires made tiny Space Instruments Inc. world famous. The Encinitas company supplied a thermal imaging device that sees through smoke, enabling accurate aerial mapping of the blazes.

The device, called FireMapper 2.0, is being tested by a research unit of the U.S. Forest Service to produce maps for all the major fires, including the Cedar and Paradise fires in San Diego County.

Samples are visible on the Web at www.fireimaging.com. The Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station has extensively used FireMapper, not only to map the recent fires, but earlier ones in California and Montana.

Other fire agencies must be impressed: Space Instruments has been getting calls from agencies and companies in Canada, Europe and Australia, said Jim Hoffman, the company's technical director. He and his wife are also majority owners of the company.

Space Instruments employs about 15 people now, but is looking to hire more as commercial orders begin to come.

What gets the attention of buyers is that FireMapper is far cheaper and more versatile than other thermal images, Hoffman said.

FireMapper, a gold-colored cylindrical device that can be held in both hands, is a product of defense technology used for night-vision devices.

The devices sell for about $250,000 apiece, Hoffman said, compared with three and four times that amount for competing devices. That is because the device works at room temperature, while other devices must be cooled by liquid nitrogen to properly detect infrared radiation.

In addition, the FireMapper images are computer-processed and can be overlaid with topographical data to show 3-D features, Hoffman said. The combined image can be manipulated to show the area from different perspectives.

"Say the tanker pilot wants to do a drop on the fire, but wants to see what it looks like through the smoke. We can show him the image exactly from any angle he wants to see it and any altitude he wants to see it from," Hoffman said.

Besides aerial surveys of fire areas, the devices could be placed atop mountains or other suitable points in the wilderness.

"You can have it automatically scanning 360 degrees night and day to pick up fires," Hoffman said. "As soon as they saw a fire, they'd just relay in the coordinates to the fire department."

Space Instruments also designs a variety of other sensors and performs related services, such as writing software for signal processing. The company's Web site is www.rumford.com/SpaceInstruments.

Contact staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at (760) 739-6641 or bfikes@nctimes.com.