A monitoring and warning system for firefighters and other people exposed to similar hazards includes mutiple monitoring, warning and control devices and a telemetric module for transmitting information data to a base station and for receiving commands. The controller includes logic that processes write requests of arbitrary size, by interleaving writes among the interfaces, including by parallel writing among the interfaces. As a result, after the system has been powered off and on, the power mask information is retained. As an example, some transponders can be configured to either provide an alarm communication, andor shut off a laser, depending upon which communication interface detects a network failure or receives an alarm signal. A gradation amplifier circuit includes the plurality of gradation amplifiers, each of which amplifies a corresponding one of gradation voltages when being in an active state and does not amplify the corresponding gradation voltage when being in an inactive state, and the amplified gradation voltage being outputted on a corresponding one of the voltage lines. The state transition temperature of the dock thermal-energy storage material is lower than the state transition temperature of the device thermal-energy storage material such that thermal energy is transferred from the device thermal-energy storage material to the dock thermal-energy storage material.