Back in 2018, Vasya Tremsin, a (then) high school senior from the San Francisco Bay Area, came up with a crazy idea for a science fair project, “a technology that can detect fires early,” he tells The Post. Seven years later, he and the co-founders of his fire sensor company, Torch Sensors, are on the road to Los Angeles to join the fight against one of the largest wildfires in California history.
“Our first customer delivery was scheduled for the end of this month, with an S&P 500 solar utility customer,” says Tremsin, now 25, from his car somewhere on the 101 freeway. “When the fires broke out, we decided to come to LA to try to help.”
His invention, the Torch sensor, measures thermal, gas, and temperature levels across a 10 acre swath, and via an app, provides users with immediate warnings (within minutes) of impending fires. “All data flows to the platform in which people can view the map with any wildfires and all data in real-time,” says Tremsin.
Tremsin and his team — which includes co-founder Jo Morris, an advising SpaceX software engineer — brought 25 sensors to “at-risk” zones across Southern California, to monitor reignitions and ember fires. “We now have prototype sensors installed in some of LA’s most fire-prone areas, like Encino, Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Runyon Canyon, Hollywood Hills and Griffith Observatory,” says Tremsin.
For many victims of the deadly wildfires in Los Angeles Country, which leveled an area more than twice the size of Manhattan, it might seem like too little too late. The Palisades Fire alone is already the third-most destructive fire to ever hit California, with total damages estimated at between $250 billion and $275 billion, according to AccuWeather. At least 27 people have been killed (although the indirect death toll from toxic air could end up being in the thousands), more than 40,000 acres burned, and 17,027 structures destroyed. But the ultimate lesson of these deadly fires may not be what could have been, but what could be done next time.
There’s been a 250% increase in the growth rate of fires across the US, and a 400% increase in how fast fires grow in California. “Part of the problem is we’re putting out 90% of the fires, but we’re putting out the easy ones,” says Ralph Bloemers, a director of fire-safe communities for the Green Oregon Alliance. Some tech startups are trying to address that very issue.
Tremsin was inspired after witnessing the devastation from the 2017 Napa Valley fires, which happened not far from his home. He remembers vividly watching Napa’s skies scorched with flame. “That’s when the thought hit me, why do these things keep happening?” he says. “And why isn’t there a technology that can detect fires early?”
He never intended to launch his own business when he came up with the idea for Torch, but since the LA fires, it’s gone from a fledgling startup to an in-demand service. Their website traffic has already surged 400% over the last few weeks, Tremsin says. “People seem strongly excited or maybe desperate to have these sensors in their backyards.” During his recent trip to LA, he’s had investment meetings with several prominent tech founders, which he can’t name until deals are in place. “One installation at a well-known actor and producer’s home led to connections with major figures,” he says.
The demand for new firefighting and fire-prevention technology has come into sharp focus because of the LA disaster, but it’s an issue that’s long overdue. Changxin “Lyla” Dong, a Stanford researcher who’s helping develop fire-retardant tools, says that the technology used today “has not advanced significantly since the mid-20th century,” she says. But that’s beginning to change, even before the LA fires made international headlines.
At Stanford, Dong and fellow researcher Eric Appel, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, have been developing a sprayable, water-enhancing gel designed to protect buildings from wildfire damage. Their research, published last August in the scientific journal Advanced Materials, shows that the new gel is significantly more effective than existing commercial gels.
“The main issue with current products is that they only protect the structures by keeping them wet, so they lose their efficacy as the water in the gels evaporates, which happens really fast if there are high winds, high temperatures, and low humidity typical of catastrophic wildfire weather,” says Appel. With their gel, made of super-absorbent polymers, when the materials are subjected to heat, they convert into a silica aerogel-like foam that’s highly protective against fire. “This foaming process occurs even if 80% of the water has evaporated away, so they continue to protect the structures for a much longer period of time,” he says.
Meanwhile, in Israel, Gadi Benjamini came up with an equally innovative way to protect homes against wildfire. A 14-year veteran of the Israeli military, Benjamini was inspired by his home country’s Iron Dome, an air defense system designed to track and intercept missiles, to create FireDome. “We believe that fighting a wildfire—or any other natural catastrophic events—is like a battlefield,” he told The Post. “Uncertainty reigns and unexpected events occur constantly. Therefore, utilizing principles from the battlefield, such as creating defensive and offensive tools, is crucial.”
In response to a fire alert, FireDome launches capsules “containing eco-friendly fire retardant to create a protective “dome” that blocks the direct path of encroaching wildfires,” says Benjamini. Then an AI-powered system uses computer vision and sensor technology to detect and extinguish fires caused by airborne embers. The technology is still in the patent-pending phase, and according to Benjamini, “The main challenge is developing the launcher.” But they’re already collaborating with firefighters across the US to perfect the technology. Last month, they presented the FireDome to over 400 fire chiefs and firefighters at a technology summit of the International Association of Fire Chiefs in Oklahoma City.
Not everyone is impressed by the direction of firefighting and suppressing tech. Bloemers, for one, isn’t convinced that what we need is more “tech and silver bullets,” he says. “We don’t need more artificial intelligence. We need more human intelligence. We need technology that enables human intelligence to solve the problem. Technology that says, ‘You don’t have to be responsible and we’ve got this’ will fail us.”
The real solution, Bloemers says, is accepting that we live in a “fire-prone, fire-adapted ecosystem,” and adapting to those conditions. “What we need is for communities to become their own heroes,” he says. “We need people to be prepared to support firefighters before the next big fire comes.”
Not all private homes have the high-end protections of the Getty Center in Brentwood, whose leaders opted not to evacuate despite orders from the city, citing the building’s “marvel of anti-fire engineering.” But there are lessons to be learned there, says Bloemers. Like the Getty’s well-irrigated landscaping designed to slow down the spread of fire. The Getty made “extensive efforts to clear brush from the surrounding area as part of its fire mitigation efforts throughout the year,” the organization’s president and CEO, Katherine Fleming, said in a statement.
Most homeowners don’t have the budget of the Getty, but they can follow the same fire-suppressing guidelines. “What became the most dangerous fuel during the Palisades Fire?” Bloemers asks. “It wasn’t the trees. It was the overgrown shrubbery, and the mulch, and the couch cushions made of flammable synthetics, and the garbage and recycle bins that had their lids blown open and then become receptive fuel for ember cast. Burning bins can then ignite vehicles and structures.”
He recommends thinking of a wildfire’s spread like building a campfire. “You don’t start with a vertical surface of wood,” says Bloemers. “You start with a bunch of small, fine material. You get that ignited, and then you add the larger pieces of wood.” The same physics are at play when a house catches fire.
Bloemers says there should be a push to encourage more homeowners, in California and across the country, to adapt “home-hardening” strategies, like regular brush clearing, landscaping, fire-resistant siding, and proper roof ventilation.
“It’s a weekend project,” he says. “They can do it with their kids.” And it’s mostly low cost, he adds, usually no more than a few thousand dollars to retrofit a home to make it more fire resistant. “People are attached to their shrubbery,” Bloemers says. “I get it. I’m attached to my shrubbery too. But we have to start being smarter about the things that make us vulnerable.”
Dong agrees that public education is urgently needed, but believes we also need “streamlined development and approval processes for new technologies.” This will ultimately be spearheaded by government funding rather than private sectors. “Very few academic labs can afford field tests and large-scale testing,” she says. “This remains a significant challenge for fire-retardant developers.”
It may be up to young and passionate entrepreneurs like Tremsin, determined to change the world. He and his team plan on returning to LA in the coming weeks, with ambitions to build and deploy as many as 10,000 new sensors across the city. “We’re going to continue raising awareness of our technology, ensuring that more people in need know a real solution to the wildfire problem is available today,” he says.
