FireIce: A major breakthrough for fighting wildfires
16th June 2011
In 2006, serial inventor Cordani, 49, was experimenting with protective coatings to defend homes from hurricanes. At the same time, wildfires were raging in his home state of Florida. On a hunch, he took a sample of a viscous gel he’d developed and tried a few experiments.
“I stuck a Popsicle stick in it and tried to light it — it wouldn’t catch,” he recalls. “Then I sprayed it on a pine tree and tried to light the tree. I couldn’t.”
Very impressive.
FireIce is shipped and stored as a powder; it becomes a gel when mixed with water. Unlike firefighting foam, it does not contain noxious chemicals that remain in the environment after its use, Cordani says. (As if torching his hand wasn’t enough, Cordani has also eaten FireIce, to attest to how benign it is.)
Very nice.
It obviously blocks heat transmission. So when can we use it for insulation in houses and vehicles?