Editor’s note: This week is National Fire Prevention Week.
Anna Barker is trying to create a new approach to fire prevention.
Barker, a senior international business student at Mississippi State University, was at her family home in Mendenhall watching news coverage of a wildfire out west and saw a man on top of his home trying to fend off flames with a garden hose.
“You know looking at it that he can’t save his home, and you know that he knows he can’t save his home,” Barker said. “But it was the picture of desperation in his final vain attempt to at least try.”
The image stuck with Barker. She began to study fires and fire prevention. Now she’s working to develop an automated fire prevention system.
Barker’s system, called FIRST (Fire Inhibiting Rapid Safety Technology), stores a special fire retardant gel in tanks that can automatically deploy the gel to inhibit or suppress fires in a residential or commercial setting.
Barker also created BioProvisions, LLC, a startup company for her system through MSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach. Barker developed the company with assistance from senior chemical engineering major Kagen Crawford of Scottsboro, Alabama, senior mechanical engineering major Jake Haley of Corinth, and senior graphic design major McKinley Ranager of New Albany.
She said the entrepreneurship center has been a tremendous resource, from providing seed funding to helping her establish an advisory board and find legal help for contracts and licensing.
Her ultimate goal is to make the product available for residential use to give people a way to protect their homes from wildfires. First, though, she plans to make the product available for the commercial sector, particularly to fight industrial fires that can involve hazardous materials.
“We have so many incredible products that can fight a fire and put it out, but what do you do when nobody’s there — when nobody can be there to activate it?” Barker said. “I knew when I came up with the idea that I was going to have to come up with something where the structure could save itself.”
Barker said the system uses sensors to detect fire and automatically deploy the gel. She said it can also be activated remotely, by phone or through using an app.
How it works
The FIRST system uses Florida-based Barricade International’s fire gel for fire prevention and suppression.
John Bartlett, president of Barricade International, is a former firefighter who said he developed the gel after observing a baby diaper not burning in a garbage fire. Through research, he found that absorbent chemicals in the diaper retained water, which prevented ignition.
By taking that concept and producing it in a liquid form, Bartlett created a gel that’s proven very effective for preventing fires and putting out those that have already started.
“It’s not the gel that keeps the building from burning. It’s the water that the gel holds,” Bartlett said. “It’s a quantum leap in efficiency.”
Barker said she’s secured a licensing agreement with Barricade to use the gel in the FIRST system.
Bartlett, who said he’s been impressed with Barker, said she participated in educational webinars Barricade hosts, and flew to the company’s Hobe Sound, Florida, location to share ideas about her product. Barricade has worked with her ever since.
“It seems like every summer we lose houses,” he said. “We’ve had lots of conversations about what it’s going to take to see the end of routinely losing houses to wildfires. A big piece of that puzzle would be an automated system that can be deployed without human action.”
Project development
Eric Hill, director of MSU’s entrepreneurship center, said Barker walked into his office more than a year ago after she took a wrong turn on her way to class in McCool Hall. He said her startup has grown from that first meeting, where he met with her and they sketched out the idea on Starbucks napkins.
Hill said the system has already passed a successful first test.
“For the first big test, she took a dog house and rigged up a system and put the chemical on it,” Hill said. “We took a flamethrower to it and the dog house didn’t burn. It was exciting to see the first initial test work.”
Now, Barker said she’s working toward beginning large-scale testing of the product to more accurately simulate wildfire conditions. She’s met with Mississippi Commissioner of Insurance Mike Chaney and officials at the State Fire Academy, both of whom she said have been good resources for her.
“After testing it on a large scale, I’d like to go to a research facility and have a third-party monitor these conditions,” she said. “We can test all the different elements of a fire to prove that this is something that can hold up under those conditions.”
Barker said she hopes to move the product to commercialization in one to two years.
Hill said the entrepreneurship center will help Barker find the money she’ll need to move on to large-scale testing.
He said he’s been impressed with Barker through the process as she’s worked with the Entrepreneurship Center to develop her product.
“This is an international business student who’s in the process of a launching a fairly technically-advanced company,” Hill said. “She’s getting to put all the skills she’s learning to work.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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