Jeff Denholm is known for being a big wave surfer with just one arm. What he’s less known for, however, is his environmental safe fire-retardant spray. After becoming an equipment lessor for fire departments, predominantly in the West, Denholm discovered that the fire-retardant sprays currently in use — foams, and gels made to halt a fire’s advance or smother it — contain toxins potentially harmful to both the environment and the first responders.
Denholm, who built his own prostheses in order to keep living an active lifestyle, is not one to sit back and wait for a solution to come to him, and so he set out to tackle the problem. A random encounter led to Denholm meeting Stephen Haddix, a scientist who was already working on a more environmentally and health-friendly alternative to current fire retardants. Together, they created a fire-retardant spray called Strong Water made from plant derivatives that is more effective than the current foams and gels in use.
Strong Water has been approved for use in California where fire departments in San Diego and San Bernardino counties are already equipped with it. Considering the fires raging in California and Australia at the moment, this seems like a vital product for dealing with fires in a more eco-friendly manner.
