By Howard Wolinsky
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Standing by helplessly, chemist Bob Smith watched his Ruston, La., laboratory burn for eight hours after firefighters inadvertently spread the fire from a nearby furniture store. Millions of dollars worth of scientific gear was destroyed in the 1995 blaze.
During his ensuing lawsuits, Smith, 44, got a crash course in how fires are fought and on firefighting technology, which relies heavily on dousing flames with water or with chemical foams, which are toxic to wildlife and plants.
“I learned more about fires than I ever really wanted to know, but I figured there had to be a better way to put fires out,” Smith concluded as he set out to find one.
The result is a new environmentally friendly, soy-based chemical, dubbed Fire Blockade. In 2003, he began manufacturing the product in a plant in El Dorado, Ark., selling it in large containers to fire departments and also to consumers in extinguishers primarily in stores in rural areas.
“I felt like I had a billion-dollar idea,” said Smith, who recently moved his headquarters to Chicago to work with local entrepreneurs Robert and David Mendelson, a father-son team.
But this sumo of a scientist — at 6 feet, 8 inches and 335 pounds, an All-American tight end for the Louisiana State University Tigers, drafted by, but never played for his hometown Cleveland Browns — ran into a wall of skepticism among firefighters, who had heard many promises from erstwhile inventors but saw little delivery with new products.
“Nobody believes Fire Blockade can do what it can do,” Smith said.
Smith has dramatic videos showing Fire Blockade extinguishing a wide variety of fires, including jet fuel fires on mock-ups of planes at O’Hare and at a testing facility sponsored by Boeing, car fires, hay bale fires, kitchen fires and grassland fires. His product has been adopted by Boeing and more than 100 fire departments, primarily in Arkansas and nearby states and in Washington state, he said.
Firefighters in the video were startled to see a 1,200-degree raging inferno drop in 10 seconds to 70 degrees. The chemical saves precious minutes, minimizing property damage, Smith said.
Firefighters also were stunned that once a fire was put out, it stayed out. With traditional methods, fires often rekindle.
Fire Chief Ben Blankenship, who runs the department in Benton, Ark., in suburban Little Rock, is a believer, though he didn’t start out that way.
Blankenship, a 35-year veteran, said, “I’m not one to sing praises, but Fire Blockade represents a major breakthrough for our profession. It does so much to protect the people we are committed to protect, as well as our firefighters and property and the environment.”
The chief has Fire Blockade pre-mixed on all his department’s trucks, and keeps Fire Blockade extinguishers in his car and home.
Smith felt stymied because he had little marketing savvy and because his company was based in Arkansas, near the Louisiana line. “Arkansas is not seen as a tech mecca,” Smith said.
Then, the Mendelsons came into his life.
One of the Mendelsons’ companies, Ramblin Corp., supplied Smith’s company with raw products. David Mendelson, 39, said, “Through discussions over the past year, we all realized that there was an opportunity to create a new business around the potentially world-changing technology that Bob created. Bob is a great chemist, but not really focused on marketing and sales. Conversely, our history is based solely on creating sales and markets.”
Impressed with the Mendelsons’ business acumen and contacts, Smith formed a partnership with them, Fire Blockade Products LLC, and moved the headquarters to the Nieman Marcus building in downtown Chicago. The company is planning three new regional plants, including one in the Chicago area.
Mendelson said he and his father, Robert, 73, already have stepped up marketing efforts. A new Web site will be launched today, www.fireblockade.com, to sell 16-ounce aerosol cans for $19.95. Mendelson said the group is pursuing new uses for the technology in the consumer, professional, industrial and military/homeland security markets.
Smith said high-rises in places like Chicago could be a major market because Fire Blockade can be added to sprinkler systems. The team hopes to sell Fire Blockade in stores such as Home Depot.
Mendelson said being based near major manufacturers in the Chicago area and throughout the Midwest will help the company explore these markets. His family has been in business in the Chicago area since 1917, including running a recycled paper mill with the Chicago Daily News in the early 1920s.
Smith, who is working on new formulations of Fire Blockade for exotic metal fires, said, “The company being in Chicago will have more credibility than being based in El Dorado, Ark.”