You’ve seen buildings and homes with fire sprinklers inside… but what about on the roof?
“It does save homes,” said Harry Statter of Frontline Wildfire Defense, a company that makes an app and a system that can help defend your home from wildfires.
We met up on LA’s Westside at a multi-million dollar home equipped with special sprinkler technology installed.
The roof-mounted system sprays a combination of water and biodegradable foam on the property when the fire threat is real.
“It’s the same stuff that firefighters carry on their truck; you just don’t need a firefighter there to apply it,” explained Statter.
The companion app (which is free to anyone) monitors all aspects of wildfire threats to your home address – monitoring data from weather reports, satellites, cameras, and more.
But you can also take it a step further and install the high-tech sprinkler system that douses your house in seconds.
The main thing it combats are flying embers, a major cause of homes catching fire.
“When you look at the distance embers can travel it’s really dependent on the wind… when the wind is blowing really hard these embers can travel up to 24 miles outside the wildfire perimeter,” said Statter.
The system can activate automatically with a notification and countdown or manually through the app.
And while it looks like it uses a lot of water, Statter tells me the proactive soaking uses less water than actually fighting a fire.
“The system proactively wets [various materials that make up the home] so that when embers land on those materials they’re in a condition that’s too wet to burn,” said Statter.
Frontline’s systems were activated during the recent LA wildfires.
“186 properties that were in that red flag area, at one point during the LA fires, there were 57 systems simultaneously operating. “We’ve been pretty successful – we’ve been getting a number of notes back from customers saying that the system protected their home from burning down,” explained Statter.
The sprinkler protection starts at around $500 dollars a month. Even without it, there are still steps you can take to fortify your home against fires.
“Apply home hardening to your home: Class A non-combustible roof, ember-resistant vents, vegetation management in the immediate and the intermediate zone on and around your home,” concluded Statter.
