Last week, a major fire erupted at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. This unexpected fire destroyed the Parisian monument, damaging the cathedral’s interior and causing the spire comes down crashing. Having said that, investigators suspect electrical short circuit was the most likely cause.
A lot of fire accidents are linked to a malfunction of either a piece of electrical equipment, wiring, and more. In fact, electricity is a common source of ignition for major fires. Furthermore, Negligence is another common cause of the fire be it on the workplace or tourist place.
Fire prevention should be considered part of everyone’s job and the best prevention for fire is education and proper training. In addition to that, workplaces and other heavily populated places should be equipped with fireproof shutters, fire extinguishers, blankets, water sprinkler system to protect their property as far as possible, CCTV and much more.
All said and done, advances in technology increase our odds of fighting fires effectively with earlier detection and more versatile suppression methods. Below is the list of startups that are working on preventing/suppressing fire accidents around the world.
Drone Hopper (Spain)
Funding: €50K
Founded by Pablo Flores Peña, DroneHopper is a Spanish company specializing in the design and manufacture of self-guided drones. It is designed to act in extinguishing forest fires. Each drone has a maximum capacity of up to 300 litres of water and a size of 120 cm in diameter and 30 cm high. In addition, Drone Hopper is an ideal solution for spraying insecticides in crops as well. Moreover, the drone has structural modifications that allow implementing features that make the transport and viable misting up to 300 litres of water and control systems, thermal cameras and navigation.
Finsecur (France)
Funding: €25M
Established in 2000, Finsecur is an independent high-tech company dedicated to designing, manufacture, and maintenance of fire safety systems. FINSECUR is also present in Great Britain with Thefirebeam and in Spain with DETNOV. The company guarantees fire detection products that are effective, durable, simple to operate and maintain. They are certified in laboratories recognized at European level, mainly the CNPP.
Efectis (France)
Founded in 2006, Efectis is a major player in fire science and covers all fire safety expertise in testing and modelling, certification, education and inspection. Based out of its experience, from small scale to large scale, from materials to construction, Efectis assesses the fire performance of your products, systems or of your entire project. The company covers all fire safety capabilities and know-how in testing and modelling around the world with offices and laboratories located in France, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, the Middle-East area and China.
SinclairFire (UK)
In an attempt to make the world a safer place, the SinclairFire has developed SF1020, an infrared fire detection device, designed to respond to fires rapidly and without false alarms, saving lives and reducing the cost of fire damage. Founded by James Popper, the company work with Fire and Rescue Services, Social Housing Providers and Developers to make the home a safer place.
Nitrofirex (Spain)
Nitrofirex was born with the idea of solving the technical barrier between forest fires and aerial night extinction application. The company has designed Autonomous Container Gliders (AGC) that are capable of transporting large amounts of the extinguishing agent inside the integrated tanks. It offers the ideal solution, as a complement to the existing manned aerial resources and as direct support to the ground brigades as well.
Stock photo from Konstantin Tronin/Shutterstock
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