Greetings everyone. Thank you again for joining us on a Wet Wednesday. This is the second fireside chat that I have done in the last 20 years, and of course, I didn't really have any preparation. This is a topic that I think most of us in this room think about often. Actually, even before I do that, let's do this. We were very fortunate to have the CEO of CitroTech, Mr. Wes Bolsen, make a presentation yesterday. I felt that the solution to what he has is significant enough to talk about, and see exactly where we are, because this is a very big problem. Healthcare is obviously a very big problem in our country. Homelessness is a very big problem. Gun control is massive, right?
But at least depending on your geography, wildfires, they've now gone from something that were anomalies to essentially occurrences every two, three months. A lot of it now has no real correlation with rainfall or proximity to densely green areas. We all know exactly what happened to the Palisades a year and a half ago. That community is going to be in recovery mode for the next decade. Just as a show of hands, how many people in this room are from the state of California? Okay. Keep your hand up if you're from California. How many people live in a densely vegetative place that could catch fire? Okay, cool. Most of the people in California. Okay. Just as my own, how many of you live in a condo? Okay, cool. Okay. The HOA fees must be terrible. Wes, let's talk about history.
Let's talk about history even before, I think a lot of it is just they're building houses in places where there were no houses 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago. Urban density if you will.
Wildland-urban interface, wildland comes into where we are building. The WUI is what it is called in our industry.
The WUI.
The WUI.
I would love to know what the history of this has been for, say, the last century.
And how that has ultimately changed within recent memory.
Sure.
Then we can go from there.
Yeah. So big history. Smokey Bear has told us, "Put out every fire." U.S. Forest Service has done a great job, and Smokey Bear has told us to stop every fire. That is not what our nation nor our forest and communities need. We need good fire, too. We need to have good fire on the landscape, but we're scared, so we've come to a mode of suppression. Stop every fire, put air tankers up, drop toxic red stuff out of the sky. Make it stop. We don't even want prescribed burns. "I don't want smoke." You don't want your community to burn down either. So we're going to have to get back to the mentality of our First Nations people who put fire onto the landscape 100 years ago.
The buffalo would move, the good fire would come across, it would actually burn off the bad plants, and then you would have good regrowth. But we need to stop the bad fire. So we need to prevent the fires. We need to start preventing the fires where they're going to burn down communities and introducing good fire back onto the landscape. But over the last 10 or 20 years, we've just thrown all of our budget. We've doubled the amount of budget needed for suppression. We just put more red stuff out of the sky with more air tankers to stop more after they've started. And I think we're going to have to get back to prevent the fires under power lines, along roadsides, along railroad lines. We're going to have to start protecting assets where the fire is coming in. Our homes. We can't even insure homes anymore.
Let's talk insurance. Let's talk personal. Let's start protecting the homes. Let's start building the homes. California and Colorado especially, are mandating we build homes that are fire prone. Now we're talking building materials. There's investments around fire-prone materials, wood materials. CitroTech can play part of that. We're talking about how we would protect communities and on roadsides. That's another one. Then you get down to, "Hey, I want a sprinkler system on my home that if a fire were coming in, could autonomously deploy and protect my most precious thing, my home.
So you believe that the approach has to be multifaceted no matter what?
I do.
In this example, do you feel that what Cal Fire, because this has become a pretty significant topic, at least for the state of California. Do you feel that they have the right mindset and the right strategy to do their very best to essentially prevent conflagrations?
No. I think what we've got is an amazing hero group of firefighters, and that second word is important. If I put $100 on the table, they'd spend $50 on more trucks and $50 on overtime because they're hardworking, great people fighting fires. They don't have time or budget if we don't look ahead and say, "For every $1 you could spend preventing that fire, you will literally put $5 back in your bank account." You're already going to spend the $6. How about spend one and use the other five where you need? We've got to switch our mentality. I think we also need to start doing things when the Palisades or even the Lahaina fire in Hawaii, we can't have air tankers up when the wind is above 60 mi an hour. We can only have them up from sunrise to sunset.
Wind fires are spreading the worst in this country. Air tankers are sitting on a runway. Okay, let's build a ground-based fire retardant program. Let's have a quick response force. Let's go military style and have a ground-based CitroTech force that could say, "Hey, we'll get out ahead of that fire. Let's put a fire break in, but we can do it from trucks.
But Wes, you also have to understand that sometimes there are situations that no matter how much advancement you have or technology, it's going to burn. Palisades.
Yeah.
I don't know if anyone knows this, but the previous year, I believe it was 2024, the average rainfall in Northern California was 126%. The average rainfall in Southern California for the year 2024 was 3%. Right? It was dry as a bone. You get one bad wind and you get a monstrous fire and you have huge elevation changes, I don't think that technology can save you, right?
With the urban conflagration, there's 2% that is almost impossible to stop. We have to look at an act of God to stop it. A rain the winds die down. When a home is burning and 100 mi an hour winds, it's burning three, four homes ahead, it's very difficult. Number one, you always make sure people are safe. People and pets. We can replace property. So in the end, they had to let homes burn in the Palisades to save the community right ahead of it.
That was a 2% fire?
That was a 2%.
Was Hawaii a 2% fire?
I think some of that was a little more preventable. We have public safety power shutoffs. You look at the utility aspect. We've had fires in the last week, potentially by utility companies. We see California, we follow Cal Fire. It bankrupted PG&E. Too big to fail, 84 counts of manslaughter, largest admission to manslaughter in U.S. history from a utility company. What are we doing to prevent fires under those lines? I think we could be doing more. I think we could be putting preventive products out. Public safety power shutoffs, triggers, there's a lot of things coming in. I think some things are working on prevention, preventable. It's not just CitroTech. I'm speaking broadly for the industry. There's new technology coming in, LiDAR and some of the sensing and drones saying how do we need to have different vegetation management.
Things are coming in, though, that we don't spray herbicides as much anymore to kill the vegetation. I think CitroTech could become a play in how do we treat vegetation to help it be non-flammable while still keeping the vegetation there so that we don't have environmental runoff and erosion. There's a good reason. Plants do good things for the soil, too. I think where you get to is let's try to stop fires under 10 acres is a really good goal. That's where we have quick response or we have other ideas. I can talk more in the future. Drones can't carry the capacity right now. Top drones I'm seeing can carry about 40 gallons of product, water or a product like ours is about 10 lbs per gallon. About a 400-lbs carrying capacity that can spray is about all we have right now.
Yep.
There's still reasons, there's still good approaches. I believe in autonomous things coming. But I think what you have to do, I'm always going to stand with home hardening, get good siding, get good roof material, home hardening, defensible space, get the vegetation back. I'm going to work on vent screens on the home. Prevent the embers. Embers are burning down most of the homes. It's not a big wall of fire coming up and over. The 2%, if it's burning at 40 ft in the air, they call them a crown fire. If you're burning a crown fire at 40 ft, there's nothing that can stop that. There's no product that can handle 40 ft in the air. You've got to get the fire from 40 ft crown fire back down to 5 ft- 10 ft.
Let me see if I have this right. The fire that's coming towards you is 40 ft high.
It can be. That's called a crown fire. Your home will be lost. But 97% of homes burn down from embers blowing into the attic through vent screens, piling up between where your house, the ground. What if you could put a barrier around it to where, almost like an airbag, so as those embers are blowing in, they won't ignite either your home, you have the home hardening, defensible space. I do find that some homeowners, if you tell them they have to cut down the tree, the 100-year-old tree that's 4.5 ft from their home, they'd rather have their home burned down. So my answer is, well, maybe you should treat the tree so it's not flammable.
Can you spend a few minutes talking about what you guys have created? From my understanding, this is proprietary.
It's a mix, but it's safe. That's the funny part is we'll tell every ingredient that's in it. The Environmental Protection Agency said if this is going to be in our Safer Choice program, which CitroTech's the first product ever that the Environmental Protection Agency has recognized in their Safer Choice program, the core ingredient is the same core ingredient in Coke Zero, potassium citrate. Now, I'm not saying I don't know you're not maybe drinking too much Coke Zero these days, Chris, but-
No, it's kind of my favorite drink.
Oh.
As of 30 seconds ago.
Okay.
It's kind of worrisome, just a little.
If you flip it over, it says potassium citrate. We are tripotassium. Just a little more potassium helps it be a fire retardant. What we're looking at is an ingredient that's safe for the environment, safe for pets, safe for humans. It doesn't have toxic heavy metals. The red stuff got arsenic, cadmium, lead, different things in it because it was mined. Nobody puts it there. It just came with the fertilizer. Your industry. Back up. How did we get where we are? Monsanto, ag. For 70 years, we've dropped fertilizer out of the sky, and it was very profitable for the ag industry. We called a fertilizer a fire retardant, we dump it out of airplanes, and we mine the heck out of it to get more of it.
Idaho is a big producer up in Idaho that does a lot of the mining for it. I would say we are potentially approaching a time when it's like perfluorinated surfactants. Fluorine, we don't want persistent chemicals out in the environment. CitroTech, something that you spray out, which we need to apply every year. Yes, you need to apply it every year. That's good for my investors, repeat application, repeat sales. But if you had it last for three or four years, it's a toxic chemical. It's a persistent chemical. I don't want persistent chemicals. I want something that breaks down naturally. I want something that doesn't go into my drinking water. We need to demand, our communities have to demand better. I would say within two years, you aren't going to be able to repeatedly apply heavy metal-containing products out in the environment.
Can we show people what you have?
Yeah.
I want to see at the bottom.
Everybody sees the red stuff come out of the sky. Think about if you put aspartame or something into your water or sugar water. I use a lot of simple syrup in my old fashions. This has, per gallon, it would be about 2.5 lbs of powder. Think about like a Gatorade packet. It is definitely safe and effective. It does not have a smell. It is not citrus, it is citric acid.
They take that, and they basically drench the wood with it?
What you can do, I can take a 2 by 4 and just dip it in a tank of CitroTech, actually soaks into the cellulosic fibers, and this is rated by ASTM as Class A fire-rated lumber. Never pressure treated it, never had to impregnate it. By the way, pressure treating will weaken that board, that 2 by 4, by about 25%- 30%. When your architect is speccing out your new home, he has to spec in 25%- 30% more fire retardant treated, pressure treated lumber if they do that. Even crazier is if you had strands, they call them oriented strand board. They're little strands. That's glue and resins and phenolics that glue that together. That's super flammable. What if you could treat the strands and make it non-flammable? That could change our construction building for commercial housing, for multi-family housing.
Let's start building in a way that also has CitroTech traps it in. It forms a carbon barrier. Smoke is killing more people in our commercial housing than the fire. Apartment A is burning, and there's 99 more apartments. The toxic smoke coming off of that burning is what is actually poisoning the people that don't make it out of the fire. We're near zero on the smoke, so that's called UL, Underwriters Laboratories, GREENGUARD Gold. We need to demand better, safer, for how we build, how we prevent fires, and then how we protect communities. In a best example, utility. Let's just pick one. Edison, we're sitting in their backyard, would maybe spray under power lines and under poles.
Number one, the power line goes down, a flaming bird, a flaming squirrel, Mylar balloons, and other things that spark and arc and light a vegetation fire. Let's spray a 20-ft circle around every pole. Now, we aren't starting fires from the poles. Two, 90% of the time, they didn't start the fire anyway. It's a human. Let's protect the pole. Let's protect assets, a $50,000 utility pole. If I sprayed around that pole, I now have a nice little barrier. Then third, they become an extension of the fire community. Southern California, they become an extension of the fire community. If a fire is moving in and you put a fire break under your power lines, now your power lines aren't a risk. They're actually a fire break for the community on the other side. I think there's some ideas.
I think we're working with railroads, utilities, transportation agencies. 80% of fires start within 20 ft of a roadside in Southern California. 80. Why have we not demanded Caltrans stop their beautification project, called mowing, by the way, it starts a bunch of fires, not puts them out, and say, "Let's protect the first 20 ft of our roadsides." I think it should become a cry from Southern California counties. I'm getting the fire chiefs to start ramping up to say, "I'm tired of Route 118 in Ventura County, Cuesta Grade up in San Luis Obispo. We know where the fires are starting. Let's prevent them. Let's start moving budget that way." If you see that I'm passionate about it, I'm passionate about it, Chris.
I understand. My final thing, and then we are going to open it up to questions. Is there a lot that we can do? I know we spoke about this a little briefly and kind of taking out vegetation and trying to prevent embers from ultimately burning down your house, but I live on a hilltop in a corner, and we are How do I say this? There is kind of like a vortex that comes from Mount Diablo all the way down from the primary road. So if there was a 2% fire, there is no way you could save that house. But are there things that homeowners can do from all your knowledge, where it gives you a better chance.
Yeah.
In case it is not the mother of all.
Sure. I mean, I was going to say-
Fires.
Let's look at evacuation route. Sometimes there's only one way in, one way out.
Yeah.
If we're looking at some areas, you always need to look at how are we treating, in the county or otherwise, me getting out of that area. Because the home can be replaced, you and your family can't. If it's a fast-moving fire. So I'm always looking at ingress and egress. Get the fire community in, get you out. Second thing I'm looking at is can we move a little of the vegetation back from the home? If I had to pick two things. Fi rst thing I would do, because it's easy, put vent screens on. Embers are going to burn down. The 40-ft wall fire is actually, I have a 98% chance that that's not going to happen.
Yeah.
Okay? So I'll take a 98% probability on any of my bets on your prop bets.
It's called a vent? A vent?
Vent screen.
Vent screen.
By the way, two makers are BrandGuard Vents and Ember Guard. I can get you names. There's a couple, but you could just go to Home Depot and buy a mesh screen. It's $20, $30, $50, and over your vents and things. Cheapest, best, easiest, number one approach. Second, move some vegetation back. So far I haven't said anything about what I'm doing because that's the right answer. I'm going to always tell you the truth, Chris. So one, vent screens, and two would be get anything that's flammable back 5 ft-10 ft. Still have your beautiful landscaping around your home, 5 ft-10 ft. Those would be my first two. Then I would start down some of the other. Siding, materials. Don't have a wood shake roof. Change your roof.
Oh, yeah.
Embers are going to land on top of your roof and light it on fire.
Diablo, which is the town right next to mine, is literally a forest.
When you look at the houses, 80% of them have wooden roofs.
Right.
So-
Got to change it.
They were built when fire wasn't really a risk.
In that case, spray some CitroTech on the roof. It'll soak in and help. There you go.
That helps, too. Does anyone have any questions for Wes? I almost feel like you should ask one.
Good.
There is actually a firefighter, former firefighter, in this room.
Colorado.
I live in Colorado.
Oh.
Yeah. I'm in South Denver. Denver Tech Center.
I was wondering about that. Does it biodegrade over time or
No, it will biodegrade. Heavy rainfall.
On the slash, how long does it last?
Until a heavy rainfall. Naturally it is going to break down. In Colorado i f I'm working with one of our big utilities in Colorado, probably going to do it a little more with public safety power shutoffs, red flag warnings, particularly dangerous situations, asset protection mode versus sticking it out the beginning of the season because we don't have the Southern California fire season that starts with drought, peaks June, July, August. September starts coming down maybe, but we get Santa Ana winds and we're red, El Niño. Each state is going to move a little bit on drought season. You're always going to do it in drought season. In Montana, drought season may only be six to eight weeks, 10 weeks, but intense.
Washington DNR, Department of Natural Resources, has a significant issue up in Washington, Oregon, but it's going to be when that snow melt and dryness comes in.
CitroTech product works until it naturally breaks down with a heavy rainfall, which means you generally took the fire risk away. Say you're a homeowner though, and you deploy it, you'd be on your knees thanking God that the rain came in. If the rain came in, a heavy rainfall came in, one, it'd just stop the fire, two, it turned the vegetation green again. As you know, light, flashy vegetation is what ignites fires, not beautiful green grass. I can throw all the matches I want on it, and you're looking at that. So light, flashy vegetation and dry until another question there. Thank you.
Yeah, so say you can spray an area for how long before the fire comes back? Grass or forest or whatever it is, how long does it last?
How much of the area do you want to cover to kill the vegetation?
Well, fortunately I didn't kill it because it's still growing. So that's the thing everybody asks, "Are you killing the vegetation?" No. During drought season, actually it doesn't grow a lot. So your point is in the most flammable part of the season, if you treated, let's say 80/20 rule here. 80% of the vegetation had nice coverage, covered till wet with the product, keeps it. The 20% that kept growing, interestingly, the 80% will stop the 20%. It'll smolder a little and then just stop. The smoldering is going to come from the stuff that wasn't treated. So that's your answer is generally it's totally okay. If you treated it two months ago, still totally working.
We have time for one more question. Eddie?
Two more questions. Number one, is this a solution for the flagpole spray you were mentioning? Or is it just for trees and bushes?
Yes.
Is there a percentage of the solution that gets washed off by just a simple water spray?
Yeah, it's water soluble.
How does that follow those flags that last for 10-1 2 weeks? By 10- 12 weeks, it could last all the way to six months.
You don't want it for environmental reasons to last too much longer. You can get a little more rain durability possibly, but we're already at a pretty good rain durability on it. Your first question, yes, it's good until these chips, you can't tell were treated months ago, three, four months ago. I was going to light it on fire, Chris, but I'm not going to today.
Good. You couldn't find a blow torch.
If after this, I know finishing the question, if somebody's got a lighter, I'll walk outside and it's raining, I'll take the risk and I'll light a couple chips on fire. Not light them on fire, actually. I know we're coming to the end of this, so I'll stick around for some questions but-
You mentioned that it could help with mold growth. How does it do that?
Humidity doesn't matter. If you had a lot of moisture but not rainfall, humidity is not going to be rainfall. So it's going to stick in, and shouldn't hurt that. Humidity will keep the moisture in it, though. Okay. I think we're done. I don't want to big break. Okay, go ahead.
Okay. Yep.
Can we talk about pricing for homeowners?
You think about per 100 sq ft, it is only like $15-$20. It is not a lot. Not very expensive at all. Because you are only spraying a 20-ft strip, if you will, in your backyard or you are not spraying it everywhere. So very affordable. Short answer. Karen and I were talking after I met with Karen face-to-face. We are looking at homeless encampments. We are looking at some other fire breaks in L.A. County. Spencer Pratt got her scared, but I still do not have any contracts yet.
Well, I cannot wait to hear about them.
Thank you.