Several years ago one of Islesboro’s feistier elders started a fire on her stove top, and tried to extinguish it by slapping at it with a potholder, and inadvertently set a second blaze when she dropped the flaming pot holder. She called the fire company who came and took care of the whole mess, but Brian Hauprich, one of the responding fire fighters, was inspired that day to develop a product that would simply and quickly suppress a stove fire, especially a dangerous grease fire.
His product, called FryerFighter, is a three-by-three foot, high-temperature blanket that handles heat up to 3,016 degrees, packaged in a plastic tube with an easily removable lid. When a fire begins to blaze on a stove, merely spreading the blanket over the blaze will smother the fire and absorb the heat. The fire goes out in about 30 seconds as soon as the oxygen is used up. “It can handle any size fire that you can cover with the blanket,” Hauprich said. He has tried it on gasoline and diesel fires just to see if it worked — it did, but he doesn’t recommend it for electrical fires.
Hauprich found the fire blanket on-line, and imports the material manufactured in Europe, where fire blankets are widely used. He began his search looking for a wool product because wool is used to line firefighters’ turnout gear. “Europeans are much more fire-safety conscious than Americans,” he said, observing that it is odd that the material isn’t widely available in the U.S.
Working out of his home, Hauprich cuts the material to size and hems it, packages and distributes it. “You can reuse the cloth,” he said, “but it will smell like a greasy, smokey wet dog. It’s better just to throw it out and get a new one.”
Hauprich points out that classic fire extinguishers use dry chemical or water. Grabbing the wrong extinguisher can make matters worse. “You can’t use water to put out a grease fire,” Hauprich said, and the dry chemical makes a huge mess. “The blanket is easier to use — no danger of using the wrong extinguisher; it doesn’t need inspections, it won’t expire.”
“Restaurants could use this for minor grease fires,” he said, “If an ANSIL System,” the large overhead systems installed in commercial kitchens, “comes on, it makes a huge mess to clean up, clogs the stove, then you have to be closed for three days for the system to be recharged and for the health inspector to come in and check you out.”
The lightweight FryerFighter is also useful for boats, and will cover a small boat stove top completely.
To convince the dubious, Hauprich covers his hand with the cloth, puts a penny in his palm and aims a blowtorch at the coin. The heat does not penetrate the cloth.
He sells the cloth in the portable tube for $25. His wife, Mary, helps him with marketing and son Jack pitches in, too. The website is www.FryerFighter.