Wildfires Are Getting Worse, and One Chemical Company Is Reaping the Benefits

Along Via Volcano, a prairie road in Murrieta, Calif., acres of brush and grass have been sunbaked a dirty blond. Residents of the surrounding ranch homes call this dry vegetation “flashy fuel” because it burns fast. Here, 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the humidity is low and temperatures are often scorching. Even the tiniest spark, from the power lines overhead or a backfiring lawnmower, risks setting off an inferno. After a 2019 outbreak charred almost 2,000 acres and forced the evacuation of hundreds of nearby households, locals considered brush-clearing countermeasures, but mostly had to settle for staying alert all the time. “When you’re mowing weeds in the heat on the side of the road, you need to have a fire extinguisher,” says Susan Frommer, secretary of the community’s volunteer fire safety council.

During this year’s fire season, Frommer and her neighbors tested a more sophisticated approach. The safety council used a $30,000 state grant to hire Perimeter Solutions to spray the brush with a new fire-resistant gel called Fortify. Originally developed by Stanford biomaterials scientists before Perimeter acquired rights to the technology last year, the slightly sticky chemical is intended to coat areas prone to ignition—such as vegetation around utility poles, railroad tracks, rural highways, and so forth—and render them nonflammable. If a flareup runs into Fortify, the fire will smolder and then die in puffs of smoke.