A Firefighter's Invention is Protecting Hundreds of Thousands

Hey, this is Larry the Cable Guy. You are listening to Hope for the Caregiver with Peter the Caregiver.

The Count of Mighty Disco. What have we got for today? You know, John, you and I, first off, we love gadgets and we love tech.

We love anything that is going to help streamline the process of safety and health and everything else for family caregivers. And I found these guys. Actually, an ad popped up on my Facebook feed. Oh, they were listening to you.

I know, they were. And I was just minding my own business and this ad comes up and it was called Fire Avert. And I thought, well, that just really sounds interesting.

And so I went and looked at some more and I looked through their stuff. And let me tell you, let me tell you a little bit about this. Saving Lives and Property is what Fire Avert is about. And a firefighter, his name is Peter Thorpe, created a home fire prevention product that stops kitchen fires after years of him going to fires at homes caused by unattended cooking.

I mean, this is what it was going every 4.5 minutes. In fact, US firefighters are called to homes to put out kitchen fires. And these things could have been prevented if they had this device, Fire Avert. And this guy came up with this. And so I reached out to him. The more I got to know him, I thought, this is just too cool.

So I want to have these guys on because I'm seeing so many of these things. And John, I won't say this in public, but I have had this problem myself of unattended things on a stove. Let's just keep that between you and me, John. But I've had this problem because I get distracted or something and, you know, I'm doing something all of a sudden. The house is filled with smoke and, you know, crap. You know, Gracie's fussing at me. The dog's barking, you know. I mean, it's just, you know, I'm like, this is ridiculous.

And the life of a caregiver is kind of crazy. And so was, you know, the worry that we have over loved ones that may be having some visual issues or dementia or whatever. And I thought, we've got to have these things on. So I reached out and I talked with Mark Preston for a long time. And then here's Peter Thorpe, the guy that founded this thing.

And they're both on the phone with us. And Mark, forgive me, what is your title there? You're the director of All Things Knowing? No, I work on the business development.

I help with finance and overall just help Peter with the operations of the company. Well, I'm glad to have you both here. Peter, I am so thrilled that you're here, that you took time for this. This is, it's an intriguing and wonderful thing.

Necessity is the mother of invention. And Dern, if you didn't do it, take us into your story just a little bit of how this came about. Absolutely. First, thank you for having us on the show. You have a great show here. We love being a part of these. So thank you.

So, yeah, I love you running through this story. My background, I've been, as you mentioned, I've been a career firefighter for over 15 years. I run on a truck company.

I'm also a paramedic on the ambulance there. Early on in the career when I started being a firefighter, I realized that every shift that I had, we'd go on a kitchen fire. Whether it was just kind of smoke from a stove or a full-blown kitchen fire, that was just something I could bank on, that every shift was going to be a kitchen fire. So about four years in of doing this, we ran an apartment complex, and same thing, someone left some beans cooking. They got distracted.

They left their home. We get there. The apartment's full of smoke. We mask up. We have our tools there.

Pop the door open. We'll crawl under the smoke. The smoke alarm's blaring in the background, and it's just beans on the stove. And the kind of, I was driving the fire truck back home that day, and it kind of hit me. I realized, you know, if only that smoke alarm that was beeping could turn that stove off, that smoke alarm on that stove could communicate and work together, we never would have been called. And it was just kind of like a lightning bolt.

This is light bulb. And I tell you, Pete, I couldn't even sleep that night. I kept thinking of all the different fire calls I'd been on in my career up to that point.

If only this stove had turned itself off, automatically turned off, it would have stayed just thousands and thousands of property damage for different homeowners. So that was kind of how the idea came about. And then I was a fireman.

You know, I'm not an entrepreneur, so I kind of got a team built to ask other people, how do I do this? And we raised a little bit of money, got a team together, and a short 18 months later, we had our first product. And then you guys took this thing to Shark Tank. I mean, and that is no small thing. Talk about that a little bit. Was that a little nerve-wracking for you? Talk about that. You know, not as nerve-wracking being on your show.

This is stressful. Well, it's not the first time we've heard that. Shark Tank was fun. That was a good experience. And, you know, they came, so the casting people, they came to our neighborhood. They were right down here in Provo, Utah, and it was an open call. And one of my mentors, he said, hey, Pete, you should go down there and just pitch it. And I was like, nah, you know, we're too new.

We're not a big enough company. I woke up and said, what the heck? I'm going to go down there and do it. And if no one's done this before, this is how it happened. They give you 60 seconds to pitch your product to one of their judges there. At the same time you're pitching, there's two other people pitching on each side of you their product. And you have 60 seconds.

So you've got to block out these other people that are five feet away, and you get 60 seconds, and they say, great, thanks. We'll contact you in a month if we're interested. Well, they called me the next day and said, hey, we loved it. We want to do another interview.

And then over the next month there was probably like six different interviews. And then the next week they flew us down to L.A. And we filmed it. And then on the show we did a deal. We got very fortunate.

Lucky did a deal with Lori Guernier on the show. And Shark Tank was awesome. That was just a catalyst that the company needed. What I always say, it kind of pushed our company about four years ahead of where it should have been. We had so much publicity, so much growth, so many good people reached out to us. So it was a lot of fun going on Shark Tank. Well, so by the time you got there, you had already drilled down into what your core message was.

You had your pitch down cold. It wasn't like you just showed up at Shark Tank one day and had to do it. You really had some prep work stages, I guess.

Is that a fair statement? Yeah. So they assign a producer to you, or actually I think we had like two or three producers, but they work with you for over the next almost a month. And they kind of perfect your opening spill, your opening pitch to the Sharks. And you work with them on that. And then it's really what's cool about Shark Tank, there is no retake.

It's not like, hey, stop, say that again. You go out there on the stage and that's the first time you see the Sharks. And they just, you start negotiating and you're on stage for about an hour negotiating, going back and forth. And then the producers there kind of take the best eight minutes. And that's what we get on TV.

Well, it sounds like that they really wanted to set you up for success as best as they possibly could. Yeah, and that's what it does. And so just going on there and our message for them was, hey, fiber prevents fires. That's what it does.

But it does more than that. Like fiber is perfect for our multifamily customers. It's perfect for our senior housing customers. It's good for our everyday homes. But it's also good for our caregivers and people out there that are caring for someone else. And we've got to share our message how fiber just doesn't prevent fires, but it provides peace of mind.

It allows people to have a better quality of life because it's always there 24-7 protecting just not the home, but the individual. And so they said the Shark Tank is a great platform to share your message to the world. Well, it sounds like it. And Mark, you and I talked about this. And as I mentioned, you know, my mother has visual impairments and I have a father that has Parkinson's and they live together and they do fine.

I mean, we watch it. But, you know, with mom not being able to see as well, this has been a concern. You know, are buttons getting turned off properly? And so we started seeing that you and I talked about the real time applications of that. Talk a little bit more about that and what this does as you see the continuing applications of this wonderful product.

Yeah, thank you. We initially launched with the electric stove fire ever, which, as Peter mentions, is actively listening for smoke alarms that can be up to 60 feet away. These particular devices are very, very easy to install.

There's no tools required for the electrical install. It just fits comfortably easily right behind the stove. And once it sinks, which is just a push of a button sinking, this is this is a lifetime product. It's powered. So there's no need to change the batteries.

And this particular microphone is actively listening all the time. And so when a smoke alarm does activate, whether it be, as Peter mentioned, maybe beans on the stove or someone walks away, maybe sits down and falls asleep. I mean, we understand, as you've mentioned on your show, the fog, the fear and these things in weight of caregiving, they do wear on you. And you may put some things, you know, on the stove and forget about it as you sit down and then you're just overwhelmed with exhaustion. Well, the firebird never sleeps and we're actively listening when it hears that it does then wait 30 seconds to give you a chance to respond and potentially fan out the smoke and turn off your smoke alarm. But if not, it then actively shuts off your stove immediately. And now the source of the heat is gone. And so whether they just simply forgot, maybe they left the home and walked away, whatever distraction it may be. Firebirds on guard to protect those unattended kitchen fires. We built devices for gas stoves as well.

They do require a wrench to install, as you may imagine. But it's really just that. They're very simple. We've also deployed the technology for microwaves and toasters that you can plug a 110 volt device into maybe a space heater. Anything that you potentially could forget about and it may tip over or a blanket gets dropped on them. Firebird is there on guard to protect that, the home and family from these dangerous fires that occur. But what I'm catching is that it's a it's a device that goes between the whatever it happens to be, if it's a stove or a you know, if it's a 220 or a 110, it doesn't really matter what it is on the other side of that.

That's right. I'm guessing you key it to give to like like hit the test button on the the the smoke alarm that you happen to have and then the button on the device or like how does that work out? And there's just an interrupt, you know, if it senses this particular sound. So when you put your Firebird, you'll plug the Firebird in. Once you plug it in for the first time, you go and push the test button on your smoke alarm for about 15 seconds. Once the Firebird hears your particular smoke alarm, it's paired up or trained to listen to your particular smoke alarm. And Firebird works with all smoke alarms on the market. And then so the next time that you leave your stove on or the space heater or toaster and that smoke alarm is starting to beat from a little bit of smoke, Firebird will hear it, heal the heat source to that appliance and prevent it turning into a fire. So Firebird is a prevention device.

We turn off the heat source before there's a fire. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So, yeah, as soon as there's smoke, the power is cut to this. So that's right. There's no – there's no extra – I mean, there may be a fire going on, but that doesn't – that just means that you're not adding more to that.

Yeah. And that's a great question there, John, is one thing that people need to realize is that smoke precedes fire. And so stuff doesn't go just from nothing to fire. It smokes and smokes, especially stuff in the stove. It'll smoke and smoke. Even greases and oil, they smoke and smoke. And so if we can get rid of that heat source, if we can turn off the stove while it's in that smoking stage, it never gets to a fire. And so a little bit of smoke is always easier to clean up than fire. Yeah, no kidding. Well, we're talking with Peter… Speaking of somebody who's cleaned his cast iron pan a couple of times.

We're talking with Peter Thorpe and Mark Preston of FireAvert, and this is just a fascinating invention by a fireman who saw a need and said, you know what, I'm tired of being called to these houses with all this kind of stuff going on of something that can be avoided. We as caregivers get this. We know this. And I love what you said there. FireAvert never sleeps so that we can as caregivers. This is Peter Rosenberger. We'll be right back. Peter Rosenberger. He's not a preacher, but he's got great hair.

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. In my three and a half decades as a caregiver, I have spent my share of nights in a hospital, sleeping in waiting rooms, on fold-out cots, chairs, even the floor. Sometimes on sofas and a few times in the doghouse, but let's don't talk about that. As caregivers, we have to sleep at uncomfortable places, but we don't have to be miserable. We use pillows from MyPillow.com.

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That's MyPillow.com, promo code CAREGIVER. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident, leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed, and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg, and that is my wife, Gracie, from her CD Resilient. You can go out and get a copy of that at hopeforthecaregiver.com.

Just click on the CD cover right there. She is indeed resilient. And Peter, I'm on the phone here with Peter Thorpe and Mark Preston of Firevert. Peter, I've got to tell you, I have a very tender place in my heart for paramedics. Gracie has quite a few of them in her family, but there were a lot of them that stopped and saved the life of my wife while she was bleeding out on the side of the road.

She was a 17-year-old girl when she had this wreck. And your brothers and sisters in the paramedic world and all came to her aid. And so I would be amiss if I didn't bring this up and say thank you for all the lives that you have touched and what you do. It means more than you could possibly know. And so thank you because her car caught on fire and she was trapped.

It's a long story and it's a big story. But this is something just when I talk to guys who are in your industry who have, for whatever reason, felt the need to put your life on the line in situations like that for strangers and to help people who cannot help themselves, it is a deeply moving thing for me. So thank you for that.

And thank you for what you've done for this invention. You don't know the lives – you don't know the pain that you save people from. You never know the pain you're saved from. You only know the pain you live with. And you're preventing heartache beyond what people can really imagine because you've seen that heartache, haven't you?

We have. And first, thank you for those words. That's very kind of you to say that. And kind of what you shared there at the beginning, that's our payday. That's what kind of really that's – hearing that is great.

So thank you. And yeah, with fire, we're seeing the pain there, kind of what we started as this company has grown. And we're protecting over 200,000 households across North America now. And something that we hear a lot of is that for some of these people that maybe are aging in place or disabled, whatever their situation is, a lot of times family members go and unplug their stove because they're so worried about them cooking or leaving the stove on.

And for good reason, they're worried. And that, what we've learned, just breaks the person's heart. We've heard horrible stories where they unplug the stove and they're not allowed to cook.

Part of their freedom and quality of life has been taken away. And fire work, what we found out, is giving them that better quality of life that allows them to cook and the caregiver to feel safe and knowing, hey, if they do fall asleep or they do forget about it, fire work can shut off that stove. So fire work is just the stories and testimonies we get from people about, hey, my mom is cooking again. Or we had a really fun story about a mom that has autistic kids and her kids love to start cooking. And she was down at a neighbor's home. She ran out. Her son starts to cook, burns some food, smoke alarm goes off, starts smoking. Instead of her kids exiting the home because they're autistic, they went and hid under the bed because they were scared. And mom comes home. She sees and can smell smoke. She knows the stove has been turned off. She's grateful for that, but she finds her kids hiding under the bed. As a firefighter, that's the last thing they want kids to do is to hide in a home.

They want them to exit. So fire work is great just for any scenario you can imagine for anybody. But those testimonies have been really – that's a payday for us.

Yeah, no kidding, man. That has got to mean something to not only you, but to everybody associated with this company. It's one thing to come up with a cool gadget and cool product.

It's another thing that has the kind of application – one that has the kind of application that you guys do. You guys are expanding this into other products as well, space heaters, that kind of stuff as well from what I understand. Am I correct on that? Yeah, we are.

Yeah, you are. Absolutely. Let's say for microwaves, you've found so many people, especially maybe the seniors or just even kids, are cooking in microwaves. How many of our kids have put a fork or a tinfoil on the microwave or whatever it is, or meant to put 60 seconds in but put 60 minutes instead? Just with these microwaves. And so over the last couple of years, we've got this for microwaves now, which has been a huge help and success for people. It's been a lot of fun.

Espresso makers. I've left that one on plenty of times, John. Really?

I was going to say, well, we get the dreaded burn warning from the Instant Pot a couple of times. Yes, get that. Well, go ahead, John. I think a bit of unsolicited, because my brain goes in weird directions, have you thought of putting this in as like a built-in outlet for like new home construction or something like that? Absolutely. So we are actively developing that right now. It's probably another two years out with the timing of our certifications, but we see fiber being as common as the household smoke alarm. So fiber is being developed. Yeah, it'll be the outlet in the wall one day. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was thinking about this kind of as we have breakers and fuses for a reason.

The very same reason that you have right now and why not have that just built into almost everywhere. See, John is an idea man. John's a solution guy. All he does is just sit around and think of brilliant thought. He's like Billy Blazowski from Night Shift. He just thinks of brilliant things all the time.

And then never follow through. But these are great because I mean we think of things like power strips that protect against surging to protect the electronics, but when in reality what we should be protecting against is our loved ones. And so as you mentioned an interrupter, I mean we could see this as Peter said being installed not just for stoves, but eventually as a smart plug throughout the house that is actively listening that whenever there is smoke, if there's current going through that particular outlet to shut it off. And that would enable or prevent that heat source from potentially continuing to start a fire. Yeah, and you have smoke detectors that are that are integrated into the houses wiring that could potentially be used for that.

All kinds of stuff. So this is a really fertile area is what I'm just complaining about. No kidding man, gosh. Well listen, we're down to the bottom of the hour here and 92% of people say they want to age in their own home and that's not going to happen unless we can keep them safe. And this is a big part of it, and Peter and Mark, I want to thank you. When people want to get this, where do they go to firevert.com?

Absolutely. If I could just add that what we just read today, you just you just underscored that the National Fire Protection Agency reports that at age 65 people are twice as likely to be killed or injured in fires compared to the population at large, it gets even higher sadly like three times when they're over 80. So if you if you or your an aging loved one needs one of these or someone in your that you're caring for you feel that you want to increase that peace of mind, go to firevert.com, select the product that you want, whether it be an electric or gas or a microwave. Enter the coupon code on checkout caregiver, and currently we're running the lowest price we've ever run at firevert. They're listed at $99 for the electrical device but caregivers get additional 5% off today, or when you hear this, and so we encourage you to go to firevert.com and enter the keyword caregiver. That is very gracious of you guys and I'm just thrilled we're going to have you back on any updates that you have, please let us know because this is a huge part of our message is to help keep people stay safe and help keep caregivers with a better peace of mind.

Peter Thorpe, Mark Preston from firevert, firevert.com is the place to go. Let's let's go ahead and jump on this now folks. Don't wait. These are very affordable items here. And what is your peace of mind worth?

What is your safety worth? It's time to act today. Thanks so much guys for being on the show. This is John Butler, and I produce hope for the caregiver with Peter Rosenberger. Some of you know the remarkable story of Peter's wife Gracie, and recently Peter talked to Gracie about all the wonderful things that have emerged from her difficult journey. Take a listen. Gracie, when you envision doing a prosthetic limb outreach, did you ever think that inmates would help you do that?

Not in a million years. When you go to the facility run by CoreCivic and you see the faces of these inmates that are working on prosthetic limbs that you have helped collect from all over the country that you put out the plea for. And they're disassembling. You see all these legs like what you have, your own prosthetic legs and arms. When you see all this, what does that do to you? Makes me cry because I see the smiles on their faces and I know, I know what it is to be locked someplace where you can't get out without somebody else allowing you to get out. Of course, being in the hospital so much and so long.

And so these men are so glad that they get to be doing, as one band said, something good finally with my hands. Did you know before you became an amputee that parts of prosthetic limbs could be recycled? No, I had no idea. You know, I thought of peg leg. I thought of wooden legs. I never thought of titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and sea legs and all that. I never thought about that. As you watch these inmates participate in something like this, knowing that they're, they're helping other people now walk, they're providing the means for these supplies to get over there.

What does that do to you just on a heart level? I wish I could explain to the world what I see in there. And I wish that I could be able to go and say this guy right here, he needs to go to Africa with us. I never not feel that way.

Every time, you know, you always make me have to leave. I don't want to leave them. I feel like I'm at home with them. And I feel like that we have a common bond that I would have never expected that only God could put together. Now that you've had an experience with it, what do you think of the faith-based programs that CoreCivic offers?

I think they're just absolutely awesome. And I think every prison out there should have faith-based programs like this because the return rate of the men that are involved in this particular faith-based program and the other ones like it. But I know about this one. It's just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them. And I think that that says so much.

That doesn't have anything to do with me. It just has something to do with God using somebody broken to help other broken people. If people want to donate a used prosthetic limbs, whether from a loved one who passed away or, you know, somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Where do they find it? Oh, please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks very much, Gracie.