Catching Fire

By Larry Lindner
May 2024

As the nation’s second-largest wildfire in history raged across the Texas Panhandle this past winter and scorched more than a million acres, one had to wonder: Could wildfire disasters like this be caught before roaring out of control?

The answer is yes. A company called Torch Sensors makes a device that sends out alerts when a fire is just a couple of feet wide. Each sensor covers 10 acres and can often detect flames within seconds of their eruption, sending an immediate warning through an app.

While individual homeowners can buy a Torch device for their property, Michael Buckwald, a Co-Founder and CEO of the company, reports that an increasing number of units are going to customers with more acreage to protect. One country in Europe is buying hundreds in a pilot program which, if successful, will expand to tens of thousands of sensors. A U.S. company with 120 solar farms has ordered hundreds of devices in a pilot program of its own.

This surge is timely. The U.N. Environment Programme anticipates a 14% increase in “extreme fires” across the globe by 2030. Torch Sensors’ clients hope to stave off billions of dollars in losses to infrastructure, homes, crops and livestock — not to mention human life.

Torch Sensors is remaining a step ahead, as well. Company Co-Founder and COO Vasya Tremsin, who invented the device, says that “one or two companies are trying to do what we are doing, but none of them has the multiple variables we have” to detect fire, including several gas sensors and sensitive built-ins to pick up temperature and humidity changes.

Each Torch sensor covers 10 acres and can often detect flames within seconds of their eruption.

With the influx of orders comes the need for an influx of investment. “We’re starting to carry significant cash revenues,” Michael says, “but we’re reinvesting for growth and more hiring.” Currently the company has a staff of four who work in what Michael calls “a culture of high expectations.” There’s a lot of trust in the workers, he says, “but we also expect a lot from people. We co-founders are very hard-driving ourselves.”

The next target for increased growth that would necessitate more hires “would probably be series A, scaling from angel funds,” Michael says. In hard numbers, that’s going from about $1.5 million raised since 2020, to $10 million to $12 million, which would allow for ready expansion.

People are often moved to invest in the product or buy it in the wake of a dramatically devastating fire — an increasingly common occurrence as climate change takes its toll, including in the company’s native San Francisco. “Seeing the Bay Bridge surrounded by a post-apocalyptic haze — that symbolism is really, really powerful,” notes Michael. “We hear all the time from people who have lost their homes, their neighborhood, or their business.”

In the future, Michael, Vasya, and Torch Sensors’ third Co-Founder, Vasya’s father, Anton Tremsin, are hoping for feedback not from prospective customers, but from those who have already purchased the device and want to report that their land, their homes, their businesses, and the lives of their loved ones have been saved.