Torch Gets Lit
By Aideen Murphy
April 2023
Fire season shaped Vasily Tremsin’s life, preventing the California native from playing high school sports or going outdoors as much as he’d like, due to poor air quality. Frustrated by the lack of intervention, he developed a novel multivariable early-warning system, which earned him top honors at the California Science & Engineering Fair in 2018. His concept captured the interest of Michael Buckwald, a serial entrepreneur who’s not easy to impress.
“There were some tools for wildfire prevention, but no one was approaching it from a truly disruptive perspective,” says CEO Michael Buckwald.
Given that wildfires are increasing by 30 percent every year and show no signs of abating, Michael instantly saw the potential in Vasily’s engineering. “When you move to Silicon Valley, you believe technology can and should be able to solve anything,” Michael says. “When smoke blankets our neighborhoods and we’re living in darkness at noon for weeks every year, it just doesn’t make sense to me that we haven’t found a tech-enabled solution. There were some tools for wildfire prevention, but no one was approaching it from a truly disruptive perspective.”
Torch’s system can recognize a fire under two square feet in size — much smaller than what satellites (the current prevention standard) can detect.
Michael teamed with Vasily and his father, Anton Tremsin, to found Torch Systems. The company’s accessible outdoor smoke detector provides early fire detection at an affordable cost: just $299 for a device that provides up to 10 acres of coverage and runs off solar energy, making installation easy. The company’s novel Internet of Things (IoT) system can recognize a fire when it’s under two square feet in size — much smaller than what satellites (the current prevention standard) can detect. Torch’s system warns users of fires while they are still containable, leveraging a mesh network across large swathes of variable terrain.
The company wants to make a big impact in California, which has more than 33 million acres of forest land. (Well over half of that is owned by the federal government, while just 3 percent is owned by the state.) This land is largely unsupervised, making it particularly susceptible to catching fire. Since it doesn’t rely on Wi-Fi to communicate alerts, Torch’s system can operate in rural areas, offering much-needed oversight in the Golden State.
In recent months, the Torch team has focused its attention on the first public launch of their product, with a new website, video and media campaign timed to a worldwide pre-order effort. The company is targeting consumers, vineyards, farmers, and small- and medium-sized businesses across the spectrum, as well as “long tail” investments by government entities and large corporations.
The advent of mandatory smoke detectors in the 1970s dramatically reduced the number and magnitude of indoor fires in the U.S. Torch aspires to do the same for outdoor fires, so that young people in California never have to think twice before heading out the door.
