WASP Manufacturing

Wildfire Associated Structure Protection

WASP Wildfire News

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WATERAX Platinum Dealer

WASP is proud to announce we are now the Platinum Dealer for WATERAX in British Columbia! We now have the best pricing available for pumps, skid units and all other wildfire suppression products offered by the largest manufacturer of this equipment in North America. Contact WASP for more information.

WATERAX portable fire pumps are built to last, and offers a complete line of high-pressure centrifugal portable fire pumps and components suited to meet the most difficult water handling requirements. See videos of the latest MARK-3® fire pumps.

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WASP Wildfire Structure Protection Units roll into High Level Alberta. These Type 2 SPUs are built to exact specifications as directed by BC Wildfire Services and available for sale or rental as required by government or industrial clients across North America.

Type 2 units are fully equipped to sprinkler protect both large and small structures and dozens of houses. Trailers can be rented with or without certified wildfire crews. Contact us for information.

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Fire season has come early. According to the BC Wildfire Service fire map, there have been several fires burning already throughout the province, including one in Deka Lake earlier in May.

WASP offers sprinkler systems to help protect homes from wildfires.
The 20-foot SPU trailer. Darrell Pyke stopped by in 100 Mile House on May 9 while driving it to Prince George where it will be stationed. Brendan Kyle Jure photo.

“It’s a world-wide issue. I think you have to live under a rock to not know or see the news about how many structures and homes are being lost every year to wildfires,” said Darrell Pyke, the co-founder and technical director of WASP (Wildfire Automated Sprinkler Systems) who passed through 100 Mile House on May 9.

Pyke, a former wildfire contractor who attended the 2003 Terrace Mountain Wildfire and the Peace River wildfire in 2016, founded WASP seven years ago with his partner, Randy Cowling. The company holds the patent to a gutter-mounted sprinkler system that can be deployed from the ground.

“We have automated systems [the Ministry of] Forestry (MoF) and fire departments can set up in a small community, maybe around a trailer park. They’re able to control those systems with off their cellphones or a laptop,” he said.

The sprinklers are also available to homeowners. The sprinklers are low consumption and just hook up to a house’s gutter, requiring only a garden hose to protect the average-sized home. A bracket was also developed to help set it up on residences without a gutter.

The sprinkler, which sprays water in an 80-foot radius (40 on the roof, 40 for the back/front yard), can be placed on a timer.

“You don’t need a thousand gallons of water to protect a home. The way we protect it is from the roof down, that’s where you are going to get your ember attacks,” said Pyke.

He added that 80-90 per cent of homes lost during a wildfire is due embers landing on the roof and going into gutters, which then allow the embers to fall on wood piles or shrubbery, starting a fire.

“We are currently negotiating with three of the fire chiefs in the local area -Forest Grove, Lac la Hache and 100 Mile House,” said Pyke about WASP’s community program where they give fire departments the product to sell at their community events. “Part of the proceeds go directly into their fire department.

According to Pyke, WASP has over 100 fire departments involved in the program over the past two years in B.C. and Alberta.

They can be purchased from their online store, www.shop.waspwildfire.com.

WASP also has ten trailers called Sprinkler Protection Units (SPU) contracted to the MoF. They are about 20-foot in size and store enough gear to protect 100 homes each, including several hundred sprinklers, 15,000 feet oh hose of different types as well as four pumps and generators.

Pyke said the trailers can be deployed quickly and are manned by a four-person crew with two pickup trucks. WASP is working with a company based in Quesnel and Lumby called Seneca.

The company does tree planting as well as fight wildfires during the summertime with over several hundred people aboard.

Seneca provides the four people for each trailer.

Four of the trucks are stationed in the Prince George Fire Centre, another four are in Lumby in the Kamloops Fire Centre. The remaining two are based in the Vancouver area. Currently, there are none stationed in the Cariboo Fire Centre. Pyke said they were stationed strategically around the province.

“The trailers aren’t dedicated to that district. So for example, if there was an issue in 100 Mile House or 70 Mile House they would just call up which trailer is strategically closer or available. If there was a couple of trailers available in that Lumby area, they would just bring it up with a crew within hours, or even down from Prince George.”

Brendan Kyle Jure, May. 16, 2019 1:30 p.m.
https://www.100milefreepress.net/news/wasp-offers-sprinkler-systems-to-help-protect-homes-from-wildfires/

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Wildfire Protection Kits
WASP Wildfire Protection Kits

During a wildfire, embers can be carried a long distance. Hot embers can easily ignite a dry roof or surrounding area. The Wildfire Automated Sprinkler Protection (WASP) gutter-mounted sprinkler system helps protect your home from these hot embers. The wildfire protection kits provide a simple and quick way to get water on your roof and surrounding area.

WASP is a trusted manufacturer of sprinkler equipment sold to fire departments throughout North America. The kits are quick and easy to install and come with everything needed to help protect a standard size home. No ladders or tools are required.

“Our fire department uses these same sprinklers in our structural protection trailer and throughout our province,” said Comox Fire Gord Schreiner. “They are designed to be quickly deployed in an area threatened by wildfire. We are pleased to be able to offer these to citizens so they can be better prepared in case of a wildfire in our area.”

The kits sell for $154.99 each and come with two adjustable, agricultural-grade sprinkler heads designed to conserve water and work on very low pressure if required, two mounting brackets and two forestry grade flat garden-type hoses. Any profits made from this project will be reinvested by the fire department into additional interface fire equipment.

For more information, contact Chief Gord Schreiner at firehall@comox.ca.

Comox Valley Record, May 13, 2019 1:30 p.m.
https://www.mycomoxvalleynow.com/34691/comox-fire-offering-wildfire-protection-kits-to-residents/

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BX Swan Lake Fire RescueA big welcome to BX Swan Lake Fire Department to the WASP Community Fund Raising Program!

Under the program WASP provides our Residential Wildfire Protection Kit at reduced pricing which allows the fire department to sell the kits at a retail price to area residents, with $50 on each sale going back to the fire department.

To date over 70 departments have raised over $60,000 through this program while helping property owners protect their homes!

Fundraising Program

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Port Moody trailers getting sent to wildfires
Randy Cowling checks out the interior of one of the wildfire trailers his company is manufacturing in Port Moody. The trailers, equipped with hoses, sprinklers, valves and giant water bladders, are being deployed across the province for use by BC Wildfire Services and various fire departments to combat wildfires. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

Climate change might be bad for Randy Cowling’s grandchildren. But it’s good for his business.

Cowling’s company, WASP Manufacturing, is launching production of its new wildfire protection trailer at its Port Moody facility on Spring Street.

The 8,000-pound trailers are equipped with storage racks and bins that contain everything needed by crews fighting wildfires in remote and interface areas to protect structures and suppress the flames to where they can be managed. That equipment includes up to 7,000 metres of hose, heavy-duty pumps, sprinklers, valves, and splitters, as well as a chainsaw and toolkits for repairs and modifications along the way.

Cowling said the trailers are small enough to be attached to a half-tonne pickup truck that doesn’t require a special driver’s license and can be maneuvered in and out of the bush and along backroads and trails quickly. Once on the scene of a wildfire, crews can deploy the hoses and sprinklers to dampen the area around a blaze so it doesn’t alight. Water can be pumped from a nearby lake or stream, or from one of the giant orange bladders in the trailer that can hold up to 3,000 gallons.

Cowling said speed and maneuverability are key to fighting wildfires and limiting the damage they can cause.

“You have to get it out there as quickly and easily as possible,” he said, adding the equipment can also be used to pump away water from floods.

And the need to deploy such specialized equipment is growing as the effects of climate change take hold. Summers are getting drier and winter and spring rainy seasons are getting wetter. Average rainfall in summer is expected to drop 19% by 2050, while the average precipitation in Metro Vancouver is forecast to increase 5% in the same time period. In the past two wildfire seasons, more than 21,000 square kilometres have burned in B.C.

“You can’t argue there’s not climate change,” said Cowling, whose company also manufactures rooftop sprinkling systems to protect homes from burning embers.

Cowling said his company is producing 10 of the $120,000 trailers that will be used by BC Wildfire Services and by fire departments as far away the Northwest Territories and Ontario. The trailers are designed to meet specifications in other provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba as well. They’re also equipped to be tracked by satellite should one go missing.

One of the trailers has been acquired by the Richmond fire department, which had to get help from other Metro Vancouver fire departments that already own such a trailer, like Port Moody, when it had to fight a stubborn wildfire in a forested bog near Westminster Highway and Shell Road last summer.

Cowling said his company pre-builds most of the trailers’ interior components, like the custom racks and shelving, so it can turn around construction and equipping in about 30 days.

But with the threat of wildfires seemingly increasing with every summer heatwave, getting that turnaround time even shorter could soon be a necessity that is hindered by the availability of equipment like hoses, which needs to be ordered months in advance, Cowling said.

“It does make you nervous,” he said of the growing demand for his product.

Mario Bartel / Tri-City News, April 6, 2019 07:00 AM
https://www.tricitynews.com/news/port-moody-trailers-getting-sent-to-wildfires-1.23782364

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