00:00Fires can quickly escalate from damaging to catastrophic, and we're taking a look at a company today looking to stop
00:06those flames in their tracks or even before they start.
00:10We're joined now by Wes Bolson, CEO of Citratech. Thank you so much for being here today, Wes.
00:14You're welcome. It's a pleasure.
00:15Yeah, this is so exciting. Tell us a little bit about what the company is, how it works, and what
00:19the product is.
00:20Yeah, Citratech is the first fire retardant that the Environmental Protection Agency has actually ever recognized.
00:26Safe. It's actually food-grade ingredients. Some of the stuff you'd find in Coca-Cola is actually the core ingredient
00:32to help prevent fires, protect assets, and even make things like wood class A fire rated.
00:38Yeah, it's just incredible to think that a simple product could do that. Tell us a little bit about how
00:43it works, what the product actually is.
00:45I know you brought some props with me here, so tell us a little bit about it.
00:48Some people think I brought a bottle of moonshine. It's actually the product. It's uncolored and easy to spray.
00:55So you could spray that onto wood or lumber, and it soaks in, and then becomes fire retardant treated wood.
01:01You go out into the field, out into the environment. You could spray it under power lines, along roadsides, along
01:07railroad lines, and help render that vegetation non-flammable.
01:12So now you're preventing ignitions and protecting some of those most valuable assets.
01:17Yeah, it's really incredible to think about all the applications that it really could have.
01:20Tell us a little bit about the environmental part of it, right?
01:23You mentioned that it's actually environmentally friendly, which I can imagine a lot of other products that might be out
01:27there are not.
01:28Right. People get scared with the red stuff coming out of the sky, or phosphates that have potential heavy metal
01:34buildup and things.
01:35This actually breaks down naturally.
01:38Actually, potassium and citrates, citric acid kind of based off of grain.
01:42So we actually can grow fire retardants, which is the crazy thing, versus mine them out of the ground.
01:48And so the way it works is it gets onto that vegetation or out in the environment, and then in
01:54the presence of heat, it forms a char layer.
01:57It actually doesn't let the vegetation burn.
01:59So now you think about insurance and homeowners that want to protect around that area and the wildland-urban interface,
02:06and we can be out anywhere in the environment like that.
02:10Yeah, tell us a little bit more about some of the other products out there and how yours is so
02:14different.
02:14Because, again, when I think about fire retardant or something like that, I do think of chemicals.
02:19I think of maybe other ways that it wouldn't be as applicable to so many different situations.
02:23So how is yours different?
02:24Yeah, it's really the only non-phosphate-based solution.
02:28Phosphates were fertilizer.
02:29Basically, for 70 years, we've dumped fertilizer out of airplanes to suppress them.
02:35Fire starts, and we need to drop lots of fire retardant.
02:39Not that good for fish.
02:40Not that good for the land.
02:42Now, if what we could do is repeatedly apply something each year around high-risk areas with a solution that
02:49doesn't have heavy metals,
02:50that doesn't have any fluorinated PFAS has become this thing of, like, oh, scary chemicals in the environment.
02:57When you're looking at something that's natural and can help prevent those ignitions, you can continually put them under power
03:02lines, along railroad lines, etc.
03:04Yeah, it seems like it's so helpful, especially when we keep hearing about more and more fires.
03:08I'm from California, and there's so many fires that happen there, so many wildfires all around the U.S., and
03:13other types of fires as well.
03:14What is your next step when it comes to strategy on how to actually get this into the hands of
03:19the people who need it?
03:20It's really a three-step process for Citratec to get in.
03:22One, we build better.
03:23We start having lumber, building materials, wood products that are made with Citratec inside, kind of infused.
03:30The second thing, and even the siting of homes maybe in the future and protecting that home.
03:35So you start from the inside out, then you protect around the home itself, that we have Citratec that can
03:41be put out almost like a sprinkler system and render that.
03:43And then you go a little further out into the field, and you're looking at how do we put it
03:48where those fires are starting?
03:50How do you stop?
03:51Every fire, funny enough, starts at about two inches tall before they start devastating communities like we've seen.
03:57We need to stop it before it starts burning from house to house.
04:00We need to stop it where those fires are starting.
04:02Yeah, and thinking about all of that, I mean, it just seems like such a massive undertaking to create this
04:07product and then to get it out there.
04:09What have been the biggest challenges that you've had to face in trying to create the product?
04:13I think one of the challenges is we know how to suppress fires.
04:17There's never a budget problem.
04:18Once a fire starts, no one asks, do we have enough money to put it out?
04:22What we have to do is start shifting our mentality to how could we prevent those fires?
04:26Maybe for every dollar that we spend to prevent it, we could save six or seven dollars that we're already
04:31spending to suppress those fires.
04:33So I think it's really a heart issue.
04:36How do we support our heroes, our firefighters?
04:38How do we get the federal government, state governments, the California Department of Forestry and Fire and others to start
04:43saying,
04:43let's prevent these fires and let's do it where we know high-risk fire threats are?
04:48And how is it for you when you're thinking about all of these very lofty goals that are incredible but
04:53just take so much work to get there,
04:55how do you really balance the actual product, creating it, making sure that it works with also the cost of
05:01it
05:01so that these municipalities, these other government agencies, these other companies are able to then use it and actually implement
05:07it?
05:08Sure.
05:08I think the big thing is always come with science.
05:12It's, you know, people can put anything on a marketing claim, but when you have the Environmental Protection Agency,
05:16you have ASTM as the standard for fire retardant treated wood.
05:21You come with people going, this is a new solution.
05:24People, America, we like innovation.
05:26We like new products that are better, better for the environment.
05:29And then affordability, it's almost you can't afford not to do it.
05:33With the billions and billions of dollars of losses that we're seeing in communities,
05:37you know, it's that mentality of making it affordable to prevent those ignitions so that we can not have to
05:44suppress them.
05:45Yeah.
05:45And do you think that with all of these kind of increased fires and all of these issues that that
05:49could potentially actually help
05:51because it might encourage these places to actually start ordering the product and start putting it into practice?
05:56Yeah, I think we're at a pivotal moment.
05:58And even Citratec being here at the New York Stock Exchange and ringing a closing bell and doing all the
06:03things that we're doing
06:04is about a recognition that we need to do something different, that we need to be preventing the ignitions, protecting
06:11assets with it.
06:13And so I think there's an awareness and I don't think it's going away.
06:18It's not something, I mean, I would say the general public would say fires are getting worse, not better.
06:23And new solutions that can help are really going to be welcomed in the community.
06:29Yeah, I think they really will, especially ones that are actually safe for the environment as well.
06:33I mean, lastly, as you think about moving forward, where do you see the company going in the next 5,
06:3710 years?
06:37What's really your vision for it?
06:39Yeah, we formed, to get more of our product into lumber, wood products, building materials,
06:44we formed a global joint venture with Hexion Corporation, 50-50 joint venture,
06:48that is going to be about getting this product into as the boards are being made
06:53and as we're making new fire-retardant treated wood, we want to get this out as quickly as we can
07:00globally.
07:01So I see over the next few years it becoming a standard for fire-retardant treated materials.
07:05And then second, we have to get it out into the environment.
07:07We have to get it out into the field to prevent those ignitions.
07:11And one of our other partners at All Risk Shield is here,
07:14and they're the group that's going to help us with the boots on the ground,
07:18the heroes that have ex-firefighters with trucks getting it out.
07:22And so what I see is a mentality that moves to ground-based fire prevention,
07:26fire protection with great partners like All Risk
07:28and great partners like Hexion going out with the wood products to get it built in.
07:33Well, we look forward to seeing where all of this goes.
07:35Thank you so much, Wes Bolson, CEO of Citro Tech.
07:37We really appreciate you being here today.
07:39Thanks.
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