The Dream That Built Firesonic

I invented Firesonic from a dream.

It started on an ordinary evening. I had a tenant renting the basement apartment, and that night I realized I’d forgotten to tell her where the manual fire extinguisher was. It was late, so I decided to tell her in the morning.

That night I dreamt a fire broke out in the basement. In the dream I rushed downstairs, and when I reached the furnace room, the flames blocked me from the manual extinguisher mounted on the wall. All I could do was stand there watching the furnace room burn out of control, calling 911. I woke up in a cold sweat.

The next morning I told the tenant exactly where the manual extinguisher was, and I went off to work. That day I was installing drywall around a fire sprinkler unit in a ceiling. I took a close look at the sprinkler pendant attached to the pipe. At lunch I came down off the scaffold, took notes and photographs, and walked over to my tool and die maker — an engineer — and told him my idea: a fire sprinkler automatic extinguisher that would activate on its own when a fire reached 135 degrees. Without human intervention.

That’s how the first model came together, and how the testing began. Ten years of research and development since — hundreds of units discharged in testing, every one activated.

Most inventions come from dreams, I guess. This one came from a nightmare — and from the refusal to ever feel that helpless in front of a fire again.

— Frank Tarsitano, Inventor of Firesonic