When someone tells Peter Cordani that it can't be done, that's when he just gets started.
Cordani is the inventor of FireIce, a fire retardant capable of putting out fires as hot as 20,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
"The techniques we have been using for the past 50 years were fine, at the time, but you can see that they're being outgunned," he told The Huffington Post. "These long term retardants aren't working anymore and forest fires are getting just huge. That's what made me leap forward."
So how is FireIce different that other retardants? When the baby-powder substance is mixed with water, it turns into a gel. Once the gel is applied to something, a flame will essentially be unable to ignite it. Cordani is so confident in his product that he demonstrates its effectiveness by coating his hand with it and holding a blowtorch to his skin.
FireIce is an eco-friendly fire retardant as well. Cordani is more than willing to demonstrate this aspect of the product as well by putting some on his tongue. Apparently, it "tastes like applesauce. "
The product has been proven to extinguish car, house, forest and even electrical fires. Despite the success of FireIce, Cordani said he gets most excited when he hears about the gel saving lives. Recently, a firefighter told him that if his team didn't have FireIce, they would have lost two people to a fire.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to Cordani as a firefighter.
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