Moseley understood the fire’s threat better than most. As the founder and CEO of Sun FireDefense, one of the most well respected residential and commercial fire defense companies in the country, Moseley has built an esteemed reputation for innovative products and services that demonstrate a preternatural understanding of how fire spreads and, more importantly, how it destroys.
If anyone could help the man on the other end of the line, who said his $3.6 million house on Corral Canyon would almost certainly be in the fire’s path by afternoon, it was Moseley. Without a second thought he had jumped in his car, and along with a small crew of Sun FireDefense staff, was soon speeding toward the smoke-choked Corral Canyon. With no time to spare, Moseley and his team hurriedly got to work doing everything they could to protect the man’s house, dousing it in Sun FireDefense’s trademark clear coat, fire-resistant paint, and then fortifying its windows before fleeing the property just as they began to see flames.
Three weeks later, when the homeowner finally arrived home, the impact of Sun FireDefense’s quick work was revealed in incredibly visceral terms. The fire had hit Corral Canyon with force, destroying property after property on the man’s street. And yet, astonishingly, his home remained completely intact. In pictures he sent Moseley that day, you could clearly see patches of soot where embers had blown against the home’s windows, and flames had licked the exterior walls. It was clear to everyone that if not for Sun FireDefense’s quick work that day, the home would have undoubtedly been destroyed.
“Seeing that felt amazing,” said Moseley.
It’s moments like these which make the decades of work Moseley has dedicated to the art of defending homes from wildfire destruction worth it. It’s a passion which started years ago and worlds away, during a tour of an aeronautical facility Moseley was taking for his employer. As part of the tour, the company demonstrated the resilience of new tiles they’d just acquired for the outside of the Space Shuttle, which utilized the same science behind fire blankets to create a surface that was almost completely fire resistant. Blasting the tiles with a torch, they seemed to show absolutely no signs of burning, even after minutes of direct, high intensity contact.
“I was blown away,” Moseley said. “And I became interested in what that material could do as far as a crossover into commercial and residential structure types of applications.”
Moseley began consulting with residential architects and engineers and was surprised to learn there were few products or services on the market for defending homes and commercial buildings from wildfire destruction. So, he then began researching the best way to do it, immersing himself in research on fire mitigation and leveraging his knowledge of innovative materials and engineering from his work in aerospace into truly original, effective products. Moseley’s products utilize cutting edge materials and engineering to withstand the power and heat of direct flames and embers.
Eventually Moseley presented his findings to a local architect, who was so impressed he immediately connected him with the equipment manager for the Los Angeles Fire Department. Soon Moseley was working closely with the LAFD, integrating his new products and expertise into a variety of innovations that would transform many vital pieces of the department’s equipment, including new fire shelters and windshields that proved exponentially more fire resistant than industry standard bearers.
Moseley would go on to work with a number of other fire departments throughout the west, developing fire resistant equipment in some of the highest fire risk areas in the country, before pivoting back to his original dream; providing cutting edge, fire resistant coatings to residential and commercial structures.
Moseley opened Sun FireDefense, which soon established itself as the industry standard for residential and commercial fire defense. Unlike competitors, Sun FireDefense approached the task of fire defense holistically, utilizing cutting edge materials and engineering deployed through a breadth of services from window coverings and exterior sprays to sprinkler systems and even insulation, all expertly engineered to withstand the power and high temperatures of the most neighborhood-wide wildfire conditions. Pricing currently starts at $6.00 a square foot, which is very low cost compared to other fire defense solutions.
In the years since, Sun FireDefense has become more vital to the Southern California community than Moseley could ever have imagined. With wildfires getting worse and afflicting more and more areas each year, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Sun FireDefense has become a necessity for hundreds of thousands of families across the State of CA, including many in Malibu. In 2017, a house that had been treated by Sun FireDefense took a direct hit in the Skirball Fire, emerging almost entirely unscathed.
For Moseley, it’s nothing less than a dream come true to know that he’s offering peace of mind to so many.
“These are scary times,” he says. “But it’s incredible to know that we can help.”
