"The emails continually fill my inbox: Startups exclaiming they have engineered a solution to protect homes from wildfires.

I’ve been pitched a system that monitors fires via satellite so it can automatically turn on water cannons when fire gets too close. Another offered high-tech speakers that homeowners can place around their home that blasts powerful but silent sound waves designed to disrupt the chemical process of combustion.

One recent one was so outlandish, I couldn’t ignore it:

An entrepreneur together with a former mayor of Malibu were appearing on Shark Tank to pitch a new system to literally lower an entire home into a subterranean vault when a wildfire approaches."

Noah Haggerty reports for the Los Angeles Times May 7, 2026. [2]