6 SEPTEMBER 21-27, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Born in 1963, Wolf spent his early years in Switzerland before moving to New York City. His father, Burt Wolf, became a PBS host for food and travel programs, exposing his son to the entertainment business from a young age. The boy loved science, but a fourth-grade teacher told him that he’d never amount to anything in that fi eld because the margins on his science papers were skewed. (Forty years later, he toasted her posthumously when he keynoted the National Science Teachers As- sociation conference — and he’s a two-time winner of the Science Presenter of the Year award, an honor given by Time Warner.) Despite his disdain for how science was taught in school, Wolf was fascinated by the television show Emergency and its use of stunts and special effects. Like count- less others, he watched TV programs and movies — always asking himself, “How do they do that?” — and was determined to learn more. At Columbia University, he earned a degree in writing and literature, studying Shakespeare by day and attend- ing paramedic classes at night. He bought an ambulance and started a business called Cinemedics, standing by on movie and TV sets, poised to help those who got injured. The more he observed the action, the more he was convinced of one thing. “We needed a lot more science and a lot less cowboy-ism,” he says. “A stunt is a phys- ics demonstration with a human payload. Using more science when planning stunts could reduce injuries on sets.” He needed a mentor in the fi lmmaking business and heard about special effects guru Gary Zeller, an expert in the science behind movies who’d invented Zel Gel, the gooey substance applied to stunt performers so they don’t get burned when set on fi re. (Zeller won an Oscar for this in 1986.) Wolf called him up and offered to carry his bags, make his coffee or sweep his shop for no pay. Two weeks later, Zeller hired him. They launched Z Team Productions and began working together on movies. In 1991, when Tom Cruise’s people asked Zeller to come to Memphis and assist on The Firm, he said he’d moved on to environmental issues and handed Wolf the phone. The young man headed to Memphis, taking Cruise to a shoot- ing range and showing him how to handle guns safely on the set. During fi lming, director Sydney Pollack asked Wolf to manage a small fi re they’d been using for a scene. “You don’t have to put it out,” Pollack said, “but it can’t stay here.” Wolf found a leaf blower and “moved” the fi re thirty feet away from the action. It was the fi rst time he realized that with the right amount of wind, you could control, and even relocate, fi re. It may have also been the fi rst time that his future motto — “If it’s impossible, count me in” — entered his mind. The Firm was based on a book by John Grisham, who had other stories to be fi lmed in Memphis. While creating special effects, Wolf worked with numerous A-listers, in- cluding Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro. He spent eight years in Memphis, honing his skills as a stunt/special effects/pyrotechnics/explosives coordinator and opening a pistol range on a property once owned by Elvis Presley. He loved the job, but science tugged at him. In 2000, Wolf relocated to Austin, Texas. Two things were now simultaneously un- folding within and around him: He was learning more and more about the scientifi c aspects of fi lmmaking — how to crash cars, shoot people and blow things up without harm — as the earth was getting hotter and more vulnerable to wildfi res. He’d never stopped thinking about the leaf-blowing incident on the set of The Firm and wondered if something more could be done with that idea. But he was too busy on other fronts (scuba diving, public speaking, working as a trial consultant, fathering three sons) to develop the concept. During downtimes in the movie busi- ness, he hosted several shows for cable net- works, including Houdini’s Last Secrets, What Destroyed the Hindenburg? and Ancient Impossible, and opened an “edutainment” park called Stunt Ranch. He brought in corporate execs for team-building sessions but wanted to do something for children. What he’d learned as a boy sitting in science classes was how not to teach science. He in- vited youngsters to the ranch to experience fi rsthand the science of stunts — by making things physical. “If you want to teach kids about the physics of falling,” he says, “have them fall through space. Let them experience science inside their bodies.” He created a live school assembly called “Science in the Movies,” revealing the STEM content behind movie stunts and special ef- fects, and performed more than 5,000 shows. Viewing his presentation, kids would holler and squeal when he lit a 2,000-degree-fi re in his hand (covered with Zel Gel insulation) and hoisted school principals atop stages with pulleys. He also did volunteer fi refi ght- ing, which again made him think about The Firm. He and the other fi refi ghters were sent into the fi eld with picks, axes and shovels. He was startled by the primitive equipment. “Our tools were medieval,” he says, “but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Even fi re- fi ghters describe their industry as ‘200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress.’” What, he asked the fi refi ghters, is your strategy for dealing with burning forests? “They told me that they were hoping for it to rain or for the wind to change direction,” Wolf recalls. He asked what it would actually take to push back and knock down large fi res. “A hurricane,” they joked. That got him thinking even more. Wolf started noodling with the idea of building a mega leaf blower, using jet engines outfi tted with mist injection chambers. He called Gary Zeller and asked if he thought the idea had merit. Zeller was so enthu- siastic that he offered to help Wolf write a patent for the machine. But before they could begin, Zeller died of pneumonia, and the plan stalled. After two decades in Austin, Wolf’s life was evolving again. Climate change was making the city “horrifi cally hot,” and in 2020 the pandemic struck, shutting down the ranch. He began looking for a cooler climate where he could engage with new people and chal- lenges, and not just any town would do. He was searching for the kind of folks who em- brace innovation and high-tech solutions to complex problems. He liked being around visionary people who enjoyed tackling “un- solvable” problems. Boulder fi t the bill. Settling into Colorado, Wolf fi nally had time — with COVID’s help — to address some fundamental questions. Movie directors were always asking their technical crews to do the impossible — and getting the results they wanted. Why should a movie director have access to weather on demand when a fi re chief doesn’t? Why couldn’t Wolf take the notion of “I saw it at the movies!” to another level? The level of reality. Wolf has another favorite saying: “Every situation is an opportunity.” COVID was defi - nitely a situation, and as it took hold across the country, he remembered something that Zeller had told him decades earlier: “Creativity fl ourishes absent of distraction.” Sitting above Boulder, where he’d watched the December 2021 Marshall fi re — which had killed two people, destroyed over 1,000 homes and caused $2 billion in damages — he drew up a schematic for the Hurricane. “Look at all the technology we turned to that failed during the Marshall fi re,” he says. “The hoses burned up. The trucks couldn’t keep pace with the fi re. The wind took over. Our tech could have helped.” Working 80 to 100 hours a week, he learned how to write patents and then wrote four of them, including one for CloudBurst, which took more than a year. He reached out to engineers and creative thinkers in phys- ics, chemistry, meteorology and other fi elds. He had a lot of contacts (11,000 of them on LinkedIn alone) and did a lot of Zooming. As he got to know Boulder, he began meeting the kind of people he was looking for. One was Jamie Brandess, who ran Boul- der’s Small Business Development Center. “I started working with Steve during the very early stages of Team Wildfi re,” she says, “and I was very excited about his idea and his innovation. I provided some initial insights into how to get the business started and con- nected him to resources. Wildfi res are close to home for me because I live in Evergreen, where the wildfi re risk is extremely high. I’m constantly doing what I can to mitigate the area around my home against fi re. When each wildfi re started, I always wished Steve’s invention was available in the market to assist during those disasters. I truly believed his innovations would save lives, put fi refi ght- ers at much less risk and reduce the loss of structures to wildfi res. He knows how to dream big and get things done.” Wolf got to know Andy Amalfi tano, a business executive and the volunteer leader of an emergency search-fi re-rescue response team in Boulder. He’d been directly involved in managing functions on some of the major forest fi res in Boulder County. “Steve and I met at the Boulder Emergency Squad, which he’d joined as a rescue candi- date,” Amalfi tano recalls. “When I heard about his vision of developing autonomous fi refi ght- ing machines, I was intrigued. My experience with managing small and large businesses, as well as a few startups, could be of value. I im- mediately realized that we needed an expert with experience in wildfi re management. I turned to Dan Eamon, who has extensive experience actually fi ghting wildfi res.” Eamon, the emergency management di- rector for Longmont’s Public Safety Depart- ment, had guided the LPSD’s response to natural disasters. “The Hurricane,” Eamon says, “has the potential to be a transformative technology in combating wildfi res. The abil- ity to deliver cooling mist and retardant over long distances in a ground-based platform could be game-changing. We can all see the differences in fi re behavior in the past few years, and something has to be done to bring new suppressive technology to the fi re ground. Excellent work is being done in the detection and Blowback continued from page 5 continued on page 8 Steve Wolf with the CloudBurst Hurricane. JOYCE JACQUES SINGUL AR
