By Amanda Jeffery
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Drayton Valley and District Free Press
Former local resident Don Hallett is hoping to help the town fight fires by making it rain on demand.
Hallett has invented a product; the patent-pending RainStreamTM. The device has a telescopic water pump, which allows fluid from hydrants, ponds, rivers, and other water sources to be shot into the air, using wind, one of the biggest hazards during a wildfire, to the firefighter’s advantage. Once the water has been pumped out of the tower through a swiveling, gear-driven sprinkler, the wind carries mist from the stream of water and can spread the moisture up to a mile in some cases.
“I’m here to save lives,” says Hallett. “I’m trying to bring another tool to the toolbox to change what’s actually going on.”
He says an assessment of major recent Western Canada urban wildfire incursions showed that wildfires can cost $1-2 million per minute once they head into urban areas. He’s hoping his device can not only mitigate costs but also keep people and their homes safe.
Currently, his company, Wildfire Innovations Inc. has one unit built and stored at Lakeland College in the Industrial Firefighting Training Centre, and another permanent unit installed at a fishing lodge near Kenora, Ontario.
When he spoke to council at the January 14 governance and priorities meeting, Hallett and his CEO, Rolf Wenzel, said they were also working on smaller, mobile units that are more cost-effective for some.
The unit at the firefighter training centre impressed many people, says Hallett. It arrived from the manufacturer shortly after the Jasper Wildfire, and he was told that if they had had the RainStream in Jasper, it would have been a different story.
“The ironic thing is Parks Canada phoned us a week before [the Jasper wildfire],” says Hallett.
Unfortunately, the manufacturer, who had promised the unit for May 2024, didn’t get it to Hallett until the end of September 2024.
Knowing his product could have helped, and that he couldn’t get it there was hard for Hallett. He could empathize with the people in Jasper as he had had his own unsettling experiences with wildfire evacuations.
Hallett’s mother’s family has been in the Drayton Valley area for many years, and his father was raised in the Tomahawk area. Hallett spent his own formative years in the community. In the early 70s, his dad was transferred to Swan Hills.
“In the four-and-a-half years we were up there, we got evacuated twice,” says Hallett.
The first evacuation lasted five days, and the family was able to stay together for the duration . When the second evacuation notice came in, Hallett’s dad was working in Whitecourt. The fire was burning between Swan Hills and Whitecourt, so his dad was separated from them for more than a week.
“Back then there was no cell phones,” says Hallett.
This meant any communication between his parents was difficult and relayed through his grandparents. Hallett says his family was moved around to different motels and hotels as was his dad, so speaking to each other directly was a challenge.
When his dad was finally able to join the rest of the family, he told everyone to pack up because they had to go see if their home was still standing.
“That kind of stuck with me,” says Hallett.
Years later, when Hallett and a friend were returning from a trip in Wyoming, they witnessed the beginnings of a wildfire. They noticed the fire when they pulled over for a short rest. Before long, a helicopter flew over and dropped water on the fire. Forty-five minutes later, nothing else had shown up, and the two of them decided it wasn’t safe to stay there.
Hallett says he realized that nothing had changed in the way wildfires were fought since he was a child. In a lot of cases, those dealing with wildfires spent a lot of time hoping for rain so it could help slow the spread of fire or prevent it altogether.
“That’s why I came up with this idea,” says Hallett. “I’m just trying to imitate rain.”
Though Hallett already worked as a quality manager and welding inspector, he didn’t let go of his idea. The first demo of his product was held west of Drayton Valley at his aunt’s place around 2010. When he tried the pumps on the ground, the water would shoot out six or seven metres. Once he mounted them in the trees, the water would go nearly half a kilometre, with mist going even further.
After having conversations with Alberta Wildfire and some oil and gas contacts in northern B.C., Hallett knew he had a viable product. But before he could get the momentum going, an accident prevented him from making much progress.
“I was forced into a career change from a motorcycle accident,” says Hallett. “I went through two-and-a-half years of spinal cord injections because I was losing my legs.”
The accident forced him to slow down, and he began to focus on his product again during his recovery and rehabilitation period. He moved to Edmonton for work, gave another demo of his product, and not long after received an invitation from B.C. Wildfire Services to come to a conference in Kamloops.
The B.C. Fire Commissioner was impressed with what Hallett was showing, and when wildfire season struck that year, he called Hallett three times asking for the RainStream.
“I never had a team; I was pretty much a one-man show, and I didn’t have equipment set in place,” says Hallett. “It would have taken me too long to get everything lined up and insurance and all that. I had to decline.”
Though he couldn’t help at the time, Hallett was able to install a permanent RainStream at a campground near Kenora, Ontario, in 2018.
Though things were looking up for Hallett, health issues once again interfered with his plans. Shortly after the installation in Ontario, he was diagnosed with Stage Four cancer in his blood and bone marrow. He underwent two years of chemotherapy treatment, and two years of immunotherapy treatment. Before he found out his cancer had gone into remission, he contracted Covid at the end of 2022, which ended up with a stay in the hospital and emergency surgery.
Over the years, Hallett has fielded questions from across the globe about his product and even had his product featured in a commercial in Brazil. Now that his health is in good shape, Hallett has built a team and is working on getting the word out about the RainStream.
Those looking for more information about the RainStream can visit www.wildfireinov.com.
(File photo)