Jim Moseley shows off his SPF 3000.
Photographer: Maggie Shannon for Bloomberg Green
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Jim Moseley stands poolside, aviator sunglasses perched on his head, holding a blowtorch. He’s got a stick that’s been treated at one end with SPF 3000, the fire-prevention spray he invented. We’re on the side of a mountain in Malibu in late February, at the modernist home of a renowned Hollywood film editor, whom Moseley asked me not to name. Eucalyptus branches sway in the Pacific breeze. The $3 million home sits at the end of a narrow, winding road. It’s hard to see how a firetruck could get here in an emergency.
Moseley lights the torch—whoosh!—and begins burning the stick to a crisp. “Now I’m going to show you something,” he says, after the untreated end of the wood gets so brittle it breaks in two. He picks up a piece that’s blackened but still intact, fishes a key out of his pocket, and begins scratching. “Here’s the side that I treated,” he says, easily rubbing off the char. “And here’s the wood.”