As wildfire storms become a catastrophic force in the U.S., spreading faster, burning hotter, and reaching deeper into towns and communities, one man is sounding the alarm: “You are your own best defense.”
Thomas ‘Troop’ Emonds, a former U.S. Marine, smokejumper, and founder of Dragonslayers, isn’t offering false hope or platitudes. He’s offering a fireproofing blueprint designed to teach everyday Americans how to survive the kind of mega-fires that are now outpacing traditional firefighting methods.
“The first person who should save your property is YOU yourself,” Emonds says. “You need to be prepared. Firefighters alone cannot address defense concepts against wildfires.”
Emonds’ wildfire survival system, centered around a field-tested, easy-to-learn strategy, has a singular mantra: Get into the BLACK. The phrase refers to burned-out ground, stripped of its fuel, which becomes the safest place in the path of a firestorm. His system teaches people to create that safety zone before the fire arrives.
At the core of the strategy is a set of circular fire control lines, known as Dragon Rings, placed in circular control lines around the structure. These rings provide a systematic way to safely burn off all calories in the light fuel. And with the beauty of these circular control lines, the wind is always blowing in the right direction, allowing total control of the flame lengths.
But Emonds knows that telling people to ‘light their land on fire’ sounds radical, until they understand how controlled, simple, and effective the technique can be.
To make the method accessible, Emonds invented the Dragon Wizz Wheel, a palm-sized tool that helps users assess wind direction and determine exactly where to ignite small, controlled flames to create black ground in front of the circular dragon rings. “When I was a fire management officer, we’d set in the blueprint rings in ground that had been thinned and pruned to be defensible space around what needed to be saved so that parachuting firefighters could land and immediately convert the prepared light fuels to black,” he explains. “That same principle now needs to be available to every landowner in fire-prone zones.”
The strategy revolves around three circular control lines, or Dragon Rings, installed around homes or community clusters. By being always ready to immediately convert light fuels like dry grass and leaves to black ground, homeowners can deny a wildfire the energy it needs to reach their structures.
Emonds still recalls one forestry student in Spain who initially scoffed at the idea and ended up becoming a textbook case of its success. “She had no firefighting background and thought I was not making sense at all,” he shares. “But by the end, she told me: I could use this to protect my house.”
It’s not just theory. Emonds has trained entire classes to implement the method with zero experience. “You’re always in control of the flame length,” he explains. “You only bite off small amounts of fuel at a time. Even in high wind and drought conditions, the method works better, not worse.”
Emonds is quick to point out that his system is not a replacement for fire departments, but gives them a head start to augment their ability to save people and houses. “Firefighters do heroic work, but they’re forced to triage,” he says. “Your house may not be on the list. And remember, with increased danger, firefighters are more limited in the risks they are able to take to protect you.”
And more often than not, it’s not towering forests that are destroying homes. It’s grass. “Brown grass is the deadliest fuel on Earth,” Emonds warns. “Most homes lost to wildfire are surrounded by grass and light brush, not heavy timber.”
By converting those fuel loads into “black” before the fire comes, individuals can massively reduce their vulnerability. But this requires one critical shift: a willingness to take control.
To scale the impact, Emonds is now raising funds to build a dedicated fire safety school, Wildfire Survival, where firefighters, individuals, families, and communities are all on the same page to receive live-fire training and gain confidence using the Wizz Wheel’s blueprint system. It provides a way to bring firefighters and the community together to develop a mitigation strategy.
“The course only takes one day,” he says. “And participants will walk away having saved a structure with their own hands. That kind of muscle memory, the empowerment, it changes everything.”
The fire safety school will serve as a training hub and distribution center for Dragonslayers’ unique fire tools, including the interchangeable Dragon Tools, eco-friendly, long-lasting alternatives to outdated firefighting gear.
But more than that, Emonds sees it as a place where the tide can turn.
“If a community wants this, if a neighborhood wants to band together, I’ll come out and help,” he says. “Some homes don’t have the full acre around them to make the blueprint work on their own. But when communities collaborate, you can do it at scale.” In those cases, wide firebreaks around entire blocks can be created, with smaller rings protecting each home within.
What Emonds advocates is true adaptation. As climate change accelerates, the conditions for wildfire ignition and spread have shifted dramatically. “We used to fight fire by starving it,” Emonds says. “But now the winds are stronger, the fuels drier, the systems outdated. What used to work isn’t working.”
The solution, he argues, is not more planes or more chemicals; it’s preparation. It’s education. And it’s a little flame in the hands of a prepared citizen, not a desperate evacuee. “You’ve got to stop thinking like someone waiting to be rescued,” Emonds says. “If you live in a fire zone and think someone’s going to save your home, maybe you belong in the city. But if you want to live in nature, you’ve got to fight for it.”
With the Wizz Wheel, the Dragon Rings, and the upcoming school, Dragonslayers is offering that fight; not in panic, but in calm, calculated action.
