Entrepreneurs story

Greetings,
I am Mika Järvenpää, the entrepreneur, designer, product developer and production manager of Interfire Products Oy (Ltd), who is constantly researching and developing ever better and safer training and teaching equipment for emergency services to use. I have worked with fire safety and related issues for most of my life; as fire fighter, officer, station officer, teacher at Emergency Services College, and as a designer and manufacturer of fire fighting simulators.

Back in 1970, when I was 7-years old, I joined the Voluntary Fire departments youth section, and the best part for an energetic youngster were all the practical trainings we got to take part in. The dream of becoming a professional fire fighter one day lived strong through my youth, and it was guided and fuelled by the fact that I got to take part and work in real life missions and situations.

As a trainer in National Emergency Services College I realised just how little had been invested into different emergency service training simulators in Finland. A visit to Sweden was a shock. Trainees were offered a multitude of emergency service training areas, all of which included a huge variety of training environments and training simulators.

I thought, that there was no reason in trying to reinvent the wheel, but to further develop existing ideas so that they would better suit Finnish conditions and requirements.

When in 1997 we designed our first liquid gas fuelled cabin fire fighting simulator for Lufthansa, I was thrilled and excited beyond words. I thought, that now we had products, that were perfect for emergency service department that is constantly under on call duty, that can stop anything within minutes.

Soon internation airline companies noticed our capabilities for creating computer logic controlled, safe and environmentally friendly training fires. Especially the training extinguisher refilling systems and stations we developed have received great amount of praise, since these systems take time consuming and costly filling process and automate it to happen in few seconds.

Even though the man has gained years and mileage has risen slightly from those days, the drive, interest, and excitement for developing and manufacturing training equipment continues. With modern technology we are able to control the fires wirelessly and adjust the strength of different fires in a gradual manner. Environmentally friendly fire fighting simulator can be placed near buildings and well thought out and functioning safety and security systems enable utilisation of even high powers in the simulator.

Originally the designs were made with work safety first, and this part of our philosophy has remained the same through the years, even though automation and digitalisation have risen up to support existing technologies. All our modern liquid gas fuelled training simulators are safe, environmentally friendly and cost efficient to use. They quick to setup for use and designed to be extremely well convertible. Gradually adjusted training fires enable many different levels of training according to current need.

Few of our achievements.
– Liquid gas fuelled cabin crew fire fighting training simulator for Lufthansa in Germany
– Liguid gas fuelled maritime fire fighting training simulator in Upinniemi, Finland
– Mobile fire fighting simulator for training use in Dubai, UAE
– Fire fighting simulator designed for airport emergency services personnel in Rovaniemi Airport, Finland
– Extinguish assault/rush simulator for CERN Nuclear Research Centre in Geneva/Meyer
– Liquid gas fuelled training simulator for emergency services and maritime college in Reykjavik, Iceland

Mika Järvenpää
Entrepreneur, Product Developer