Firepaste is a white paste that, when dry, is flame and heat resistant. It has a consistency and texture similar to clay when wet, and dries into a gray ceramic material which resembles concrete. The impetus for firepaste came from a failed fire test with the Ursus Mark VII where the metal
exoskeleton heated up, popped the air bags and left Hurtubise with numerous
burns. Like Project Grizzly, Hurtubise has tested the material on himself. For a dramatic demonstration for the media and the military in summer 2004, he made a thin mask of the material, put it over his face, and aimed a specialized
blowtorch at thousands of degrees directly at the mask. The temperature was intentionally much hotter than the temperatures reached by the
Space Shuttle on reentry. A
thermometer located between his face and the mask measured no appreciable temperature change below the mask after nearly ten minutes, and the integrity of the material stood strong.
[4][5][6][7]
Hurtubise keeps the list of ingredients for his concoction secret, but during a segment aired on
Discovery Channel's daily news show
Daily Planet, he revealed one secret to be
Diet Coke. Images from electron microscopes show that the particles in the paste are very porous, which makes it a good insulator. Other tests showed the paste contained
lithium and
bromine, bound into compounds in the paste. Microscopically, it looks like a
diatom absorbent, such as kitty-litter or any common industrial oil absorbent.
