Wash-and-wear to any fire: firefighter bunker gear is big business for this cleaner.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: NORTH BAY

Consider it a heavy-duty laundromat.

For firefighters exposed to unseen hazards of germs, pathogens, bacteria and micro-organisms, there are few places to have their grimy bunker gear properly cleaned and treated.

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Enter Jeannette and Rickart Thomsen, who originally started Sani-Gear Fire in 2003, with their industrial washers and big entrepreneurial hopes on cleaning hockey equipment.

The couple got into the business quite by accident.

For 15 years, they ran a highway tractor trailer dealership in North Bay until a major snafu with a bad contractor, who didn't pay his sub-trades, scuttled their expansion plans and deep-sixed their business.

Out of a job, Thomsen spotted a newspaper ad from a Kelowna, B.C. company which sold industrial washers that cleaned the mouldy smell out of sports equipment.

He decided to go after it and gathered $65,000 from family and friends to purchase one. He bought an Esporta washer and extractor used to wash, sanitize and deodorize soiled clothing. It was originally designed to clean harmful bacteria and contaminants from sports gear.

The ISO-registered business didn't immediately take off. Thomsen found out few recreational hockey players even bothered to sanitize their grungy, smelly gear.

"We had to diversify very quickly," says Rickart. "Luckily the first run I had with the machine was a load I did for free for the North Bay Fire Department."

Today with 10 employees, they cater to more than 100 fire departments in Ontario, parts of Manitoba, with Rickart looking to penetrate into Quebec.

A big turning point was landing the contract to clean all of the bunker gear of the City of Ottawa's 43 stations.

To handle the order, they got an Ontario Grow Bond to knock down a wall and expand into an adjoining commercial property.

The bunker...