Professional background of the inventor

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Thomas Jonkers, the inventor of Fire Spyder™, brings a strong maritime background to high-rise firefighting innovation.

• A Master Mariner with hands-on experience in dredging operations,  particularly in hard rock underwater cutter suction dredging.
• Served as an Operations Manager in marine salvage, overseeing complex and high-risk emergency situations at sea.

In addition to his maritime expertise, Thomas is trained in Advanced Firefighting at Sea and has played managerial roles in major shipboard fire and other responses over the past decade. One notable case includes the X-Press Pearl container ship fire off the coast of Sri Lanka in 2021—one of the region’s most challenging maritime fire incidents.

His unique blend of marine, salvage, and firefighting experience laid the groundwork for the development of Fire Spyder™—a system designed to bring heavy-duty, practical solutions from the sea to the city skyline.

Salvage cases he worked on:

Express Pearl / Sri Lanka / Container Fire off Colombo / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Press_Pearl

New Diamond / Sri Lanka / Oil tanker (VLCC) fire east of Sri Lanka / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT_New_Diamond

Dredging projects:

https://boskalis.com/about-us/projects/port-construction-khalifa-port

https://boskalis.com/about-us/projects/port-and-mof-lng-plant-barrow-island-gorgon

Thomas is a member of the Dutch Society for Inventors (NOVU), an Affiliate Member of the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), and a member of DutchCham Singapore.