John Krekoukis was born in 1958, in Ano Gerakario a small village of the Greek island of Zakynthos.
During his Primary School studies, he also helps his family with the agricultural works.
Just after he graduates from the Primary School he finds a job as an electrician assistant and in a relatively short period of time he masters the art and becomes an electrician himself, while he also works as a waiter in the evenings.
In 1982 he joins the ranks of the Hellenic Fire Service, and this choice of his as it turns out, plays the most important role in his future lifetime development.
In 1992 he becomes acquainted with his wife Athanasia Kardari, with whom they have two children.
In 1997, John Krekoukis starts his activity with hang gliding as a hobby and specifically with paragliding, a sport requiring a high level knowledge of meteorological and aerodynamics in order to be done safely, from which he is fascinated.
In 1998 he devises and later manufactures innovative machines for which he is granted three (3) patents.
Also in 1998, the year when the Hellenic Fire Service was assigned full responsibility of the forest firefighting, John Krekoukis says that remembers with a lot of bitterness, because of the fire outbreaks all over Greece simultaneously, that in combination with the poor means and the little number of staff the Hellenic Fire Service had available at the time, he and his fellow firefighters made superhuman efforts to achieve the desired result of firefighting task, by working 24 hours a day, with no food and water.
During this effort, John Krekoukis is assigned an operational role, he develops an excellent collaboration with his superiors and colleagues and there he finds out that under the prevailing conditions, the application of the backfire method (anti-fire), requiring a high level of aerodynamics’ knowledge, would be the only solution to lead to the desired fire extinguishing results.
Although the application of the backfire method (anti-fire), is forbidden in Greece, John Krekoukis is applying it extensively, since he is absolutely trusted by his superiors.
At the same time, he studies carefully the fire behavior in the mountain and realizes how important is the role of the air in a forest fire, and also how important is to someone to have a knowledge of aerodynamics in the mountain, so as to achieve the maximum firefighting results without endangering one’ s life.
It does not take him long to conceive this phenomenon, and he is sure that he is able to also give a solution to it, and thus following having observed that the existing firefighting means were proved to be inefficient, he starts to study new fire extinguishing ways.
Thus, he starts to carry out small-scale experiments, by using the air in combination with water and he is convinced that if he could achieve to create a relatively long range throw, by enriching the air with water the extinguishing performance would be impressive.
In 2012, he finishes designing of a system, its philosophy being based on the creation of a strong airflow in combination with water, resulting to the water mass being converted into a spray.
At the same time, by watching the firefighting techniques applied globally and especially in USA, he observes that there are many people that have been involved in creating of an air-based spray and proposed two ways as follows:
Thus, John Krekoukis focuses on the centrifugal fan and starts experimenting with this application.
At the end of 2014, he has finished the centrifugal fan construction and manages to reach a throw range of forty (40) meters.
In November 2014, he makes the first official presentation of his system, which he calls “TYFONAS-TYPHOON” at the Forest Research
Institute, with the presence of the Hellenic Fire Service officers, and speakers Dr Gabriel Xanthopoulos and Dr Dimitris Papantonis, Deputy
Dean of the National Metsovion Polytechnic of the Fluids Department, and they all pointed out and praised the very positive results of the system in the fire extinguishing task.
Following this, he makes a lot of efforts to come to a cooperation with both the Hellenic Fire Service and some firm, in order that this system to be fixed on an arm bearing vehicle, but all his efforts remain fruitless.
Then, he makes the big decision to build his system himself and he starts to carry out the whole project with the assistance of his associates and donors, i.e the construction of the “TYFONAS-TYPHOON” firefighting system.
In September 2016, the system is officially presented for the first time in Zakynthos, with the presence of the Chief Officer and other officers of the Fire Service of Zakynthos, who were completely satisfied by the demonstration results of the whole system.
In the summer of 2017, the “TYFONAS-TYPHOON” firefighting system takes an active part in the big fires that broke out in Zakynthos with absolute success.
