Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Firefighters Scott Carr and Robert Demlow never considered themselves crafty, but they’ve found a medium.
While the pair worked 24-hour shifts at Fishers Fire Department’s Station 392, they had time to complete small decorating projects. In the spring of 2018, they decided to repurpose retired fire hoses lying around the station by cutting them apart and nailing them to a backing board to make an American flag that still hangs in the firehouse.
Fire hoses, which are typically 50 or 100 feet long, are not recyclable. For the pair of Fishers firefighters, the first project was the start of finding creative ways to divert the material from landfills while enshrining the legacy of those who have served.
In 2022, just a few years after completing their first project, they registered Brotherhood Designs as a limited liability company with the state. It works like this: Carr and Demlow collect retired fire hoses from fire stations around the country, turn some of them into patriotic decor, and donate the rest to conservation nonprofits that use them to create durable habitat structures for animals.
With some exceptions, Demlow and Carr use the outer fabric lining of the hose to make their creations, reserving the inner rubber tube for animal habitats.
“It’s about what we’re being able to do for chimpanzees, what we’re being able to do for telling the story of a retired firefighter, telling the story of somebody that’s died and sacrificed before us, and it’s all tying together,” Demlow said.
Carr said Brotherhood Designs currently has two storage units filled with retired fire hoses. The organization has collected or received offers for hoses from departments in Indiana, Nevada, California, Oregon, Florida and New York.
And on Jan. 1, the firefighters officially changed their LLC to a nonprofit, still called Brotherhood Designs, which they say focuses more on low-quantity, high-impact custom flag projects and expanding their waste diversion efforts. They also hope to raise bereavement funds to benefit the families of deceased firefighters.
“We’re switching from, ‘Let’s sell flags to as many places as we can,’ to, ‘We have a story to tell with the retired fire hose,’” Demlow said.
Among those stories will be that of Corey Comperatore, the Pennsylvania firefighter shot and killed during the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump last July. They plan to give Comperatore’s wife, Helen, a custom flag made of fire hoses from the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, where Comperatore served for 27 years.
The details haven’t been worked out yet, Demlow said, but the focus of the project, as he’s discussed with Helen Comperatore, is to tell the story of Corey beyond the tragic shooting.
“The teacher that he was, what he sacrificed for his kids,” Demlow said. “Not what happened [at the rally]. Everybody knows that.”
Making a business
During a casual trip to Nashville in 2021, the pair got the idea to ask a manager at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge on Lower Broadway, the city’s street known for its bar district, if the honky-tonk would be interested in a fire-hose flag. She was, and asked to buy one.
“She thought it was cool and told us that her husband actually retired from the New York City Fire Department, being at 9/11 and working on the pile,” Carr said. “We weren’t prepared for [the purchase offer] at all, because that just wasn’t our thought. We were just doing it to keep the hose out of the landfill.”
They laugh now at the price they charged: $600.
Now Carr’s and Demlow’s pieces, which start at $2,000, hang in six Nashville honky-tonks, several Hamilton County businesses and the U.S. Capitol. The flags vary in size due to the different widths of fire hoses and the founders’ decision to stick to standard American flag dimensions, but a 43-inch-by-80-inch piece from the “Engine” series listed online carries a price tag of $2,500. It weighs 90 pounds.
Demlow wouldn’t tell IBJ how much it costs to make the flags but said he considered the starting price “cheap,” because the flags have been purchased at auction for $7,000 to $15,000.
Carr estimated that Brotherhood Designs has raised $100,000 for other charities with flag sales at their events. Flags have sold in auctions at events like the John Daly Golf Classic and the Major Ed Golf Invitational and to benefit charities like Hoosier Burn Camp and Heroes Defense. Heroes Defense provides resources, like AEDs, to fire departments and raises money for memorials and bereavement funds.
Works of art
The pair’s work has attracted the attention of some prominent local figures.
In March, the two traveled to Washington, D.C., to deliver a custom piece to U.S. Rep. Erin Houchin. The Republican represents Indiana’s 9th Congressional District.
For that project, Carr and Demlow traveled to 14 fire departments in Houchin’s district to collect hoses in a trip that took 16 hours. In D.C., Houchin gave them a personalized tour of the Capitol, and she plans to come interview them in Fishers for her podcast, “The Contender with Erin Houchin.”
Demlow said the firefighters they visited all spoke highly of Houchin.
The two installed the flag in Houchin’s Capitol Hill office plus gave her a virtual photo album with images of the stations and firefighters they visited to collect the hoses used in her flag.
“That means something to her, and it means something to us,” Demlow said.
It’s already attracted the attention of another Hoosier in Congress. Brotherhood Designs plans to make a combination Indiana-American flag for U.S. Rep. Rudy Yakym, a Republican who represents the 2nd District, in the northern portion of the state.
Another high-profile custom request came from IndyCar driver Graham Rahal. His performance shop in Westfield will feature a planned 6-foot-tall, 11-foot-wide Brotherhood Designs flag. The piece will weigh about 250 pounds.
Demlow and Carr hope that giving Brotherhood Designs nonprofit status will set it up for longevity.
“We have a chance to set this out for people to be doing this for years to come after we’re done,” Demlow said.
John Wechsler, a serial entrepreneur best known for founding coworking space Launch Fishers and the Indiana IoT Lab, has been a supporter of Brotherhood Designs since its beginning. He’s functioned as a sort of “CEO coach,” he said, providing assistance with strategy and marketing.
“I believe in them and believe in their mission, and that led us to where we are today,” Wechsler told IBJ.
Exotic
The unused rubber inner tube of fire hoses is like gold to chimp caretakers at a northern Georgia sanctuary, Project Chimps. Alyssa Wren is in the process of redesigning a giant indoor space to accommodate the 95 chimpanzees in retirement there from medical testing. To re-create the experience of climbing in a tree canopy, she’s drawn up plans to create a net of fire hoses more than 20 feet in the air. Connecting structures will replicate intersecting tree branches.
Wren said the project will use truckloads of retired fire hoses donated by Brotherhood Designs. Demlow estimated that Carr and Demlow have already given the nonprofit 7,000 pounds of hoses.
“Fire hose is very near and dear to our hearts in animal care,” Wren said. “Chimps are really, really into breaking things. They’re mischievous. They love to rip, stomp, anything they can do to have fun [destroying] things.”
The hoses hold up against all of it. Plus, a bonus for chimp caretakers: They’re easy to clean.
In Indiana, Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Center Point has been a beneficiary of Brotherhood Designs’ hose donations. There, keepers use the fabric outer layer to craft hammocks for big cats.
Joe Taft, founder and director of the center, said his felines get a lot of use out of the material. The 260-acre center provides a home for abused and abandoned animals, which Taft said are often brought into his care by authorities.
Keepers weave the hose into hammocks where the animals can lounge.•
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.