Naperville North football alum Danny Puknaitis co-invented a firefighting nozzle now used by fire departments around the world to battle electric vehicle blazes.
Puknaitis and fellow Naperville firefighter Mike Jost built the Poseidon Nozzle, a device that slides beneath an EV and sprays water directly at the burning battery. The pair have spent six years developing the tool and have demonstrated it to fire departments, other countries and U.S. military branches including the Marine Corps and Air Force, according to a NCTV17 profile published Tuesday, Oct. 6.
His father is Naperville's fire chief. Mark Puknaitis leads the department where his son now serves.
Danny Puknaitis captained the Huskies during his 2011 senior season, earning all-conference honors and Team MVP. He went on to play running back at Wheaton College, where he was a Second Team All-CCIW selection in 2014. After college he tried business, sports marketing, nonprofit work and coaching football before enrolling in the fire academy.
"I was talking to fire chiefs all around the country at that time, and everyone's same approach was, we're going to let it burn or we'll kind of figure it out when we get there," Puknaitis told NCTV17. "… So now I've been doing this for six years, and people are starting to see our nozzle and see the benefits of it."
The production model is a box several feet long, made of aircraft-grade aluminum with perforations and internal baffles that distribute water toward the undercarriage, according to an earlier NCTV17 report from April 2025. The first prototype weighed about 100 pounds and was "unmanageable," Jost said in that report. The pair consulted Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois during development.
The nozzle's reach has extended well beyond Naperville. Mayor Scott Wehrli highlighted the invention in his 2026 State of the City address, saying fire departments around the world use the Poseidon Nozzle and that it was first made in Naperville.
Puknaitis also met his wife, U.S. Olympic speed skater Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr., at Wheaton College.
Jost told NCTV17 in April 2025 that the nozzle has applications beyond EV fires, including placement under internal-combustion vehicles during certain rescue operations.
