Posted on 01/11/2025 10:37:23 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
When devastating wildfires erupted across Los Angeles County this week, David Torgerson’s team of firefighters went to work.
The thousands of city, county and state firefighters dispatched to battle the blazes went wherever they were needed. The crews from Torgerson’s Wildfire Defense Systems, however, set out for particular addresses. Armed with hoses, fire-blocking gel and their own water supply, the Montana-based outfit contracts with insurance companies to defend the homes of customers who buy policies that include their services.
It’s a win-win if the private firefighters succeed in saving a home, said Torgerson, the company’s founder and executive chairman. The homeowner keeps their home and the insurance company doesn’t have to make a hefty payout to rebuild.
“It makes good sense,” he said. “It’s always better if the homes and businesses don’t burn.”
Torgerson’s operation, which has been contracting with insurance companies since 2008 and employs hundreds of firefighters, engineers and other staff, highlights a lesser-known component of fighting wildfires in the U.S. Along with the more than 7,500 publicly funded firefighters and emergency personnel dispatched to the current conflagrations, which have burned more than 30,000 acres and destroyed more than 9,000 structures, a smaller force of for-hire professionals is on the fire lines for insurance companies, wealthy individual property owners or government agencies in need of additional hands.
Their presence isn’t without controversy. Private firefighters hired by homeowners directly have drawn criticism for heightening class divides during disasters. This week, a Pacific Palisades homeowner received backlash for putting a call out on X, the social media site formerly named Twitter, for help finding private firefighters who could save his home.
“Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in Pacific Palisades? Need to act fast here. All neighbors houses burning,” he wrote...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“We do what we can.”
The trick is getting your neighbors to do the same. Invited my neighbors to see my sprinkler set up along my fence line and they said: “Great idea!” and are installing their own.
From an interview I watched this a.m., private firefighter company 1) not cheap but the cost is fractional compared to the value of the protected prop; 2) staffed with ‘moonlighting’ firefighters who are on their rotational days off from their agencies; 3) have their own water tenders and can spray home with fire retardant 4) will put out embers on neighboring props so it doesn’t spread to the prop they are protecting 5) repected by agency firefighters because some on the crew could be their work-mates/union brothers
I’m guessing they might also hire former-convict trained firefighters who after release can’t get hired on with an agency.
I’m surprised more people in these fire-prone areas don’t build using more metal and stone, and landscape to limit vegetation around the home. Gonna be hard for your home to burn down if most of it isn’t flammable!
How does a detached garage decrease fire risk? It’s just another room in the building, as long as you aren’t parking an EV in there...
People keep gas cans and things in there.
You know to keep the water pressure up so the water come out of the hydrant
I don’t think the water pressure required is natural so the water has to be pumped, without water pressure the hydrants don’t work and the pressure doesn’t work if power goes out unless you have backup generators which the city doesn’t have
No EV in this home, still driving a truck with roll down windows and the best anti-theft device on the market... a clutch!
Fires that start in a garage are hotter because of the flammable items stored inside - gas, paint cans, cleaning fluids, etc. When those fires spread to the home they cause greater damage than say a kitchen fire contained to the stove area. Replacing a kitchen is cheaper than replacing an entire home. A detached garage mitigates that as long as there is no covered walkway connecting the garage to the home. It is all about the lowest payout when it comes to property damage.
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