Posted on 01/12/2025 11:18:44 AM PST by george76
LOS ANGELES — Adam Leber was nodding off in his Hollywood Hills mansion late Wednesday night when his housekeeper jolted him awake with an urgent message: There’s a fire at the door.
Leber — a talent manager whose clients have included Miley Cyrus and Lil Nas X — opened his door and looked. Sure enough, “The entire hillside was on fire,” he said. “It was insane.” Orange-red flames sprung up everywhere, spitting embers dangerously close. Without thinking, he and his wife scooped up their dogs and 3-year-old daughter, threw some belongings in their car and drove east, to take refuge in their second home by Lake Arrowhead.
As Leber rushed his family to safety amid a broader firestorm engulfing wide swaths of Los Angeles County, a private firefighting service arrived to ensure his 6,000-square-foot home — once owned by filmmaker Preston Sturges and “rumored to be the site of Charlie Chaplin’s first wedding,” according to an old real estate listing — remained standing.
Leber is one of a growing number of Californians who, faced with the growing threat of wildfires in populated areas, have turned to private firefighting teams as an added layer of protection. Supporters of private firefighting teams argue they can augment the work of government-run efforts, stepping in to fill the cracks caused by depleted city and state budgets and an ever-worsening climate crisis.
But not everyone is a fan of private firefighters, particularly those that contract directly with homeowners outside of insurance, like the company Leber hired. Critics contend that when wealthy individuals hire their own firefighters, they compete with public teams for precious resources such as water, and could potentially interfere with those teams’ efforts by, for example, blocking or crowding narrow access points.
Moreover, they say, private firefighters widen the already-vast chasm between rich and poor, safeguarding the interests of the former at the expense of the latter.
“The rich suffer zero consequences of anything, even cataclysmic natural disasters,” one user wrote on X, responding to a video the Chronicle posted showing private firefighters saving Leber’s house. “Private and firefighter should not be in the same sentence,” wrote another.
Joe Torres, CEO of All Risk Shield, thinks some of these criticisms are unfair — especially during major disasters like this one.
“I’ve been in the fire service for 24 years, right. And I’m still in the service,” he told the Chronicle. “I can tell you, these last few days, when there’s a big event like this, resources get stretched so thin from municipal, state, federal (departments) that there’s a need for additional resources.” He disputed the idea that private teams siphon water away from the public: His teams primarily bring their own to a site, or draw from homeowners’ pools.
The definition of “private firefighter” is broad, and can encompass a wide range of services: There are the private crews contracted by wealthy individuals such as Leber, which often do direct battle with blazes, as well as companies that work exclusively with insurance providers to fireproof policyholders’ assets, largely through prevention efforts like sprinkler installation.
This latter group far outnumbers the former, said David Torgerson, president of Wildfire Defense Systems, which contracts with a majority of the top 10 insurance carriers to protect clients in high-risk areas.
The hiring of private firefighters by wealthy clients outside of insurance, he said, is still relatively rare, employed only in “select locations” in California such as the Palisades and Beverly Hills. For those considering hiring such companies, he said, “there’s stronger solutions out there” — namely his company, which hires union firefighters, coordinates directly with government agencies and serves homes covered by its insurer clients based on their risk level, not market value. The company, which has responded to more than 1,400 wildfires since 2008, is also technically the third-largest single firefighting force in the U.S., after the federal government and state of California.
Some private companies contract directly with public fire departments, lending support during major conflagrations. Nathan Bowyer, a firefighter with the Calistoga Fire Department, said these teams have been nothing but helpful in his experience, particularly when they supply water tenders — massive vehicles capable of carrying large amounts of water to fire sites.
Leber first purchased private fire protection last September, as a different blaze — the Line Fire — came within a few miles of his family’s Lake Arrowhead home.
As the flames neared, “I immediately started researching private firefighters,” he said. Quickly, he found a company that looked reputable, All Risk Shield. A crew arrived soon after, guarding the house until the local fire department arrived. Leber was so pleased with the company’s work that he bought a suite of services for his Los Angeles home, including fire hardening and emergency response.
On Wednesday night, it was easy to see why Leber and others had sprung for additional protection. The Sunset Fire and several other blazes had ripped through the Los Angeles area, burning thousands of structures and killing at least five people. Two of the infernos, the Palisades and Eaton fires, already ranked among the 20 most destructive in California’s history.
As public firefighters circled their helicopters, cut brush from homes and blasted water on the flames spreading through Hollywood Hills, two retired firefighters sat in the driveway of Leber’s North Vista Street mansion. The men, part of the team hired to protect Leber’s home, had rigged sprinklers on the second story eave. Water rained down on the street below, creating a waterfall around the exterior.
The crew members confirmed they had been paid out of pocket, not through insurance, to protect the home from the flames that cascaded down Runyon Canyon perilously close to old Hollywood homes often visited during celebrity tours.
Foam pooled in the gutter, but the crew said the owner had asked them to not use foam as a preventative measure, just water, so they stopped. A half-block away, onlookers stood behind a police barricade as firefighters wound through the narrow streets with hose lines snaking through old archways, beyond massive front gates and past private garage gyms.
Up the street, higher into the hills, Los Angeles Fire Department hand crews and engines, along with a women’s prison crew, worked to protect Sheryl Crow’s former house. The public agencies chain-sawed palm fronds and brush, and sprayed water on encroaching flames and breached massive front gate doors.
As the fire calmed, a second truck pulled into Leber’s driveway. The public firefighters would move on, racing to quell the disastrous fires roaring across Los Angeles. But the team Leber had hired would stay put, watching over his home until dawn.
“My family and I are unbelievably lucky to be in the position that we’re in, given what everyone else is going through,” Leber told the Chronicle. “What (the private firefighters) do is unbelievable. … I was 100% certain our house was done. Thanks to these guys, they were able to hold it off long enough so the fire department could come in.”
gonna have to talk to bass or newscum about being protected from the realities of fire!
Article:
“ever-worsening climate crisis”
This is the Big Lie propaganda technique.
They think if they repeat the lie often enough the non player character peons will believe it.
I think, if you can afford it, go for it. No different than proactive measures such as building material choices, sprinkler systems, pools, pumps, etc. It would seem that the private services would free up some of the public employees to work elsewhere. JMHO
Commies want everyone to suffer equally from the disastrous proclamations from the Politboro.
Leftists are upset that private fire companies (once the historical standard) are making socialism look bad.
Private firefighting—great work for straight white men.
No DEI required.
Does anyone in the state of California know that they live next to an ocean?
Because they gaslight corporate press told them to be mad at them.
Great comment!
How very UN-SOCIALIST of him!
I would say, I would not like it, if the rich were siphoning firefighters out of the public service and instead made them to work just for the rich.
But, since CA is cutting firefighting expenditures, I guess, the rich are just hiring the unemployed firefighters and giving then the second chance. Good for them!
That sounds doubtful and kinda Marxian to me. Like the article says farther down, the one service in question mainly brings their own water or uses the swimming pool water.
Look for Newscum to draft a bill outlawing private firefighting companies from operating.
If a person can afford such service, more power to them. Some people make a whole lot more money than other people; they should not be penalized for it, as long as it’s legally made.
The reason liberalism is promoted by so many liberals is they are exempt from living with the outcome of the policies they force on the rest of us. Sure, spend billions on high-speed rail that no one will ride. Dump millions of gallons of fresh water into the bay to supposedly save some tiny fish nobody has ever heard of. Give billions of dollars to NGO’s to “fight homelessness.” (The average NGO CEO pay last year was *800,000.) This, despite the obvious that the more money you use to “fight homelessness” the more homeless there are. The maid has to tell this guy the house is about to burn down. She also does the shopping, so he doesn’t have to ask a clerk to unlock the toothpaste cabinet for him.
The only thing that will make California sane is if the liberals have to deal with reality themselves. This fire should serve as the wakeup call. Unless the next big business is private police and private fire departments. BTW, all the original American police and fire were private companies.
Correct
NICE!!! Good for these guys.
Too bad the lefty writers are so biased.
“Further widen the already-vast chasm between the rich and the poor” ... blah, blah, blah...and, “siphons water from other areas” ... blah, blah, blah.
The guy who ran against LA Mayor KAREN B-Ass saved his retail development with the same type fire department.
The left whines that these PRIVATE fire fighters hampen the efforts of gov’t firefighters....welp, then VOTE for better GOV’T leaders!
Leftists are upset that private [fire] companies (once the historical standard) are making socialism look bad.
BINGO.
All across much of the country.
Correct.. remember —
Maya Wiley wants to defund the NYPD — while her home is protected by private security patrol..
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