
Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy - bookofjoe
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/private-firefighters-california-wealthy-wildfire
======
abathur
I've seen similar variants of this headline floating around, so I don't want
to over-blame this Fox outlet for something that's just in the water by this
point (I don't recall if they were all on Fox-family outlets, but probably
not). That said, the headline seems pretty manipulative...

> However, private firefighters are more likely to contract with insurance
> companies like USAA to offer mitigation services to customers. Sometimes
> neighborhood associations hire private firefighters, according to The Post.

+

> Homeowners hiring private firefighters make up about 5% of the industry,
> David Torgerson of Wildfire Defense Systems told The Los Angeles Times last
> year.

+

> Firefighting crews working for insurance companies do not just wait around
> for the fire to spread to the areas they're protecting. They often install
> sprinkler systems and spray retardant, according to The Post.

+

> When trying to fireproof a particular home, crews will take the time to rake
> away vegetation surrounding the home and close windows and vents, The Times
> reported.

=

> title: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

~~~
inanutshellus
Another suggestion for a non-clickbaity title:

    
    
      Insurance Companies do Preventative Maintenance on High-Value Assets
    

But yes, this feels like ... class-baiting or something. This headline is
everywhere, made to rile up folk for.... what?

~~~
michaelt
Some people consider that, when the rich are hiring a duplicate of a public
service, it proves the public service is not fit for purpose.

~~~
maxerickson
If the purpose is "protect homes built in wildfire prone natural areas", the
public service shouldn't exist, so there you go.

~~~
linksnapzz
You're being downvoted, presumably by the people who think that the onus of
providing firefighting services to, say, a five-million-dollar residence in
east San Diego county situated on ten acres of combustable chapparal should be
bourne equally by urban apartment dwellers.

The reality is that for a lot of SoCal, firefighting is a gigantic subsidy to
people who can afford very expensive houses in a biome that has been
periodically catching fire and burning for millions of years.

------
post_break
I see nothing wrong with this. If I'm wealthy and I can pay money for a
service for risk management and the benefits outweigh the costs it makes
sense. Private security vs police? Sure. Private jet vs common carrier? Sure.
Private firefighter vs public? You guys lose your minds over that? I don't see
what is wrong paying for extra protection. It's like owning a very expensive
car and paying for extra insurance in case the person who hits you has no
insurance.

~~~
someonehere
I pose this question to people when articles like this come up.

If you were wealthy, would you do something like this? In this case, if you
were wealthy, would you pay to have extra protection for your home by hiring
private firefighters? Almost willing to bet their answer would always be yes.

~~~
lonelappde
I'm wealthy and I spend my money on charitable giving instead of building and
defending an ostentatious mansion. When the revolution comes I hope that means
my back won't be up against the wall, and my house won't be torched by
revolutionary warriors.

------
mothsonasloth
A: "You have selected Amazon's Prime Fire service"

A: "A fire-engine will be dispatched within 20 minutes"

\--- In another part of the country ---

A: "We're sorry we don't provide Prime fire service for your location, please
direct your query to the local authorities"

Local fire department: "We will try and answer your call as soon as possible,
but due to budget cuts from a reduced corporate tax income we have had to
reduce our services in the area."

~~~
rayiner
Corporate tax is a red herring. Across the OECD, it makes up just 9% of tax
revenue (just 6% in Sweden and Denmark). The US is about the same (8%).

If you want to complain about tax revenue, point to the fact that Americans
don’t pay VAT (like everyone in Europe does) on all the cheap crap they buy on
Amazon. Or in the case of California, complain about Prop 13 limiting the
property taxes people pay on McMansions. (Which, after all, are what pay for
your local government functions like fire service.)

~~~
erfderd
We pay sales tax. What's so special about VAT vs. sales tax?

Unless you are arguing for a _federal_ sales tax, which OK sure federal tax is
great, except it doesn't pay for local services. Also, now you also have to
argue about the regressive nature of sales tax in general.

~~~
Symbiote
I think the relevant difference is that VAT is paid even if you are in a
different EU country.

I'm in Denmark, where the rate is 25%.

I pay 25% on something I order from a Danish online shop.

I pay 25% on something I order from a large German online shop, even though
the VAT rate in Germany is lower.

I pay 19% (the German rate) on something I order from a small German shop, to
reduce the administrative burden on that shop.

(In every case the advertised price includes VAT, although the middle case may
use 19% until I input a delivery address, depending on how they guess my
location.)

My understanding is that, in reality, people pay 0% in the USA if they order
from a different state.

~~~
robohoe
You're supposed to report your online shopping when you do your taxes here
every year.

~~~
umanwizard
Which no one does, so it’s irrelevant.

~~~
jcranmer
I do it (because I buy so little online). Also, Illinois (and maybe other
states) published tables saying "if you don't want to calculate it, pay this
amount instead."

Most states are now imposing sales tax on online retailers, so the point is
pretty much moot now.

~~~
umanwizard
Okay, I stand corrected. _Almost_ no one does.

------
ossworkerrights
Amusing how anyone suggesting burying powerlines underground is immediately
pushed back by "it's expensive" know it alls. Wondering if power-cuts like 3rd
world countries enjoy are preferable over a slight increase in power supply
costs, and wether impotence is more desirable over action bEcAuSe iT's
eXpEnSivE.

~~~
blueblisters
Is there literally no solution that exists between burying power lines and
keeping the lines completely exposed that would be cost effective and improve
fire safety by some factor? I imagine insulators in high risk areas might do
the trick but I am no high voltage expert.

~~~
rndgermandude
Yes, these kind of insulators are called "the ground" ;)

------
TheCraiggers
Interesting- I always thought the cyberpunk future of self-policed corporate-
states would be here eventually, but I didn't think firefighters would be
privatized in that manner before police.

~~~
heartbreak
Wealthy neighborhoods with private security (aka private police) are
definitely a thing.

~~~
TheCraiggers
There is a difference. These private security firms don't have all the power
the police do. They don't have the power to arrest, don't have their own
jails, etc.

------
hnburnsy
Different headline... Insurance companies implement fire mitigation tactics to
protect policyholders

~~~
TeMPOraL
I guess it's cheaper than paying out the insurance.

------
theomega
Unrelated, but annoying: How does FOX get around the autoplay protection of
Firefox on Desktop? I have blocked all AutoPlay and yet the annoying video
starts playing.

~~~
Rychard
It doesn't autoplay for me (using Firefox 70.0)

In fact, in my console there's a message that says this:

"Autoplay is only allowed when approved by the user, the site is activated by
the user, or media is muted."

~~~
jannes
I get the same message about 6 times in the console as well, but in the end it
seems to start playing anyway.

------
chewz
Marcus Crassus used to run private firefighters in Rome. When there was a fire
his units had been assembling at selected properties and waited why Marcus had
been negotiating with the property owner. Only when the deal was made and
Crassus purchased the property firemen started extinguishing fire. Hence the
fire sale...

> The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. He took advantage
> of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own
> brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of
> alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the fire fighters did nothing
> while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed
> property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the
> property, his men would put out the fire, if the owner refused, then they
> would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many
> properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to
> their original owners or new tenants. [1]

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus)

------
supercanuck
Where are they getting the water and what roads do they use to service these
people?

Seems unfortunate in times of lack of supply of fireman that this is
tolerated.

I’m fairly certain that fire retarding private lawns is not the most efficient
use of resources considering the circumstances at the moment.

~~~
kortilla
These are private firemen. If they weren’t hired they would be off doing
something else for money. It’s like complaining about people hiring private
security guards when there is a police shortage.

Read the article, they aren’t fire retarding private lawns. They are doing
preventative work that keeps the fire far away. If it hits the lawn, it’s too
late.

More firefighters are better, regardless of which areas are being contained
with higher priority. If they were taking away fire fighters from the publicly
funded groups or volunteers, then there would be something to bitch about.

~~~
cco
This is mostly a zero sum game in the immediate term, and mostly zero sum in
the longer term since there is a fairly limited pool of people available to
fight fires. If you have the skills to be a fireman but a private individual
pays you above market rate to fight their own personal fires then you will
remove yourself from the pool of people fighting fires for the public and into
a private pool.

Will 20 such private firemen be a problem? No, but 2,000? That would
absolutely have an impact on available firefighters for the public.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Is there really a shortage of firefighters? Or is there a shortage of
firefighters willing to work for the rates public service offers? How high are
those rates anyway? Because given how much public servants are typically paid
worldwide, I can easily imagine that the private firefighting company isn't
competing with public firefighting jobs, but with all the other jobs a would-
be firefighter can get that pay better than fighting fires.

------
Trisell
I see a lot of people talking about the privatization of firefighting and the
future. In this case there is a big difference between the two types of
firefighting that is being talked about.

1\. The first type of firefighting is your traditional city structure
firefighting departments. These are the ones we see most of the time in the
movies(Backdraft, Ladder 49). These are government funded by local and
municipal taxes. They traditionally provided structure and medical services to
a city. While the firefighting portion of these departments has stayed public
the medical(ambulance) services have been heavily privatized for years. Due to
the large migration we have seen of people wanting to live closer to nature,
wildland Urban Interface firefighting has become a service that these
traditional structure departments have stepped up to provide as they have
expanded their boundaries to provide services to the ever increasing number of
homes that have been built outside of the traditional city landscape.

2\. Wildland firefighting has traditionally been paid for and managed by the
Federal Government. Last I saw around 40% of wildland firefighting resources
are privately owned. This includes fire engines, water tankers, showers, food
caterers, hand crews(20 man crews that dig fire line in an attempt to contain
the fire), tree fallers(loggers who are brought in to fall dangerous trees),
air tankers, and helicopters. This particular part of firefighting has been
privatized for 20+ years and the Federal government shows no signs of changing
this trend anytime soon.

There is also a lot of talk of people leaving the structural "public" fire
departments to go private. In my experience the trend is actually the
opposite. Private firefighters are generally significantly underpaid compared
to their government counterparts. When I was working for the Federal
government 15 years ago, I was making a base wage of $15-$20 an hour, if I
went out on a fire I got $2 an hour hazard pay for the entire day. If I went
over 40 hours in a week I then was paid time and a half and anything over 80
was double time and a half. If I got sent out on a fire for a 14-21 day tour I
would work 16 hour days for 14-21 days straight and just be raking in the
money. My private crew counterparts were making somewhere between $7-$12
dollars an hour and were only getting time and a half over 40 hours.

Source: Spent 10 years as a volunteer structure and wildland firefighter.

------
kageneko
Relevant Planet Money episode (from June):

[https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/736715592/the-private-
firefig...](https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/736715592/the-private-firefighter-
industry)

------
Tade0
Reminds me of this quote:

 _The Guild of Firefighters had been outlawed by the Patrician the previous
year after many complaints. The point was that, if you bought a contract from
the Guild, your house would be protected against fire. Unfortunately, the
general Ankh-Morpork ethos quickly came to the fore and fire fighters would
tend to go to prospective clients’ houses in groups, making loud comments like
‘Very inflammable looking place, this’ and ‘Probably go up like a firework
with just one carelessly-dropped match, know what I mean? '_

------
wonderwonder
While I don't begrudge people spending their money on whatever they want,
these are likely the same people that benefited from the recent tax cut for
the wealthy. The government cuts taxes for the rich, reducing funding
available for the public good and the rich then use those funds for
themselves. I completely understand the argument that those funds are then
trickling down to the firefighters and their families; however, the fire
prevention benefits are now limited to the rich neighborhoods instead of the
wider area a public application of those same funds to hire firefighters would
have benefited. It is a net loss.

Another thing I struggle with is that we arrest the poor and send them into
harms way to protect the wealthy for $1 an hour.

We are rapidly approaching a time of the rich living in protected enclaves and
the poor in polluted unsafe neighborhoods policed by forces only intent on
keeping the rabble pacified. In New York City, the richest city in the world,
1/10 of public school kids are homeless...

------
EGreg
The FOX TV Network would never run something like this. I find FOX properties
online to be far less restrictive in what they can publish — even class
struggles are fair game to post. This would never fly on FOX opinion shows on
TV.

For the record, firefighters per neighborhood could work, but not multiple
competing companies. We used to have that here in NYC. Here is a scene from
Gangs of New York which is historically accurate and correctly mentions the
Bowery Boys and the Municipal Police Riot (two diff sets of police)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmsB5bcygB4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DmsB5bcygB4)

This, friends, is one of the potential pitfalls of anarcho-capitalist utopia

------
hourislate
PG&E should get some goat herds working their most dangerous fire hazards. It
might be a way to cut down on fires.

Apparently a thing already in some parts of the world.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/world/europe/portugal-
wil...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/world/europe/portugal-wildfires-
goats-climate-change.html)

------
claudeganon
And the public has prison slave labor fighting its fires:

[https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-
get...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-getting-
paid-145-day-fight-california-wildfires)

------
swebs
>When trying to fireproof a particular home, crews will take the time to rake
away vegetation surrounding the home and close windows and vents, The Times
reported.

Funny how it was just a year ago when the media was having a meltdown over the
suggesting of raking away brush.

------
webwielder2
This is what dystopia looks like.

~~~
UI_at_80x24
Precisely, reminds me of Octavia Butlers' books. (Parable series)

------
bogartmyjoint
EVERY single post which associates Trump's tax cuts have been downvoted
significantly.

Tell me again that YCombinator isn't basically a right-wing troll site?

~~~
anonuser123456
Maybe people don't believe there should be an association between federal tax
rates and state/municipality liabilities? Just a thought.

------
cpursley
Sometimes I wonder if firefighting is privatized, insurance companies would
require more fire-resistant building materials and design (instead of the
typical match-box American single-family home or low rise apartment). At least
this the libertarian argument argued here (pg 241): [https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty...](https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf)

~~~
CapacitorSet
>if firefighting is privatized, insurance companies would require more fire-
resistant building materials and design (instead of the typical match-box
American single-family home or low rise apartment)

This is what happens when firefighting and house maintenance are in the same
interest. The libertarian argument argues for a private interest, but it could
very well be turned on its head in favor of a public interest.

~~~
big_chungus
I think the point is that there are externalities of me building a tinder-box
house; namely, the costs of the fire-fighting and potentially burning down the
homes of my neighbors. One of the keys to privatization is each would be
responsible for the damage his house burning down could cause to others. Thus,
if I want insurance, my company may give me a huge discount for building a
house of concrete. It would also likely provide my fire-fighting, as it's
cheaper than paying for a whole new house.

------
buboard
Should the public pay for the fire protection of extravagant villas built in
the forest? Of should those be mandatorily left to burn to satisfy some
perverse feeling of class revenge?

