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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday November 29 2018, @05:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the a-seller's-market dept.

With California experiencing two years of unprecedented wildfires that have left more than 20,000 homes destroyed and scores dead, the private firefighting business is booming. These brigades work independently from county firefighters; their job is to protect specific homes under contract with insurance companies.

Their work can vary from pushing back flames as they approach properties to reaching the site before the blaze arrives and spraying homes with fire retardant.

But the private forces have generated complaints from some fire departments, who say they don't always coordinate with local crews and amount to one more worry as they try to evacuate residents and battle the blaze.

"From the standpoint of first responders, they are not viewed as assets to be deployed. They're viewed as a responsibility," said Carroll Wills, communications director for California Professional Firefighters, a labor union representing rank-and-file firefighters in the state.

What began more than a decade ago as a white-glove service for homeowners in well-to-do neighborhoods has expanded in recent years as the wildfire danger has increased, said Michael Barry, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, a not-for-profit organization that educates the public about the insurance industry.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-private-firefighters-20181127-story.html


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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday November 30 2018, @12:06AM

    by edIII (791) on Friday November 30 2018, @12:06AM (#768047)

    You're just profoundly ignorant in this case. I'm sorry, but you have absolutely no clue about how impossible it is to fight these fires. They. Cannot. Be. Fought. Only contained, and in increasing percentages of containment.

    For whatever reason, regardless of who's fault it is, there are forests dying almost everywhere in America it seems. The amount of underbrush and tinder in general was huge, we were already in a multi-year drought, a good percentage of the trees have died to a lack of water, and there were 80mph plus winds dude.

    Until you've seen Armageddon up close, and a fiery death closing in on you at 5-10mph, you will not understand how it irresponsible it is to allow private firefighters to operate under the strict paradigm of saving specific property at all costs. Do you not understand that the winds are 80mph, which causes the fire to be moving towards you almost as fast as you can run? Evacuation of all people is the only way to deal with fires of this nature.

    Now, a normal fire in town, even one spreading to multiple buildings, is different. As long as the private crews stay out of the way of the official ones, I say let them do what they want.

    We need a new word instead of fire. Firestorm? Satan's Flatulence? I dunno, but fire makes it almost sound cute, quaint, and manageable.

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