Monument Street, which runs through the heart of Pacific Palisades, tells two very different stories about the fires that swept through the community. On one side, the lot that once housed a multi-million dollar home now stands in ash and rubble. On the other hand, most of the outdoor shopping malls containing Chanel, men’s clothing brand Buck Mason, and high-end sushi restaurants remain the same.
On Friday, the 1950s standard “This Could Be the Start of Something Big” played over speakers around the mall, known as Palisades Village, even though stores were closed. A large water truck stood guard, ready to take action if the fire threatened the store again.
At the height of the fire Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer who owns Palisades Village, was meeting with security staff as he deployed several private firefighters from Arizona to try to save the shopping center. Caruso said efforts to save nearby homes were also unsuccessful.
Early Wednesday morning, after fire hydrants in the area dried up or lost pressure, Mr. Caruso called a private water truck to help.
“Our property is still there,” Mr. Caruso, who ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022 and lost to Karen Bass, said in an interview Wednesday. “Everything around us has disappeared. “It’s like a battlefield.”
The fire destroyed more than 12,000 structures across Los Angeles County. In the most devastated communities, like the village of Palisades, surviving structures are an awkward juxtaposition to the ruins just steps away.
As the fires continue to burn, officials and millions of people living in Los Angeles are expressing anger, shock and frustration at the way the unprecedented blaze has overwhelmed emergency responders.
A key question is whether city and county fire departments could have recruited additional firefighters sooner, and whether that faster mobilization would have prevented the fire from spreading so quickly.
But some property owners chose not to rely on public agencies and instead turned to private firefighters, who helped save Mr. Caruso’s property and have become a coveted resource in one of Southern California’s wealthiest and most fire-risk communities.
Nestled in the canyon between its better-known neighbors, Malibu and Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades had a lot of small-town charm, yet was home to Hollywood stars and moguls in seven- and eight-figure mansions.
The role of private firefighters in protecting certain businesses and homes in the Palisades is still growing. But while roaming the community after the fire, their presence became apparent. Not only Mr. Caruso’s Palisades Village, which opened in 2018.
The shopping area, which houses about 36 businesses, is designed to feel like a quaint, walkable town center in a large area where cars and highways dominate most of the landscape.
While fire trucks from local and state agencies battled an on-site fire in the Palisades on Friday, a team of private firefighters in white pickup trucks also responded to the scene to keep watch over individual homes.
Outside a mansion in the Palisades neighborhood that suffered little or no fire damage, two men who declined to give their names said they often contract with the city but were protecting one home this afternoon. They said they didn’t know who the owners were, only that their company, the National Wildfire Protection Service, had sent them there.
The private firefighting business went public in 2018 after TMZ reported that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West hired private firefighters to protect their mansion in Hidden Hills near Los Angeles from that year’s Woolsey Fire.
While some people online accused the couple of using their vast wealth to undermine public services, Ms Kardashian said at the time that her personal firefighters had saved a neighbour’s house from damage.
On Tuesday night, as flames consumed much of the Palisade, Keith Wasserman, co-founder of a real estate investment firm, faced similar backlash after choosing X for a desperate post.
“Can anyone use a private firefighter to protect my home?” he wrote “We have to act quickly here. All the houses in my neighborhood are on fire. “I will pay any amount.”
A two-person individual firefighter with a small vehicle can cost $3,000 per day, while a larger crew of 20 firefighters in four fire trucks can cost up to $10,000 per day, according to Bryan Wheelock, vice president of Grayback Forestry, a private firefighting company. do. In Oregon. Hiring them isn’t as easy as posting on social media. Most do not work directly with homeowners.
About 45% of all firefighters working in the United States today are privately employed, according to Deborah Miley, executive director of the National Wildfire Suppression Association, which represents more than 300 private firefighting organizations. Many of them work as government contractors fighting wildfires and supplement local firefighting teams when needed, she said.
Others are employed by insurance companies that work to protect against large losses. AIG, Chubb and USAA are among the insurers that offer homeowners insurance that includes wildfire protection.
Often, the work of civilian firefighting teams is carried out before a wildfire reaches a building, in a manner known as fire hardening. This involves removing vegetation, spraying fire retardants and sealing vents with fire tape days and hours before the flames reach.
“We make buildings survivable so fires can pass,” said David Torgerson, founder of Wildfire Defense Systems, a Montana-based company.
As wildfires have become more intense and frequent over the past few decades, the demand for private firefighting has also increased, a trend that Miley, Wheelock and Torgerson all confirmed. But the public backlash was so great that in 2018 California passed a bill regulating the industry.
The law requires contract firefighters to cooperate with the public fire agency’s incident commander during a wildfire. Prohibits driving a vehicle with a badge indicating public emergency personnel and using emergency lights or sirens. Since this law was enacted, many private companies have stopped providing services directly to homeowners in the state.
A private fire organization based in Northern California, Mt. Adams Wildfire is one of the organizations that has withdrawn from that market. Don Holter, one of the company’s owners, said working directly with homeowners has become too difficult.
“You have to deal with government agencies that show up, and that’s more of a hassle than anything else,” he said. The company now operates solely through government contracts.
Access to water, particularly whether private firefighters can use public hydrants during wildfires, is another consideration and has been a recurring concern among critics of private firefighting. In the early days of the Los Angeles fires, many hydrants were depleted as city and county firefighters faced a surge in water demand.
Private crews often ride in trucks carrying hundreds of gallons of water, Wheelock said. Wiley said her team will draw water from nearby ponds and lakes when working in remote locations. In more developed areas, Mr. Lee said, his team would often drain residents’ swimming pools and then turn to fire hydrants to replenish the water. Holter said.
Another critic of private firefighters’ involvement in big city fires is the leader of California’s largest fire organization.
“When we see organizations like this coming in, we think of them as liabilities rather than assets,” said Brian Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters, which represents 35,000 firefighters.
He said most civilian firefighting organizations are trained to work in deep forests, but “the firefighting that’s happening in Los Angeles right now is an urban shootout.” “We’re going to our neighbor’s house.”
“Private contracting companies are not trained or equipped to operate in this environment,” he added.
That doesn’t seem like it will slow down demand.
Adam Leber, the Hollywood talent manager who represents Miley Cyrus, called in a private fighter jet to save her home from the inferno that was burning through Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. told the Chronicle.
“Considering what other people are going through, our family is incredibly lucky.” He added to the newspaper: “I was 100% confident that our house was finished. Thanks to these people, we were able to hold out long enough for the department to come in.”
Mr. Lever did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Bruce Bromberg, whose Blue Ribbon Sushi chain has a restaurant in Palisades Village, was in Las Vegas when the fire broke out near the shopping center and was watching footage from the restaurant’s security cameras. He called Mr Caruso’s team after seeing the flames start on the restaurant’s terrace on Wednesday morning and said they were “doing everything they can”.
He said one of the water truck drivers hired by Mr Caruso quickly extinguished the fire.
Mr Bromberg said he had read criticism of Mr Caruso’s use of civilian firefighters and said it was unfair.
“Rick built a place for the community and protected it for the community,” he said. “He saved these businesses. And if that hydrant had been full of water, he would have saved whatever he could.”
Jacob Bernstein He contributed reporting from Los Angeles. kitty bennett contributed to the research.
