Private firefighters aren’t doing what you likely think they are — not exactly.
Reports of wealthy homeowners in the Los Angeles area paying private firefighters thousands of dollars per day have spread on social media in the past week, perpetuating the perception among some that on-site emergency protection for structures is what the industry is all about. Executives at two California-based private firefighting companies told Business Insider that’s not the case.
Private firefighting for individual private landowners is niche
Jess Wills, president of Firestorm Wildland Fire Suppression, says his business primarily focuses on contracting with the federal government to suppress wildfires.
Deborah Miley, the executive director of the National Wildfire Suppression Agency, which represents more than 300 private firefighting companies, told BI that private firefighters have been contracting with the federal government since the 1980s, whereas the sliver of the industry that contracts directly with private landowners is “in its infancy.” Some private companies also contract directly with insurers, Miley said, a practice that is also relatively new and far more common than working with homeowners directly.
Private firefighting as it’s often perceived — with trucks stationed outside an individual’s home, dousing it with water as a blaze burns — is not widespread, Wills said. He said that the practice makes up a tiny part of his business.
Private contractors who work for owners of homes or private land comprise less than 1% of the private fire service industry, according to the National Wildfire Suppression Association. Some private firefighting companies contract with insurance carriers to protect properties.
Wills said he first noticed interest in on-site fire suppression from private landowners a little under two decades ago.
“You started seeing high-net-worth folks making phone calls,” Wills told BI, saying he doesn’t publicly advertise the service. “For us, what happens is, fires kick-off, and then people start just getting online, Googling, searching ‘private fire protection,’ and somehow we come up.”
Joe Torres, the founder of All Risk Shield, said he offers on-site protection as a small portion of his business. All Risk Shield provides three tiers of year-round fire defense services at varying price points, with the most basic costing $2,500 per year. The first tier includes preventive maintenance, and the second adds fire monitoring and further preparatory services. Only tier three, the most expensive, includes an on-site team to protect a property during a blaze. He declined to share how much tier three costs.
All Risk Shield doesn’t offer on-site protection outside of the year-round package. Torres, who was a public firefighter for 24 years before founding his company, said he only has “a handful of those clients” who opt for a tier three service in California.
On-site protection can cost thousands per day
Neither Wills nor Torres shared how much it costs to hire a private firefighting crew for on-site emergency protection for an individual landowner. Both said that estimates of around $5,000 per day are consistent with what they believe some competitors charge.
Wills told BI that he charges individuals a very similar rate to the federal government — for a three-person crew in California, he said his contracts with the federal government cost about $4,000 per day. Rates vary based on location, the size of the property, and the number of trucks, he said.
Torres said his primary goal is to make basic fire protection accessible to as many people as possible, particularly through his least expensive, tier-one package. He said he worries that some companies are charging people exorbitant rates in dire situations.
“I’ve heard some numbers and some stuff, and it doesn’t sound good,” he said.
David Torgerson, the CEO of a company that exclusively works with insurers, previously told BI that he never interfaces with homeowners. His company, he said, protects vulnerable structures ahead of fires based on risk, not value.
Aspects of the private firefighting industry could be on the rise
Wills doesn’t anticipate that the private firefighting industry will significantly grow in the next few years or that many people will take preventative action to fire-proof their homes. He said people are quick to forget about fires a few months after they happen.
Torres said he has seen an uptick in business since 2018, telling BI that there has been “significant growth” in his company since 2020. Miley, of the National Wildfire Suppression Agency, said she thinks more people will become interested in fire-hardening, or protecting their properties before a blaze comes in.
Fire mitigation strategies can include applying protective gels, removing combustibles, and cleaning gutters, Torgerson previously told BI. Typically, his crews will work on insured properties hours or days before a wildfire is anticipated to pass through.
Customers using private firefighters face criticism
Some of the few Californians that have hired on-site protection for their homes have faced criticism.
Keith Wasserman, cofounder and managing partner of Gelt Venture Partners, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm, sparked backlash after posting on social media asking if anyone had access to private firefighters to protect his home in Pacific Palisades, where the average property price is around $3.4 million.
“Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in the Pacific Palisades?” he asked in a since-deleted X post earlier this month. “Need to act fast here. All neighbors houses burning. Will pay any amount.”
Wasserman didn’t reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.
It’s not the first time celebrities have hired private firefighters to protect their homes. In 2018, Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West, who now goes by the name Ye, hired crews to protect their $60 million home when blazes approached their neighborhood.
That incident also led to backlash.
Wills said he thinks it’s the first time many people are learning about the private firefighting industry. Both he and Torres told BI that they don’t think most understand the bulk of their business focus, but are well aware of the emerging negative connotations associated with the industry.
“I understand how the perception is on that, of course, but it’s like, welcome to the real world,” Wills said about the bubbling controversy. “Ask anybody: if you had the money in the bank and you knew somebody that had an engine available, why wouldn’t you?”
The post Private firefighters breakdown how they spend most of their time — and it’s not protecting mansions appeared first on Business Insider.
