The private firefighter and private firfighting industry is growing due to the growing threat of rural and urban fires.
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PRIVATE FIREFIGHTERS
Today’s private firefighters resemble the fire brigades of the 18th and 19th centuries who worked for insurance firms, said Timothy Ingalsbee, founder of the group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology.
“They would go and protect only those houses that paid them,” he said. “It’s started to happen again.”
A significant amount of wildfire-fighting work has been privatized over the last two decades, according to Deborah Miley, president of the National Wildfire Suppression Association, a group for private firefighters.
Private firms currently account for “40% of all wildfire suppression resources available on the ground nationally,” she said.
Most contractors, including Firestorm, get the bulk of their work through government contracts and work in tandem with public firefighters, Miley added.
But California has seen an uptick in demand for private fire crews to protect private property during recent wildifire seasons, industry groups told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“We live in a capitalist society,” said Ryan Bella, the owner of firefighting firm Bella Wildfire & Forestry, in Weimar, California. “Anyone who wants to pay to protect their property should be able to.”
Clients can hire his firm to protect their property for $300 to $5,000 per hour, depending on the size of the job. (source: Avi Asher-Schapiro with Reuters)