Private Firefighters

There have been a number of fires this month in the state of California. Thankfully, they are all out at the moment, but there was an interesting thing I heard that I was not aware of… private firefighters.

Firefighters, as I have always known them, are employees of the local governments and serve the public. However, these private firefighters are actually an additional insurance coverage option that many wealthy people use. As a case and point, Kim Kardashian pointed to private firefighters as saving her house in the recent fires in Calabasas.

These private firefighters have fire trucks with water tanks (the fire hydrants and the water in them are owned by the local government, so not eligible to be used by private fire fighters), fire retardant and a fire resistant gel that they will spray all over the insured’s house in order to prevent a fire from popping up. They do what they can to prevent the loss of a particular home, but what I have also heard is that they can get in the way of the public firefighters who are trying to serve the more general public and actually get the fire out, as opposed to protecting a particular structure.

Private firefighters are a unique and new concept to me, but it does make sense. I would think the insurance companies might even hire some of these private firefighters to prevent loss on expensive properties.

Anyway, I thought I would share a little about this today and see what opinions are out there are on private firefighters - is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Thanks for stopping by today!

Brian

Note: free image courtesy of pixabay