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Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by dv_dt on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @05:14PM (#18720291)
With our level of inequality, this is coming back. In the last Southern California wildfire, there were reports again of private firefighting groups operating in the Malibu area.
Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by marshf on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @05:23PM (#18720403)
These private firefighters are generally contracted to government agencies. This is the same thing the US government or CALFIRE will do during any Type 1 incident.

The same as a concert promoter hiring off-duty cops.

Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by dv_dt on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @05:25PM (#18720421)
Ah, I understand that happens, but that's not what I was referring to. I was referring to private homeowners and insurance companies hiring firefighters.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-private-firefig...

Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by FireBeyond on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @06:29PM (#18720988)
Companies like Rural/Metro, traditionally ambulance/EMS companies, have expanded into private fire, in those places (one notable city is Grants Pass, OR).
Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by JshWright on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @07:26PM (#18721387)
Rural/Metro is now American Medial Response (they were acquired and all the operations rebranded).
Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by FireBeyond on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @08:29PM (#18721759)
Oh yeah, forgot about that!
Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by Domenic_S on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @06:46PM (#18721136)
This is a wildly different situation than what the GP was talking about. If you have the means, why wouldn't you hire a private crew? The public crews are there to get the best outcome at a macro level, not to protect your house in particular.
Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by dv_dt on Thursday December 20, 2018 @04:57PM (#18729523)
It's not clear to me it is different. You still have a divergence of motivational coordination between public fire teams and private ones. For one a private fire team can force public ones to stay committed to areas by not heeding evacuation orders...