Posted on 12/03/2018 5:33:30 PM PST by Libloather
**SNIP**
With California experiencing two years of unprecedented wildfires that have left more than 20,000 homes destroyed and scores dead, the private firefighting business is booming. These brigades work independently from county firefighters; their job is to protect specific homes under contract with insurance companies.
Their work can vary from pushing back flames as they approach properties to reaching the site before the blaze arrives and spraying homes with fire retardant.
But the private forces have generated complaints from some fire departments, who say they don’t always coordinate with local crews and amount to one more worry as they try to evacuate residents and battle the blaze.
“From the standpoint of first responders, they are not viewed as assets to be deployed. They’re viewed as a responsibility,” said Carroll Wills, communications director for California Professional Firefighters, a labor union representing rank-and-file firefighters in the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Just coming full circle to the beginnings of community firefighting in 18th century colonial America—pay an annual premium which supported the fire company, receive a marker on your property, or else burn, baby burn.
Nothing new under the sun.
I wonder how many of these people have shingle roofs.
And sooner or later rich and not so rich people will realize that when government no longer provides basic services and preservation of life, "it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it."
STFU while KKKalifornia illegals are voting moar money for useless .gov Mittlickers who will protect and serve their pensions.
When will OGC [Orkin Government Control] become cost-effective?
BUMP
Oh those elitists!
Hilarious since you come from a “shithole state” yourself.
You really ought to read the post right above yours, 14.
It’s really tough out there for anyone trying to fight a fire in any state!
I wonder how many of these reporters are aware that the first fire fighters were CONTRACT fire fighters?
Medallions were placed on homes that were paying for fire fighting efforts. If your house caught fire & your DID NOT have such a medallion-—those paid fire fighters would let it burn.
Of course the concept of fuel mitigation as an insurance requirement would be way to upsetting in Kaleforni. I don’t see that private fire crew option in the insurance policies across the country, but I see higher rates for the rest of us to pay for California’s political correctness.
In California, they just need more minions to keep their gated communities safe from the real world. What happened to their high minded communism they try to enforce on the rest of us? Don’t they want to pay 60% more in taxes to have every home with it’s own fire station? Why not let the homeless into their neighborhoods to keep down their brush problem?
It’s like some higher power is telling them that if you have enough money, there are no consequences for being a douche.
“My state sucks more than yours...”
“No-my state sucks more...”
“No-mine does...”
“No-.........
...........
There are still a lot of California homes with wood shingles or tar and gravel roofs or a combo. We had a big retro fit on our home and replaced a shake with some tar and gravel with the roof you recommended.
We spent thousands of $’s having dying 50 year old pine trees cut down and chipped and the planted brush/shrubs around our home removed and hauled away..
As usual, there is a lot of controversy re what to do. During our retro fit, our contractor installed 12 air vents on the sides over the foundation of our home for air flow and to prevent dry rot, fungus and other problems and to meet the code. In some areas, air vents apparently sucked in burning embers and set the homes on fire.
Thanks for your comments.
“Or flames on the side of the house melting the vinyl and burning through walls.”
This caused the loss of many homes in an area with a lot of shrubbery close to the house, even the stucco homes. In one area, they got the shrubbery soaked with garden hoses and apparently saved the homes.
The big home saver was swimming pools and a gasoline water pump.
The above happened last October and was not in the recent Paradise fire.
Now you know why AZ has rocks in their yards. Water shortage and fire hazard.
“Now you know why AZ has rocks in their yards. Water shortage and fire hazard.”
Add to the above, a herd of voracious deer. Deer that eat every thing that is green or was green. They eat stuff that their ancestors didn’t eat like Rock Roses, Ivy, piracantha and other thorny bushes.
The left will eliminate this
Those are just 10-20 mph winds, a lot less than some of your fires. Of course the embers are generated close by, but some of your fires had prolific ember sources.
Kind of like people hiring their own snow removal crews.
Unless EVERY home/few homes have the some contractor, when TSHTF they can only be in one place at a time and not everyone can be ‘first’
“Smart people” would not build with easily combustible materials, in a forest in an area subject to severe wet / drought cycles (for thousands of years), and yearly hot / windy events, leaving much of the forest amongst their homes and businesses, and with plenty of prior examples of severe fires to consider. Nor, once the problems became evident (California has been having lesser but still destructive wildfires for many years) would they tolerate policies that prevent forest and land managers from doing their jobs.
One can still go onto their favorite mapping app and check out close in sat views of Paradise, CA, prior to the Camp Fire, and what you see is a town immersed in the forest, or perhaps as properly, forest immersed in the town. Given weather conditions that are and have been for a long time typical for the area, it, and many other towns in the region, are disasters primed & waiting to happen.
Worse... I have seen several vids of burn-out areas of Paradise, after the fire. There are block after block of every building burned down, yet, some trees, even pine trees, survived and still have green foliage on them. One fire official stated the buildings themselves provided the biggest source of fuel for the fire, once it was in town. What this tells me is that most buildings’ fire resistance was poorer than the trees.
A good thread, once it gets going, discussing these factors and more, is here:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3710927/posts
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