PACIFIC Palisades, United States — On one aspect of the road lie the ashes of ruined homes, misplaced to the massive blazes that defeated Los Angeles firefighters when hydrants ran dry.
On the opposite aspect, a small village of retailers remains to be intact, watched over by tanker vehicles and a military of personal firemen.
Greater than every week after monumental blazes unfold unchecked by swathes of America’s second largest metropolis, questions are being requested about how a few of the metropolis’s super-rich appear to have survived nearly unscathed.
“All I can say is that we received employed and now we have been ordered to remain right here. I’m not allowed to inform you greater than that.” a person in a yellow and inexperienced uniform instructed AFP in entrance of the business growth.
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The lads, together with their pick-up vehicles with Oregon license plates, have been stationed at property owned by billionaire developer Rick Caruso.
Their presence — defending shops hawking luxurious manufacturers like Yves Saint-Laurent, Isabel Marant and Erewhon — jars in a metropolis the place greater than two dozen individuals have died and hundreds of individuals have misplaced their properties.
“It sucks that there’s a variety of politics concerned,” says one other of the lads. “We simply need to do the job and assist nevertheless we are able to.”
Caruso, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022, didn’t reply to AFP requests for remark.
However in Pacific Palisades, a hang-out of Hollywood celebrities and the ultra-rich, he isn’t the one one apparently utilizing his wealth to guard his property.
Different personal firefighters stand guard in entrance of a few of the untouched princely villas that dot the hillsides.
‘Can pay any quantity’
The sector made headlines in 2018 when Kim Kardashian and her then-husband Kanye West employed personal firefighters to guard their lavish pad within the prosperous group of Hidden Hills, north of the town.
The profiles of the 2 distinct areas that have been hit by final week’s blazes — rich Pacific Palisades and the extra combined Altadena — have already served to place a highlight on financial divisions in the US.
The disparity was additional highlighted within the fast aftermath of the fires when actual property developer Keith Wasserman attracted an avalanche of criticism after a social media submit.
“Does anybody have entry to non-public firefighters to guard our residence?” he wrote within the now-deleted submit.
“Must act quick right here. All neighbors homes burning. Can pay any quantity.”
Such providers can price between $2,000 and $15,000 per day, US media has reported, citing native corporations.
However even for these with the means, calling on personal firefighters will not be at all times easy — most companies are contracted by cities, authorities departments or insurance coverage corporations.
In California, a legislation handed in 2018 limits how they will function.
They don’t seem to be allowed to make use of flashing lights or badges just like these of public firefighters, and are required to coordinate with them.
Since this laws got here into pressure some corporations have refused to serve people.
Whose water?
Personal or public, firefighters all have the identical mission: “defending our group,” mentioned Jake Heflin, a firefighter from the publicly funded Lengthy Seashore Hearth Division.
“If it’s carried out appropriately and carried out in partnership and in live performance collectively, it may be very efficient,” Heflin mentioned.
However it could additionally create issues.
Taxpayer-funded providers mustn’t must focus “sources on caring for them, as a result of both they’re ill-equipped or ill-prepared they usually’ve gotten themselves right into a troublesome state of affairs,” he mentioned.
Firefighters “need to have these conversations properly forward of the occasion.”
How a lot coordination there was earlier than the disaster in Pacific Palisades, the place hydrants ran dry and a few homes have been successfully left to burn, is unclear.
For Jeff Ridgway, a 67-year-old Pacific Palisades resident who resorted to scooping buckets out of a swimming pool when the mains provide petered out, that could be a key query.
“It is going to be very attention-grabbing to know in the event that they used these hearth hydrants,” Ridgway instructed AFP.
“I actually hope they introduced their very own water.”
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