A ship capsizes and everyone is in the water, waiting for the Coast Guard to arrive. But wait! Suddenly a helicopter arrives and drops a ladder down to you, and only you, because you have paid in advance for such service. That’s more or less what is happening in fire protection in certain high-end neighborhoods these days – it’s going private.
In 150 affluent zip code regions in California and Colorado, you can now spend $19,000 a year for special fire protection coverage from the insurer AIG. (And here’s a nice touch – the coverage may also cover your yacht, your art collection and any ransom demands.) As Bloomberg News reports (and a tip of the hat to DailyKos), AIG?s Private Client Group has a Wildfire Protection Unit that will spray a fire retardant on brush around insured homes before each fire season. Fair enough.
If a wildfire strikes within three miles of an insured home, that’s when the the special privileges really begin. AIG will dispatch a “Firemark” truck to protect your house. Your neighbor will just have to wait for the public fire truck, which may be busy somewhere else.
When wildfires ripped through the wealth Rancho Santa Fe region in northern San Diego recently – the second-most-expensive zip code in the country, according to Forbes Magazine – at least 43 buildings were destroyed. But some AIG customers had their own private AIG fire trucks spraying water on their houses, as Daniel Taub of Bloomberg writes:
“We’re not going out there to fight the fire,” said Dorothy Sarna, vice president and national director of risk-management services and loss prevention for the New York-based company. “We’re out there to protect our clients.”
Veteran fire managers now working the Castle Rock fire say they’ve never heard of a private fire crew protecting individual homes in the midst of a wildfire, said Dave Olson, a spokesman for the Forest Service.
The private crew has been granted access to areas closed to residents, but not all officials with public fire agencies were thrilled by the sight of the truck scooting through a smoky web of government fire crews.
“That sounds ridiculous to me,” said Kim Rogers, a Ketchum Police Department spokesman, “especially since we haven’t lost any structures. I mean, this is a Forest Service fire, not a private fire.”
Nevertheless, the crew has Forest Service blessing.
According to an account in the Twin Falls (Idaho) Times News, one AIG fire fighter in California reported, “There were a few instances where we were spraying and the neighbor’s house went up like a candle.”
Nothing like an emergency to bring us together!
When you bring together free enterprise and fire protection, it will look something like this: dozens of high-tech private fire engines will clog the streets trying to get to the poshest homes in endangered neighborhoods while antique public fire engines struggle to get through to the lower-end ranch houses and mobile homes. A Darwinian ethic of natural selection will protect those who are rich enough to hire private fire engines, while those poor suckers who have to rely on the government (har, har) will see the folly of their liberal mindset. It’s the whole Blackwater ethic brought home to civil protection. It’s every man for himself. The times, they are a-changin’.