Private firefighters and five-star hotels: how the rich sit out wildfires
Record-breaking US wildfires are fueling a cottage industry of boutique services - and many are happy to pay the price
With record-breaking wildfires carving up the American west this summer, firefighters have become the rarest of civil servants: the kind almost universally lauded as heroes. Reinforcements dropped into California's firefight from as far away as Australia and American Samoa to bolster strained state and federal crews, reaching a high point of 14,000 firefighters on the ground.
Yet other crews have pulled into the fires' path with a less grandiose purpose: to save only select addresses. These are the private firefighters of the rich or otherwise well-insured: private crews hired by insurance companies to minimize damages and keep policyholders' homes from going up in smoke.
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