Private contractors aren't only in Iraq. They're on the scene wherever public resources are deemed not sufficient to serve the needs of the wealthy. In this case, in the wildfire-threatened American West:
New Jersey-based Chubb Corp. [...] began offering free fire protection to its clients in 13 Western states in March. Already 11,000 homeowners have signed up, more than a third of those in wealthy and fire-prone enclaves like Lake Tahoe and Marin County. The company plans to expand the service to other states before the start of next fire season.
Chubb hired Montana-based Wildfire Defense Systems Inc. to protect homes with a replacement value of $1 million or more. The company is now subcontracting a pool of 50 fire engines throughout the West dedicated exclusively to Chubb policyholders.
A relative and career forest fire fighter confirms that insurance company crews have been showing up to foam the roofs of multi-million-dollar houses in places like Big Sur. In California, public agencies trying to manage fire on a broader scale have already run through half their budgets before reaching the main fire season, which starts in August.
My brother-in-law, recently in Wisconsin from the wildfires of California, says he stopped seeing smoke in the sky only after he crossed the Black Hills of South Dakota.
