California fires - Private Firefighters saving houses/Money saves homes
There was a time when firefighting was a private, for-profit industry. Through much of the 19th century, firefighting in most big cities was done through private fire brigades ― referred to colloquially as “gangs” ― that would compete with one another to respond to fires. Whichever brigade arrived first would be paid by insurance companies to put out the flames. This competition-based model resulted in territorial disputes and the incentive for brigades to sabotage one another, resulting in many homes and buildings burning down unnecessarily.
Another common practice at the time was for insurance companies to issue “fire marks” ― metal plaques that would be placed on the outside of property covered by an insurance company.
These practices started to disappear around the time of the Civil War, when the government began to take over firefighting services. As a society, we had decided that protection from fire should not be commodified ― that it should be a service provided to everyone equally, regardless of wealth or status.
BUT--
Hidden Hills residents were ordered to evacuate their homes as the Woolsey fire approached. But unlike thousands of others, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian did not have to leave their fate up to erratic winds and unpredictable floating embers. They had other options. They called in a team of private firefighters who saved their $60 million mansion and many of the other
The ultimate realization we are compelled to confront, in the face of private firefighting in Hidden Hills (Homes of the super-rich), is one that has plagued class society from its inception. It is a dark and uncomfortable realization, but it is nonetheless threaded through almost all aspects of class society. If we are OK with the wealthy having access to forms of disaster protection that are unavailable to the poor, then we’d have to admit that we, as a society, believe the life of a rich person is worth more than the life of a poor person.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/california-wildfires-neoliberalism-climate-change_us_5bec0d2ce4b0caeec2c012a0
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