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Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

foxbusiness.com

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Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#41

Post by big_chungus »

enriquto wrote: post #8
kortilla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are private firemen. If they weren’t hired they would be off doing something else for money. It’s like complaining about people hiring private security guards when there is a police shortage. Read the article, they aren’t fire retarding private lawns. They are doing preventative work that keeps the fire far away. If it hits the lawn, it’s too late. More firefighters are better, regardless of which areas are bei…

> It’s like complaining about people hiring private security guards when there is a police shortage. What do you mean with that comparison? This would be quite a legitimate reason for complaining!

Right, but should you really be blaming the people who hire the extra private policemen, or the people who decide not to hire more public ones? It seems as though it's more effective to push for more public policemen. The same applies to firemen: it's more productive to push for more public firemen than to blame the people who hire private ones due to a shortage thereof.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#43

Post by bogartmyjoint »

Traster wrote: post #13
slashdev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got the wrong way of looking at this. The government is unwilling to hire these people, so they're available to private individuals. If the government were winning to fork out tax dollars for private firefighters, there's nothing stopping them from doing so. The great thing about capitalism, for better or worse, but mostly better is that you or any one other person does not get to decide what constitutes effic…

Step 1: Rich people lobby to lower taxes Step 2: The government can't afford firefighters. Step 3: Rich people use the tax money they've saved to employ private firefighters to only protect their property. Step 4: Poor people are left to die in otherwise controllable fires.

Step 6: Blame the poor people, then threaten to take away any federal aid for not voting for the GOP.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#44

Post by jacquesm »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #21
ossworkerrights wrote: post #6

Amusing how anyone suggesting burying powerlines underground is immediately pushed back by "it's expensive" know it alls. Wondering if power-cuts like 3rd world countries enjoy are preferable over a slight increase in power supply costs, and wether impotence is more desirable over action bEcAuSe iT's eXpEnSivE.

Controlled burns are also important, and California has been neglecting those lately too.

They won't need any for a while after this.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#45

Post by jannes »

Rychard wrote: post #38
theomega wrote: post #17

Unrelated, but annoying: How does FOX get around the autoplay protection of Firefox on Desktop? I have blocked all AutoPlay and yet the annoying video starts playing.

It doesn't autoplay for me (using Firefox 70.0) In fact, in my console there's a message that says this: "Autoplay is only allowed when approved by the user, the site is activated by the user, or media is muted."

I get the same message about 6 times in the console as well, but in the end it seems to start playing anyway.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#46

Post by ahje »

ossworkerrights wrote: post #6

Amusing how anyone suggesting burying powerlines underground is immediately pushed back by "it's expensive" know it alls. Wondering if power-cuts like 3rd world countries enjoy are preferable over a slight increase in power supply costs, and wether impotence is more desirable over action bEcAuSe iT's eXpEnSivE.

Burying the power lines underground does make sense to me, but I live in a quiet inland forest in an area that hasn't seen large earthquakes in recorded history, and I don't know anything about the area affected in this particular case.

Could it be that they anticipate that future earth quakes could cause such devastation that repairs to underground cables would be too difficult/time consuming?

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#47

Post by TeMPOraL »

cco wrote: post #10
kortilla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are private firemen. If they weren’t hired they would be off doing something else for money. It’s like complaining about people hiring private security guards when there is a police shortage. Read the article, they aren’t fire retarding private lawns. They are doing preventative work that keeps the fire far away. If it hits the lawn, it’s too late. More firefighters are better, regardless of which areas are bei…

This is mostly a zero sum game in the immediate term, and mostly zero sum in the longer term since there is a fairly limited pool of people available to fight fires. If you have the skills to be a fireman but a private individual pays you above market rate to fight their own personal fires then you will remove yourself from the pool of people fighting fires for the public and into a private pool. Will 20 such private…

Is there really a shortage of firefighters? Or is there a shortage of firefighters willing to work for the rates public service offers? How high are those rates anyway? Because given how much public servants are typically paid worldwide, I can easily imagine that the private firefighting company isn't competing with public firefighting jobs, but with all the other jobs a would-be firefighter can get that pay better than fighting fires.

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#48

Post by Merrill »

Merrill wrote: post #18
ossworkerrights wrote: post #6

Amusing how anyone suggesting burying powerlines underground is immediately pushed back by "it's expensive" know it alls. Wondering if power-cuts like 3rd world countries enjoy are preferable over a slight increase in power supply costs, and wether impotence is more desirable over action bEcAuSe iT's eXpEnSivE.

CA appears to require lots of power lines because of sprawling development patterns, electricity generation located away from population centers, and a significant proportion of electricity imported from other states which must then be distributed intrastate.

It appears that CA power line vegetation management is woefully lacking. Given the fire risks, the right of way for high tension power lines should be essentially bare of vegetation.

PG&E is less than one-third done with its 2019 tree-trimming work

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-is-less-th...

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#49

Post by mothsonasloth »

A: "You have selected Amazon's Prime Fire service"

A: "A fire-engine will be dispatched within 20 minutes"

--- In another part of the country ---

A: "We're sorry we don't provide Prime fire service for your location, please direct your query to the local authorities"

Local fire department: "We will try and answer your call as soon as possible, but due to budget cuts from a reduced corporate tax income we have had to reduce our services in the area."

Re: Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy

#50

Post by ceejayoz »

fooqux wrote: post #27

Interesting- I always thought the cyberpunk future of self-policed corporate-states would be here eventually, but I didn't think firefighters would be privatized in that manner before police.

Private firefighting dates back to ancient Rome.

> The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Marcus Licinius Crassus. He took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the fire fighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire, if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome

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