Private firefighters protected a Hollywood talent manager’s home. Why are people so mad?

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Posted on 01/12/2025 11:18:44 AM PST by george76

LOS ANGELES — Adam Leber was nodding off in his Hollywood Hills mansion late Wednesday night when his housekeeper jolted him awake with an urgent message: There’s a fire at the door.

Leber — a talent manager whose clients have included Miley Cyrus and Lil Nas X — opened his door and looked. Sure enough, “The entire hillside was on fire,” he said. “It was insane.” Orange-red flames sprung up everywhere, spitting embers dangerously close. Without thinking, he and his wife scooped up their dogs and 3-year-old daughter, threw some belongings in their car and drove east, to take refuge in their second home by Lake Arrowhead.

As Leber rushed his family to safety amid a broader firestorm engulfing wide swaths of Los Angeles County, a private firefighting service arrived to ensure his 6,000-square-foot home — once owned by filmmaker Preston Sturges and “rumored to be the site of Charlie Chaplin’s first wedding,” according to an old real estate listing — remained standing.

Leber is one of a growing number of Californians who, faced with the growing threat of wildfires in populated areas, have turned to private firefighting teams as an added layer of protection. Supporters of private firefighting teams argue they can augment the work of government-run efforts, stepping in to fill the cracks caused by depleted city and state budgets and an ever-worsening climate crisis.

But not everyone is a fan of private firefighters, particularly those that contract directly with homeowners outside of insurance, like the company Leber hired. Critics contend that when wealthy individuals hire their own firefighters, they compete with public teams for precious resources such as water, and could potentially interfere with those teams’ efforts by, for example, blocking or crowding narrow access points.

Moreover, they say, private firefighters widen the already-vast chasm between rich and poor, safeguarding the interests of the former at the expense of the latter.

“The rich suffer zero consequences of anything, even cataclysmic natural disasters,” one user wrote on X, responding to a video the Chronicle posted showing private firefighters saving Leber’s house. “Private and firefighter should not be in the same sentence,” wrote another.

Joe Torres, CEO of All Risk Shield, thinks some of these criticisms are unfair — especially during major disasters like this one.

“I’ve been in the fire service for 24 years, right. And I’m still in the service,” he told the Chronicle. “I can tell you, these last few days, when there’s a big event like this, resources get stretched so thin from municipal, state, federal (departments) that there’s a need for additional resources.” He disputed the idea that private teams siphon water away from the public: His teams primarily bring their own to a site, or draw from homeowners’ pools.

The definition of “private firefighter” is broad, and can encompass a wide range of services: There are the private crews contracted by wealthy individuals such as Leber, which often do direct battle with blazes, as well as companies that work exclusively with insurance providers to fireproof policyholders’ assets, largely through prevention efforts like sprinkler installation.

This latter group far outnumbers the former, said David Torgerson, president of Wildfire Defense Systems, which contracts with a majority of the top 10 insurance carriers to protect clients in high-risk areas.

The hiring of private firefighters by wealthy clients outside of insurance, he said, is still relatively rare, employed only in “select locations” in California such as the Palisades and Beverly Hills. For those considering hiring such companies, he said, “there’s stronger solutions out there” — namely his company, which hires union firefighters, coordinates directly with government agencies and serves homes covered by its insurer clients based on their risk level, not market value. The company, which has responded to more than 1,400 wildfires since 2008, is also technically the third-largest single firefighting force in the U.S., after the federal government and state of California.

Some private companies contract directly with public fire departments, lending support during major conflagrations. Nathan Bowyer, a firefighter with the Calistoga Fire Department, said these teams have been nothing but helpful in his experience, particularly when they supply water tenders — massive vehicles capable of carrying large amounts of water to fire sites.

Leber first purchased private fire protection last September, as a different blaze — the Line Fire — came within a few miles of his family’s Lake Arrowhead home.

As the flames neared, “I immediately started researching private firefighters,” he said. Quickly, he found a company that looked reputable, All Risk Shield. A crew arrived soon after, guarding the house until the local fire department arrived. Leber was so pleased with the company’s work that he bought a suite of services for his Los Angeles home, including fire hardening and emergency response.

On Wednesday night, it was easy to see why Leber and others had sprung for additional protection. The Sunset Fire and several other blazes had ripped through the Los Angeles area, burning thousands of structures and killing at least five people. Two of the infernos, the Palisades and Eaton fires, already ranked among the 20 most destructive in California’s history.

As public firefighters circled their helicopters, cut brush from homes and blasted water on the flames spreading through Hollywood Hills, two retired firefighters sat in the driveway of Leber’s North Vista Street mansion. The men, part of the team hired to protect Leber’s home, had rigged sprinklers on the second story eave. Water rained down on the street below, creating a waterfall around the exterior.

The crew members confirmed they had been paid out of pocket, not through insurance, to protect the home from the flames that cascaded down Runyon Canyon perilously close to old Hollywood homes often visited during celebrity tours.

Foam pooled in the gutter, but the crew said the owner had asked them to not use foam as a preventative measure, just water, so they stopped. A half-block away, onlookers stood behind a police barricade as firefighters wound through the narrow streets with hose lines snaking through old archways, beyond massive front gates and past private garage gyms.

Up the street, higher into the hills, Los Angeles Fire Department hand crews and engines, along with a women’s prison crew, worked to protect Sheryl Crow’s former house. The public agencies chain-sawed palm fronds and brush, and sprayed water on encroaching flames and breached massive front gate doors.

As the fire calmed, a second truck pulled into Leber’s driveway. The public firefighters would move on, racing to quell the disastrous fires roaring across Los Angeles. But the team Leber had hired would stay put, watching over his home until dawn.

“My family and I are unbelievably lucky to be in the position that we’re in, given what everyone else is going through,” Leber told the Chronicle. “What (the private firefighters) do is unbelievable. … I was 100% certain our house was done. Thanks to these guys, they were able to hold it off long enough so the fire department could come in.”

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1 posted on 01/12/2025 11:18:44 AM PST by george76

To: george76

2 posted on 01/12/2025 11:22:30 AM PST by Qwapisking (Q: know the difference between a petulant 6 y.o. and a liberal? A:age. L.Star )

To: george76

3 posted on 01/12/2025 11:24:40 AM PST by cgbg (It is time to pull the Deep State out of the mass media--like ticks from a dog.)

To: george76

4 posted on 01/12/2025 11:25:58 AM PST by NEMDF

To: george76

5 posted on 01/12/2025 11:26:29 AM PST by cgbg (It is time to pull the Deep State out of the mass media--like ticks from a dog.)

To: george76

6 posted on 01/12/2025 11:27:07 AM PST by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.")

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