Insurance Company Sends In Private Fire Crew To Protect Expensive Homes

[Nomad559]

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2007/08/23/news/top_story/119026.txt

Yes, the rich are different than the rest of us.

A private fire crew dispatched by a national insurance company that caters to wealthy clients is guarding 22 high-end homes threatened by the Castle Rock Fire, a blaze that has forced the evacuation of hundreds of million-dollar homes west of Ketchum.

The crew will protect only homes insured by AIG Private Client Group, an insurance company that offers "loss-prevention services" to its wealthiest customers. A truck and two-man crew sent by AIG from Montana arrived in Ketchum about 2 p.m. Wednesday to start dousing properties with Phos-Chek, the same fire retardant dropped from U.S. Forest Service aircraft.

"We're not going out there to fight the fire," said Dorothy Sarna, vice president and national director of risk-management services and loss prevention for the New York-based company. "We're out there to protect our clients."

Veteran fire managers now working the Castle Rock fire say they've never heard of a private fire crew protecting individual homes in the midst of a wildfire, said Dave Olson, a spokesman for the Forest Service.

The private crew has been granted access to areas closed to residents, but not all officials with public fire agencies were thrilled by the sight of the truck scooting through a smoky web of government fire crews.

"That sounds ridiculous to me," said Kim Rogers, a Ketchum Police Department spokesman, "especially since we haven't lost any structures. I mean, this is a Forest Service fire, not a private fire."

[Demeter]

1. Let Them Try, I Say

Private enterprise, where angels fear to tread, all that stuff...

[astroBspacedog]

2. I live in Ketchum !!

Two miles South anyway. I'm trailer trash, -- the last of a dying species in this neck of the woods. I've been trying to get us listed as endangered with no avail, ---- therefore we have no fire trucks outside protecting our habitat.

We are in for a spooky weekend with a forecast of 25 to 30 mph winds that are beginning to blow now. All my windows are shut and the smoke is still real strong. My throat is beginning to bother me and I'm worried about my dog with her sensitive nasal system and all. So I just might have to go for a ride up north to get away from the smoke and rent a room or camp. But -- part of me would like to stay just in case I'm needed to help (evacuate friends etc.) if the fire blows up, jumps the line and things get out of hand.
The Forest Service are cautiously optimistic with the work they've accomplished this week however very nervous with the change of weather this weekend.

[Robson]

3. We headed towards special services for the rich now

We're evolving to that already where private contractors are given permission to tread where only government emergency personnel and sworn deputies were given access.

It won't be long before private Blackwater guards in armored Suburbans will be escorting CEOs and the rich down our public highways at excessive speed, and will blow through redlights as though they are the law.

They do it in Iraq now and the private citizens there are pushed out of the way or shot if they resist. How much longer do you think it will be before the rich in this country will have private escorts to push the rest of us around as if they are royalty in the middle ages.