I am not opposed to having insurance companies hire private contractors and private equipment to protect high value assets in a fire zone. Anything that helps reduce the forward looking costs and liabilities for residents and businesses in these affected areas will help with the restoration and economic recovery in that area. As an example, if people’s insurance rates can be held lower and/or the insurance companies will remain insuring the homes and businesses in those areas, people have better choices to stay or are forced to leave.
Secondly, private firms like Capstone and FireStormer are often used by Washington DNR and Oregon ODF for fires suppression and true line work, so their people are definitely qualified and trained personnel. As such, they are accustomed to being able to use defensive firing and perhaps, even firing operations in those States. Recognizing that CA is a much different and much more litigious State than OR or WA, changes those abilities for those private companies. I am not in a position to judge the specific circumstances of what occurred yesterday on Div SS on the Glass, so I don’t precisely know what the type of firing was occurring, but chances are that it was more than likely some fashion of a defensive move. In the event that it was a defensive move, that’s probably a circumstance in which people who are not attached to the incident should no longer be in that area simply from an accountability and safety perspective. I am not questioning their abilities, training, experience or credentials, simply that the lack of communications becomes a safety matter not a legal one.
While the private contract personnel are supposed to check in to the ICP, their movements on an incident are not tracked and there is no accountability for them. Line personnel in the areas which they are working generally know that these personnel are there but not specifically what addresses they are located at or if they move to another address. This lack of accountability at some point is going to have some tragic outcomes, perhaps not on this incident but at some point it will. Most of these private contractors have radios which are used on their company’s FCC licensed frequencies, most likely do not have any repeaters within many of these areas nor are they authorized to use incident assigned frequencies which do have repeaters assigned for Command channels, so should there be an instance whereby they need immediate assistance, they are not in any position to do so.
At some point, it would seem that there is going to be the need to somehow tie these personnel to the incident in some fashion. Perhaps not to the degree that private hire and agency equipment is tied but there does need to a better accountability mechanism than is in place today.
