California has become the “Can’t Have State,” as in can’t have plastic bags, can’t have plastic straws and utensils, can’t have a new gasoline-powered car 10 years from now, can’t have a long of things that would make up a list too long to go into here. The next “can’t have,” if a bill reintroduced in Sacramento becomes law, are private firefighters.
Assembly Bill 1075 would require the Office of Emergency Services “to develop regulations prohibiting privately contracted firefighters from hooking up their equipment to public water sources.”
Politico says the legislation is intended to stick “it to Rick Caruso’s private firefighters.”
That was in the headline in the Feb. 26 article. The first paragraph is laced with even more sharp barbs.
“Los Angeles Democrats and the largest firefighter union in the state have joined forces on a proposal making public fire hydrants off limits to private fire crews, such as the ones billionaire developer Rick Caruso hired when wildfires were devastating the region.”
So better to burn than to upset one of the strongest public employee unions in California. As PRI Free Cities Center director Steven Greenhut says, “how dare anyone protect their own property.”
Or as the Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow puts it, “some critics apparently prefer that buildings burn publicly rather than be rescued privately.”
Democratic Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, a cosponsor of the bill along with Democratic Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, justifies shutting out private firefighters, who often work for insurance companies that sell wildfire coverage, by appealing to a standard that surely sounds high-minded.
“Firefighting is a public good,” Bryan, whose 55th District is centered in Culver City told Politico. “It is a public resource. It is something that we all invest in and we all derive benefits from.”
Hard to argue with that. But by effectively outlawing property owners from protecting themselves with private efforts by barring them from connecting to public water service puts the public at risk. Unionized firefighters can’t be everywhere at all times. Better to have a private fireman than no fireman at all.
“Private fire departments can fill gaps when public fire departments aren’t able to meet the demands of their local communities,” says Frontline Wildfire Defense, which says it’s developed “a new approach to wildfire protection,” and offers “an automated fire defense system to protect property from damage.”
California Professional Firefighters president Brian Rice can howl that private firefighters “don’t train to the same standards” as government firefighters, that “they’re not equipped like we are” and “not professionals like we are,” but the facts show that the U.S. Forest Service recognizes their competence, often contracting with private companies to suppress wildfires.
Despite Rice’s contention of suboptimal training, the firefighters employed by hundreds of private companies aren’t hobbyists playing fireman or random freelancers. They “are fully trained to the federal standards,” says FireRescue1, an online information and resource site for firefighters, and follow National Fire Protection Association guidelines “for Firefighter I and Firefighter II.” Those are training levels the state fire marshal’s office recognizes as sufficient for certification.
The 35,000-member union also argues that private crews can get in the way of taxpayer-fed-and-clothed firemen “and should be outlawed,” Politico says. But if private fire brigades, who by law must check in with fire commanders when they work, were allowed to use the same radio frequency as government firefighters, then efforts could be coordinated, which would save more homes, more commercial structures and more lives.
Clearly AB 1075 is simply a vehicle for turf-guarding, which is one of organized labor’s primary objectives, not a good-faith attempt to protect the public.
Bryan and McKinnor’s bill is not a public safety measure, but a petty act made on behalf of the firefighters’ union, and a perverse pursuit of “fairness” – after all, if the houses of those who can afford private protection burn, then so must those who can – that will cause more catastrophic property damage and might even cost lives.
While the bill will block private companies from hooking up to government hydrants, it doesn’t put them out of business entirely. It won’t stop them from arriving with their own water supplies or connecting to private fire hydrants, nor from performing tasks to protect structures, a service they provide for not just the rich but also “common, regular people.” Maybe those will be outlawed in the next bill. Don’t be surprised if they are.
Kerry Jackson is the William Clement Fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute.
