Private Firefighters Watch Rick Caruso’s Home in Brentwood

As the Pacific Palisades fire raged after burning through 12,250 structures, a lone fire truck stood parked beside water trucks outside developer Rick Caruso’s home in Brentwood.

The fire brigade wasn’t from the Los Angeles Fire Department, but from five different private firefighting outfits hired by the former mayoral candidate over the weekend to protect his home, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“And I heard there’s more coming,” Laron Whitfield, a firefighter who said he arrived from Riverside on Friday with a company called Wildland, told the Times. “He’s smart, he wants to be ready.”

Caruso is among the owners of both residential and commercial properties who employed private firefighters during the deadly firestorms driven by Santa Ana winds that ravaged more than 52,000 structures in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Altadena and Pasadena, and parts of Brentwood and the south San Fernando Valley.

Another firefighter said he was working a 48-hour shift protecting Caruso’s “house specifically but around it as well” and would be there until 9 a.m. Monday. “And then I’ve got two dudes coming in to replace me and my partner,” the unidentified firefighter told the Times.

The off-duty firefighter from the Los Alamitos Fire Department was hired by West Coast Water Tenders, which provides “2,500-4,000-gallon tactical water trucks, grading equipment and mobile retardant bases,” according to its website.

Other private firefighting units on site included All Terrain, which was founded in 1996 by retired military and fire service personnel and says on its website that it serves clients in “high-threat environments in a variety of sectors.”

What Caruso paid for the added fire projection was not known.

Caruso, a candidate who lost the 2022 election to Mayor Karen Bass, owns shopping centers across the region, including the Grove in Fairfax, the Americana at Brand in Glendale and Palisades Village, a retail-residential complex in the Palisades that was damaged in the blaze.

He told the New York Times that he had deployed a private firefighting team to save the complex, which includes a movie theater, Erewhon grocery store, restaurants and retailers including Lululemon and Saint Laurent.

Caruso’s home address was not disclosed by the Times.

Private firefighting units have been a controversial topic, symbolizing access for the rich while drawing criticism for heightening class divides during disasters, according to the Times. In 2018, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West hired firefighters to protect their $60 million mansion from the Woolsey Fire in Calabasas.

Some of the firefighters are contracted by insurance companies, others by affluent homeowners. The firms say such services are a “win-win,” according to the newspaper. If a homeowner’s home is saved, the insurance company doesn’t have to make a payout.

— Dana Bartholomew