The Brief

Robert MacKenzie is an assistant fire chief — but not the kind who works for your local fire department. As the Palisades Fire bore down on Southern California last week, the private fire crew he oversees headed out to help defend homes for their customers: insurance companies that offer wildfire protection to wealthy homeowners and others with the coverage built into their policies.

Working with lists of high-risk properties provided by insurers, the team from Capstone Fire and Safety Management aims to arrive at houses before a fire does, then make changes to the structure that will give it the best chance of survival. If a fire is getting close, they’ll smear a fire-protective gel on the side of the home, then get out.

“If the windows are open, maybe we can close them. If there’s a woodpile that’s too close to the home, we can move it,” said MacKenzie, who ran an in-house fire department for Southern California Edison before coming to work for Capstone. “Ninety percent of what we do is prevention.”

Capstone is part of a growing and controversial ecosystem of private firefighting companies that have seen themselves thrust into the spotlight as some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles have gone up in flames. It includes firefighters directly contracted with government agencies as well as those who work for insurance companies and directly for rich families and developers.

As California faces a future of more frequent and severe firestorms, the current fires have made clear that private companies are one way insurers and homeowners will respond to that threat. They’ve also posed the question of how the state should regulate private firefighters and how they should communicate with the public firefighting agencies leading disaster response.

One of Capstone’s clients is Pure Insurance, a boutique firm that advertises its services to high-net-worth individuals with luxury homes and art collections. But mainstream insurers are also offering wildfire defense services to their customers, typically included in the cost of their premium. Insurers that have contracted with fire defense companies include State Farm, which holds the most residential policies in the area covered by the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis.

Insurers’ use of private firefighters “started years ago with some of the high-net-worth insurance carriers, but it’s moved into the standard market as well,” said Janet Ruiz, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry association. “It is really part of the landscape now. And even average homeowners are really taking a look at their risk way more than they used to.”

“It’s not just the Kardashians,” agreed Matthew Wara, director of Stanford University’s Climate and Energy Policy Program, referring to the time Kim and Kanye infamously used a private squad to protect their mansion from the Woolsey Fire.

Fire experts note that private firefighting is nothing new, dating back to the 1700s, before Benjamin Franklin co-founded the Union Fire Company, the first volunteer fire service organized to defend the whole community and not just its members.

But critics have skewered the private companies as creating a two-tiered system where those with more resources get better protection than everyone else. After billionaire developer Rick Caruso hired private crews to defend his Palisades Village mall, backlash spread on social media as images circulated of pristine chain stores with water trucks parked outside alongside burnt-out ruins of homes and small businesses. Caruso later pledged a $5 million donation to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.

A 2018 California law requires private firefighters arriving in an evacuation zone to check in with the local incident commander and follow any of their instructions, including leaving the scene when asked. They’re not allowed to use the same radio frequency as government firefighters to communicate with each other, must mark their vehicles as “nonemergency” and avoid using sirens.

That law doesn’t prevent private firefighters from hooking up to public fire hydrants — though representatives for both the fire companies and the state’s fire protection department, Cal Fire, said they typically bring their own water trucks or connect to homeowners’ hydrants. It’s a sensitive issue because some hydrants in Pacific Palisades ran dry early last week as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.

Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who authored the 2018 law, said in a statement to CalMatters that it was sparked by previous wildfire seasons in 2007 and 2017 in which private firefighters entered disaster zones without coordinating with their public counterparts, confusing residents and distracting emergency responders.

“The public thought the private firefighters were public firefighters, which gave a false sense of security that there was emergency response in their neighborhoods,” she said. “Private firefighters were going into evacuation areas without prior authorization. In a couple of (instances) they had to be rescued, which put emergency personnel at risk.”

A home burns during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles County, California on January 8, 2025.

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Josh Edelson

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AFP via Getty Images

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Aguiar-Curry said fire agencies are evaluating the effectiveness of the law as the Los Angeles fires unfold to see if any changes need to be made.

Insurers, who are likely staring down tens of billions of dollars in liability from the Los Angeles fires, have been willing to spend on wildfire defense in order to avoid the more costly loss of insured property. A contracted rate for private firefighters to visit a home and take preventive measures as a fire approaches can run about $1,000, said Mark Sektnan, vice president of state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, another industry group.

MacKenzie said Capstone is made up largely of retired firefighters and younger employees trying to gain the experience they need to be hired by a fire service. During the off-season, they visit insurers’ customers and give them tips on how to fire-harden their properties.

When they’re on site at a fire, he said, they try to know their limits, sticking to the jobs that emergency responders might not have time to do.

“We don’t want to become part of the incident and create more havoc for the responding agencies,” he said. “If there are small spot fires, like an ember coming from half a mile away, we’ll extinguish that. But if that fire is coming up the canyon at a rapid rate, we typically gel the side of the exposed home and we’ll leave and make sure our folks are safe.”

The company has visited more than 2,000 homes during the current Los Angeles firestorm, said MacKenzie, fielding a team of 16 engines with 34 people at the height of their operation.

Another company widely used by insurers, Wildfire Defense Systems, says it has responded to 1,400 wildfires since 2008 and has a 99% success rate in saving structures if it arrives on scene in time to prepare the property.

“The people that actually have to put money at risk in these situations are insurance companies and reinsurance companies, so I think it’s important to look at what they think is effective,” said Wara, the Stanford researcher. “They think (home hardening by private firefighters) is highly effective and want to see more of it.”

A key question, said Wara, is whether private firefighters hired by insurers can get to a fire scene fast enough and whether they’re admitted by the on-site commander. He said he’d heard from private firefighting crews who attempted to enter the Palisades Fire zone and were turned away.

Captain Dan Collins, a spokesperson for Cal Fire on the Palisades Fire, said he couldn’t confirm whether private crews had been denied permission to enter, but that if they were, it was for their own safety.

Unlike private firefighters who are contracted directly with Cal Fire, fire crews who work for insurers or homeowners may not have the same training as regular firefighters, Collins said. Some fire departments, for example, require firefighters to be trained as paramedics.

“There’s no way for us as professional firefighters to vet their training, or their personal protective equipment,” he said.

Private firefighters are also not communicating on the same system or always briefed on the overall plan for tackling the fire, he said. “It makes things harder if we’re in a dynamic fire situation and we drive by some unknown type engine and we can’t get a hold of them or advise them of danger or something happening. It creates a potentially dangerous situation for those people.”

“No one wants to take on that liability,” he added.

Of the more than 5,000 people fighting the Palisades Fire, Collins said Cal Fire had contracted one private fire engine with a four-person crew. They were previously vetted by Cal Fire and report to a Cal Fire supervisor, he said.

Will the private firefighting sector continue to grow? Ken Sebastiani directs the fire technology program at Santa Rosa Junior College, where about 1,200 students pass through each semester, many inspired to work in fire prevention by personal experience in the Tubbs, Glass and Carr fires, which ravaged the wine country.

He doesn’t see many go on to private firefighting companies, he said; most want to work for Cal Fire or municipal departments.

But he described the existence of private firefighting as a sign that with wildfire danger increasing, it’s all hands on deck. “It’s a global challenge, the need for firefighters, because of climate change,” he said. “It’s happening everywhere — Greece, Italy — so it’s not just California.”

“Until Mother Nature slows down, it’s really hard for the fire departments to catch up.”

In a cozy dance studio in Garden Grove, dancers of all experience levels, ages and backgrounds flock to Queer Latin Dance OC to learn the steps to salsa, cumbia and bachata.

For many, the dance class is more than educational — it’s a place to get away from it all, to find community and to uplift one another through art.

When Rodrigo Marquez founded Queer Latin Dance OC at the beginning of this year, he said he was filling a gap in Orange County that often lacks safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community.

“I wanted to make creative communities for us to learn in a safe environment,” Marquez said. “Everyone's here to learn, and I want the pressure of whatever's going on in the world, just to forget for the next hour.”

Queer Latin Dance OC meets three times a week to learn the steps to salsa, cumbia and bachata.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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What are the dance lessons like? 

When creating his teaching plan, Marquez said he considers the range of experience his students might have. Everybody starts somewhere, he added, and the hardest part is showing up.

“It is scary, but if you're already showing up, then just jump in and just forget about the world. It's a great distraction, and dancing makes you feel better,” Marquez said.

Philip Lee, an elementary school teacher from Tustin, took his first class with the group Monday night, trying the quick steps of salsa.

“I had a stressful day. … All my stress that I had in my neck and upper back just kind of went away,” Lee said, adding that the high energy in the room is infectious. “It was nice just laughing with people in the community and meeting new people.”

Lee said the dance lesson gave him a space to be with community.

“The queer community specifically, and just kind of let my guard down and just be free and laugh and enjoy being me and celebrated for a love for the arts,” Lee said. “That's not a space that is always safe.”

Before taking lessons at Queer Latin Dance OC, Melba Rivera said she came in with zero dance experience.

“You come as you are. No matter what level you're at or how you identify or what your experience is, everybody's here and everybody's learning,” Rivera said. “It's a very encouraging and motivating space.”

Salsa and bachata are social dances, Marquez said, but one thing that makes his class unique to many is that regardless of gender identity, anyone can follow or lead.

Typically, the lead falls to the male dancer, and women follow. Marquez said it was important that no one feels pressured to be one or the other.

“That's why I created this, so people like me can just come and learn, not be expected to be in a gender role based on how they look,” Marquez said. “They want to dance how they feel.”

Why it matters

Taryn Heiner said, especially in Orange County, it’s challenging to find spaces that are queer-friendly and queer-open.

“That's really what makes this space so kind and warm and welcoming,” Heiner said. “We have all that base understanding of respecting one another, no matter who they are, who they love and what they do.”

Growing up in Orange County, not every room you walk into is a safe space, Rivera added.

“So walking into a room like this, where everybody's friendly, everybody's learning, everybody's just here for the same purpose to get better, to support each other, is really important,” Rivera said. “Not just in the class, but [in] the friendships we make outside of the classroom.”

Outside of dance class, Marquez’s students meet up for monthly hikes and other get-togethers. Marquez said it is a privilege and an honor to bring people together through his love for dance.

“I've seen people become friends since January, and I see them practice outside of practice,” Marquez said. “I've always had a dream to do my own dance classes, but to do it in a way where people can connect and just be themselves. It's far greater than that.”

Queer Latin Dance OC offers lessons to dancers of all experience levels and has created a new community hub in Orange County.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Want to dance? 

Salsa, cumbia and bachata classes are held three nights a week on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Classes are $20 per session, but Marquez also offers a free beginner salsa class every Monday.

You can register for the class of your choice here. Payments are taken in person.

Border Patrol agents have been roving from city to city over the last 15 months, far from their home bases in California and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border, engaged in an unprecedented mass deportation campaign.

A collaboration between CalMatters, Evident Media and Bellingcat has tracked these agents, documenting their tactics on the ground and through mountains of video footage, since their first proof-of-concept raid in Bakersfield in January 2025.

Exactly one year later, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, followed weeks later by the killing of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent.

Our investigation shows that beyond those two shootings, immigration agents engaged in a pattern of force and questionable detention, aggressive tactics that courts have said likely violated the Constitution, as they moved from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, and then Chicago and Minneapolis.

In each city, federal courts stepped in to restrain them from violating civil liberties in that jurisdiction. Agents later deployed to another city. The video evidence suggests agents’ tactics became more brazen with each stop.

Under President Donald Trump, immigration agents have operated without typical public accountability. Many agents wear masks. Incident reports are largely hidden from the public.

“We are in a completely uncharted world now with these masked agents,” said John Roth, who served as inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security under Presidents Barack Obama and Trump.

“The first thing that you do when you give an agent a gun and a badge and the authority over American people is to make sure that they follow the Constitution, period,” he said.

In this new film, we focus on the activity of five agents from the US-Mexico border whose identities we’ve been able to confirm.

Watch the documentary

We are not aware of any disciplinary action taken against these agents. DHS did not respond to requests for comment; the individual agents either declined to comment or didn’t respond to calls or emails.

We showed the incidents to Roth and Steve Bunnell, former DHS general counsel. Both have testified before Congress, raising the alarm about what they see as a dismantling of the department’s accountability and credibility. Roth called the incidents “difficult to watch.”

“There are sort of two essential components of DHS and law enforcement generally being effective, and that’s trust and credibility,” Bunnell said. “And they have lost those things to the extent they had them.”