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.”

The federal government has drastically scaled back the number of recommended childhood immunizations, sidelining six routine vaccines that have safeguarded millions from serious diseases, long-term disability and death.

Just three of the six immunizations the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will no longer routinely recommend — against hepatitis A, hepatitis B and rotavirus — have prevented nearly 2 million hospitalizations and more than 90,000 deaths in the past 30 years, according to the CDC's own publications.

Vaccines against the three diseases, as well as those against respiratory syncytial virus, meningococcal disease, flu, and COVID, are now recommended only for children at high risk of serious illness or after "shared clinical decision-making," or consultation between doctors and parents.

The CDC maintained its recommendations for 11 childhood vaccines: measles, mumps, and rubella; whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria; the bacterial disease known as Hib; pneumonia; polio; chickenpox; and human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Federal and private insurance will still cover vaccines for the diseases the CDC no longer recommends universally, according to a Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet; parents who want to vaccinate their children against those diseases will not have to pay out-of-pocket.

Experts on childhood disease were baffled by the change in guidance. HHS said the changes followed "a scientific review of the underlying science" and were in line with vaccination programs in other developed nations.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, pointed to Denmark as a model. But the schedules of most European countries are closer to the U.S. standard upended by the new guidance.

For example, Denmark, which does not vaccinate against rotavirus, registers around 1,200 infant and toddler rotavirus hospitalizations a year. That rate, in a country of 6 million, is about the same as it was in the United States before vaccination.

"They're OK with having 1,200 or 1,300 hospitalized kids, which is the tip of the iceberg in terms of childhood suffering," said Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a co-inventor of a licensed rotavirus vaccine. "We weren't. They should be trying to emulate us, not the other way around."

Public health officials say the new guidance puts the onus on parents to research and understand each childhood vaccine and why it is important.

Here's a rundown of the diseases the sidelined vaccines prevent:

RSV. Respiratory syncytial virus is the most common cause of hospitalization for infants in the U.S.

The respiratory virus usually spreads in fall and winter and produces cold-like symptoms, though it can be deadly for young children, causing tens of thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths a year. According to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, roughly 80% of children younger than 2 who are hospitalized with RSV have no identifiable risk factors. Long-awaited vaccines against the disease were introduced in 2023.

Hepatitis A. Hepatitis A vaccination, which was phased in beginning in the late 1990s and recommended for all toddlers starting in 2006, has led to a more than 90% drop in the disease since 1996. The foodborne virus, which causes a wretched illness, continues to plague adults, particularly people who are homeless or who abuse drugs or alcohol, with a total of 1,648 cases and 85 deaths reported in 2023.

Hepatitis B. The disease causes liver cancer, cirrhosis, and other serious illnesses and is particularly dangerous when contracted by babies and young children. The hepatitis B virus is transmitted through blood and other bodily fluids, even in microscopic amounts, and can survive on surfaces for a week. From 1990 to 2019, vaccination resulted in a 99% decline in reported cases of acute hepatitis B among children and teens. Liver cancer among American children has also plummeted as a result of universal childhood vaccination. But the hepatitis B virus is still around, with 2,000-3,000 acute cases reported annually among unvaccinated adults. More than 17,000 chronic hepatitis B diagnoses were reported in 2023. The CDC estimates about half of people infected don't know they have it.

Rotavirus. Before routine administration of the current rotavirus vaccines began in 2006, about 70,000 young children were hospitalized and 50 died every year from the virus. It was known as "winter vomiting syndrome," said Sean O'Leary, a pediatrician at the University of Colorado. "It was a miserable disease that we hardly see anymore."

The virus is still common on surfaces that babies touch, however, and "if you lower immunization rates it will once again hospitalize children," Offit said.

Meningococcal vaccines. These have been required mainly for teenagers and college students, who are notably vulnerable to critical illness caused by the bacteria. About 600 to 1,000 cases of meningococcal disease are reported in the U.S. each year, but it kills more than 10% of those it sickens, and 1 in 5 survivors have permanent disabilities.

Flu and covid. The two respiratory viruses have each killed hundreds of children in recent years — though both tend to be much more severe in older adults. Flu is currently on the upswing in the United States, and last flu season the virus killed 289 children.

What is shared clinical decision-making?

Under the changes, decisions about vaccinating children against influenza, covid, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, and hepatitis A and B will now rely on what officials call "shared clinical decision-making," meaning families will have to consult with a health care provider to determine whether a vaccine is appropriate.

"It means a provider should have a conversation with the patient to lay out the risks and the benefits and make a decision for that individual person," said Lori Handy, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

In the past, the CDC used that term only in reference to narrow circumstances, like whether a person in a monogamous relationship needed the HPV vaccine, which prevents a sexually transmitted infection and certain cancers.

The CDC's new approach doesn't line up with the science because of the proven protective benefit the vaccines have for the vast majority of the population, Handy said.

In their report justifying the changes, HHS officials Tracy Beth Høeg and Martin Kulldorff said the U.S. vaccination system requires more safety research and more parental choice. Eroding trust in public health caused in part by an overly large vaccine schedule had led more parents to shun vaccination against major threats like measles, they said.

The vaccines on the schedule that the CDC has altered were backed up by extensive safety research when they were evaluated and approved by the FDA.

"They're held to a safety standard higher than any other medical intervention that we have," Handy said. "The value of routine recommendations is that it really helps the public understand that this has been vetted upside down and backwards in every which way."

Eric Ball, a pediatrician in Orange County, Calif., said the change in guidance will cause more confusion among parents who think it means a vaccine's safety is in question.

"It is critical for public health that recommendations for vaccines are very clear and concise," Ball said. "Anything to muddy the water is just going to lead to more children getting sick."

Ball said that instead of focusing on a child's individual health needs, he often has to spend limited clinic time reassuring parents that vaccines are safe. A "shared clinical decision-making" status for a vaccine has no relationship to safety concerns, but parents may think it does.

HHS' changes do not affect state vaccination laws and therefore should allow prudent medical practitioners to carry on as before, said Richard Hughes IV, an attorney and a George Washington University lecturer who is leading litigation against Kennedy over vaccine changes.

"You could expect that any pediatrician is going to follow sound evidence and recommend that their patients be vaccinated," he said. The law protects providers who follow professional care guidelines, he said, and "RSV, meningococcal, and hepatitis remain serious health threats for children in this country."

This story comes from NPR's health reporting partnership with KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. KFF Health News is one of the core operating programs at KFF, the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

The National Park Service has updated its policy to discourage visitors from defacing a picture of President Donald Trump on this year's pass.

The use of an image of Trump on the 2026 pass — rather than the usual picture of nature — has sparked a backlash, sticker protests, and a lawsuit from a conservation group.

The $80 annual America the Beautiful pass gives visitors access to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites. Since 2004, the pass has typically showcased sweeping landscapes or iconic wildlife, selected through a public photo contest. Past winners have featured places like Arches National Park in Utah and images of bison roaming the plains.

Instead, of a picture of nature, this year's design shows side-by-side portraits of Presidents George Washington and Trump. The new design has drawn criticism from parkgoers and ignited a wave of "do-it-yourself" resistance.

Photos circulating online show that many national park cardholders have covered the image of Trump's face with stickers of wildlife, landscapes, and yellow smiley faces, while some have completely blocked out the whole card. The backlash has also inspired a growing sticker campaign.

Jenny McCarty, a longtime park volunteer and graphic designer, began selling custom stickers meant to fit directly over Trump's face — with 100% of proceeds going to conservation nonprofits.

"We made our first donation of $16,000 in December," McCarty said. "The power of community is incredible."

McCarty says the sticker movement is less about politics and more about preserving the neutrality of public lands. "The Interior's new guidance only shows they continue to disregard how strongly people feel about keeping politics out of national parks," she said.

The National Park Service card policy was updated this week to say that passes may no longer be valid if they've been "defaced or altered." The change, which was revealed in an internal email to National Park Service staff obtained by SFGATE, comes just as the sticker movement has gained traction across social media.

In a statement to NPR, the Interior Department said there was no new policy. Interagency passes have always been void if altered, as stated on the card itself. The agency said the recent update was meant to clarify that rule and help staff deal with confusion from visitors.

The Park Service has long said passes can be voided if the signature strip is altered, but the updated guidance now explicitly includes stickers or markings on the front of the card.

It will be left to the discretion of park service officials to determine whether a pass has been "defaced" or not. The update means park officials now have the leeway to reject a pass if a sticker leaves behind residue, even if the image underneath is intact.

In December, conservation group the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C., opposing the new pass design.

The group argues that the image violates a federal requirement that the annual America the Beautiful pass display a winning photograph from a national parks photo contest. The 2026 winning image was a picture of Glacier National Park.

"This is part of a larger pattern of Trump branding government materials with his name and image," Kierán Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told NPR. "But this kind of cartoonish authoritarianism won't fly in the United States."

The lawsuit asks a federal court to pull the current pass design and replace it with the original contest winner — the Glacier National Park image. It also seeks to block the government from featuring a president's face on future passes.

Not everyone sees a problem with the new design. Vince Vanata, the GOP chairman of Park County, Wyoming, told the Cowboy State Daily that Trump detractors should "suck it up" and accept the park passes, saying they are a fitting tribute to America's 250th birthday this July 4.

"The 250th anniversary of our country only comes once. This pass is showing the first president of the United States and the current president of the United States," Vanata said.

But for many longtime visitors, the backlash goes beyond design.

Erin Quinn Gery, who buys an annual pass each year, compared the image to "a mug shot slapped onto natural beauty."

She also likened the decision to self-glorification.

"It's akin to throwing yourself a parade or putting yourself on currency," she said. "Let someone else tell you you're great — or worth celebrating and commemorating."

When asked if she plans to remove her protest sticker, Gery replied: "I'll take the sticker off my pass after Trump takes his name off the Kennedy Center."

The 83rd annual Golden Globe Awards take place Sunday evening beginning at 5 p.m. at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and that means parking restrictions and street closures in the city.

Here are places to avoid, as well as some alternative routes:

North Santa Monica Boulevard:

• Westbound lane closures: Complete lane closures, from Wilshire Boulevard to Century Park East through 6 a.m. Monday.
  
• Eastbound lane closures: Complete lane closures, from Century Park East to Wilshire Boulevard from 2 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Monday. 

The city suggests using South Santa Monica Boulevard, which will remain open in both directions. There also are alternative east-west routes such as Olympic, Sunset and Pico boulevards.

Wilshire Boulevard:

• Eastbound/Westbound lane reduction: Lane reductions are in effect and will last through 9 p.m. Wednesday.
  
• Eastbound/Westbound full closure: All of Wilshire Boulevard between Comstock Avenue and North Santa Monica Boulevard will be closed from 10 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Monday.
  
• Eastbound lanes of Wilshire Boulevard: An eastbound closure from Comstock to North Santa Monica Boulevard will occur between 10 p.m. Monday through 6 a.m. Tuesday.

Other streets:

Several other streets like Whittier Drive, Carmelita Avenue, Elevado Avenue and Lomitas Avenue, as well as Trenton Drive and adjacent alleys will have limited closures with local access available only to residents. Closures begin at 10 p.m. Saturday and last through 6 a.m. Monday.

Parking notices:

Residential streets surrounding the venue will be completely restricted, no exceptions made, from 6 a.m. Sunday until 6 a.m. Monday on the following streets:

• Whittier Drive — from Wilshire Boulevard to Elevado Avenue
• Carmelita Avenue — from Wilshire Boulevard to Walden Drive
• Elevado Avenue — from Wilshire Boulevard to Walden Drive
• Trenton Drive — from Whittier Drive to Wilshire Boulevard
• Walden Drive — from Santa Monica Boulevard to Elevado Avenue
• Lomitas Avenue — from Wilshire Boulevard to Walden Drive

Residents without permit parking can obtain parking exemptions by contacting the city of Beverly Hills’ parking exemption line at (310) 285-2548 or online at beverlyhills.org/parkingexemptions.

Demonstrations against this week’s deadly ICE shooting in Minneapolis are planned this weekend across Los Angeles. The protests are being organized by the “ICE Out For Good Coalition” — a network of several groups including the ACLU and 50501.

Here are a some of the planned actions across the city:

Saturday

• Pasadena: Noon to 2 p.m. at Garfield and Colorado Boulevard, across from the Paseo Mall
• Eagle Rock: 1 to 2 p.m. at Colorado and Eagle Rock boulevards
• City of Los Angeles: 2 to 4:30 p.m. in Pershing Square

Sunday

• West Hollywood: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., across from the Pacific Design Center.
• City of Los Angeles: Noon to 2 p.m. at The Home Depot on 2055 N. Figueroa St.
• Beverly Hills: 2 and 4 p.m. at 9439 Santa Monica Blvd., between Beverly and Canon drives