Flames of infamy
In October 2020, firefighter Ryan Bellanca and his crew battled to keep the raging Glass Fire from devastating an upmarket Napa Valley vineyard.
Bellanca denies lighting backfires – which consume fuel in a wildfire’s path – but admits his team failed to advise Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency that it was in the evacuated area, as required by law.
“It was the fog of war,” said Bellanca, CEO, and owner of Bella Wildfire & Forestry. “But we saved an entire mountain that Cal Fire thought was gone. Cal Fire wants it to be just them. If they can set precedent with kicking us out, then they can tell anybody to leave.”
The incident highlights how a booming business in private firefighting is creating friction with government firefighters as wildfires grow more frequent and dangerous across the western US. It also underscores the inequity of who receives protection. Businesses and wealthy property owners have growing options to protect themselves, for a price. Meanwhile, homeowners across California are being denied homeowner’s insurance renewals because of wildfire risk.
California’s largest firefighting union calls the Glass Fire incident a cautionary tale and says it should be further investigated.
“When an evacuation order is given, you don’t question it. You get the hell out of there,” said Brian Rice, who represents more than 30,000 government firefighters as the president of California Professional Firefighters. “To us, private firefighters are one more group of civilians, who we need to know where they are. They’re a liability.”
Rice said he’s particularly worried about the training and equipment maintenance at smaller “mom and pop” operations that are not subject to clear regulation.
The Napa County District Attorney’s Office in December declined to press charges of unauthorized entry into an emergency area against Bellanca and a handful of other private firefighters who were detained. Assistant District Attorney Paul Gero said there was insufficient evidence that Cal Fire had asked the firefighters to leave, and that the Cal Fire report did not mention backfires. Cal Fire said it was still investigating the incident and declined further comment.
The controversy over private firefighting comes as a record 4.2 million acres burned in 2020 in California amid heat waves and dry-lightning sieges. Climate scientists blame global warming for the increasingly flammable landscape. Expecting the worst in the summer of 2021, after an unusually dry winter, the state is investing $536 million to improve fire protection and hire nearly 1,400 additional firefighters.
About 280 private companies are involved in preventing or fighting wildfires, up from 197 a decade ago, according to the National Wildfire Suppression Association, a trade group. Most of the firms work in the western US, for clients including private landowners, insurers, and government agencies. The trade group, however, only represents companies with government contracts, so the total number of private fire companies may be higher. Many focus on prevention work rather than fighting fires.
When they do battle blazes, private contractors run the risk of getting in the way or even accelerating a fire, state firefighters warn. That’s because the private groups are focused on saving a particular property rather than protecting entire communities.
Burning holes in pockets
Private forestry companies provide a range of services from preventative tree trimming to traditional firefighting when blazes break out. A recent job advertisement seeking private firefighters in California offered pay of $13 to $15 per hour – far lower than the average of nearly $42 an hour for the state’s firefighters, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Bellanca, whose company has about 30 employees, confirmed that his company was protecting a vineyard during the Glass Fire but declined to name the owner. A source with knowledge of the arrangement told Reuters Bellanca’s firm was protecting a property owned by Jackson Family Wines, which operates about 40 wineries around the world. One of them, Lokoya, is a few minutes’ drive up from where Bellanca and his crew were detained.
A spokeswoman for Jackson Family Wines, Galen McCorkle, said the company was “not involved in this investigation” but did not answer questions about whether Bellanca’s fire company was protecting its vineyard.
The Glass Fire burned 67,484 acres in the Napa and Sonoma regions and destroyed dozens of buildings, including the mansion-like Chateau Boswell winery and a farmhouse containing storage, bottling, and fermentation facilities at the Tuscan castle-style Castello di Amorosa. Six months later, the smell of ash still lingers among the charred trees that dot vineyard-covered hillsides.
Castello di Amorosa winery, a 71-hectare property in Napa Valley, said that, after the fire, it invested some $100,000 in gear and equipment for a new fire protection team, comprised of eight employees. The 2020 wildfires will cost the California wine industry about $3 billion through 2028 chiefly because of grapes that were destroyed or ruined by smoke.
Go west
Texas-based private firefighter Ian Shelly, 45, can make up to $40,000 during the few months of fire season work in the west. But disaster struck in the summer of 2020 when he and his 63-year-old mother Diana Jones were hired by an Oregon-based firefighting company.
In the Mendocino National Forest on August 31, Jones hopped into a truck and drove backward to flee from a growing blaze, according to a Cal Fire report.
