“I had people calling me, ‘If I write you a check right now for a million dollars, will you come to my house?’” says Andrew Sarvis of West Coast Water Tenders
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On Tuesday, January 7th, the first day of the Los Angeles Fires, Andrew Sarvis captained his nine firetrucks toward the homes in the Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Brentwood. There was one bar of cell phone service that fleeing residents and approaching firefighters were competing for. By the time he arrived at 2 p.m., Sarvis had lost reception.
Before his phone went out, Sarvis tells me he received about 700 calls from panicked homeowners. Each caller was desperate and money was no object. But his private firefighting crew could only safeguard the homes of his 27 clients. “We were prepped on our end, but nobody wanted to bring us in [before the fires started],” he says. “So when it all hit the fan, then we’re racing in there, and it was first come, first served.”
