Private firefighting continues to grow as an industry. With fires scorching the state of California, some homeowners and insurance companies contract out companies to protect homes and structures in wildfires.
"We've been doing the private sector for three years," Ryan Bellanca, of Bella Wildfire & Forestry Inc., says. "And we've had one that was successful and another was cancelled and that happens, you get called and get dismissed all the time."
Mark Winkelman is a battalion chief with the Reno Fire Department who says during wildfires it can be challenging to coordinate with private crews.
"The problem we have with the private firefighting companies is actually knowing they're on the fire," Wingelman says. "It's important to us to have accountability on all the firefighters that are working and sometimes those folks get lost in the shuffle because they don't come through federal contracts so it makes it difficult to track what they're actually doing on the fire."