• The Woolsey fire has burned nearly 100,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
  • TMZ reported that Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West hired a team of private firefighters to protect their $60 million Hidden Hills home when the flames approached their neighborhood.
  • This is more common than you may think.
  • Many insurance companies employ private firefighting teams; sometimes policyholders who pay a higher premium get the perk, but not always.

The Woolsey fire has burned nearly 100,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Thousands of people in mobile-home parks and tony gated communities alike have been displaced. Many have lost their homes completely.

California government officials have estimated that more than 1 million homes throughout the state are located in "high-risk" fire areas. That's a lot of property to protect when a fast-moving wildfire is approaching, and county fire departments and volunteers often can't manage the job alone.

So, when the Woolsey fire approached celebrity power couple Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West's $60 million Hidden Hills property last week, TMZ reported that they called on a "private team of firefighters" to help. Their mansion was ultimately saved from destruction, as were their neighbors' homes.

To be clear, the Wests don't have a team of firefighters on speed dial akin to a Kardashian "glam squad." The benefit likely comes from their insurance company, to which they pay a premium — and probably a steep one at that, considering they're located in a "very high fire hazard severity zone" as deemed by Cal Fire.

Read more: Wildfires in California have destroyed thousands of homes, and the devastating pattern is making fire insurance more expensive and complicated than ever

Wildfire Defense Systems is one of America's largest groups of private firefighters. The Montana-based company is contracted with several insurers, including multinational-insurance-company Chubb, which dispatches its employees to 21 states to supplement the efforts of first responders during a wildfire. They also perform preventive measures in high-risk areas, like clearing flammable debris and spraying flame retardant around a property.

Some insurance companies employ their own firefighting or fire mitigation groups. American International Group's (AIG) "Wildfire Protection Unit" serves policyholders in the Private Client Group, Stephen Poux, the insurance company's global head of risk management and loss prevention, told NBC News.

These policyholders make up 42% of the Forbes 400 rich list, Poux added, and they pay anywhere from "several thousand dollars to several tens-of-thousands" to insure their homes against fires and gain access to at-home consultations from fire specialists throughout the year and ongoing monitoring during a wildfire. While they may visit a home during a wildfire to spray flame retardant and clear brush, they don't "actively fight fires," a spokesperson told Business Insider.

A helicopter drops water on a brush fire behind a home during the Woolsey Fire in Malibu, California.
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu

In tweet replies to TMZ's story, many people express outrage, calling private firefighters a privilege for rich people. Some supporters of the Wests say they'd do it too, if they had the money.

Robert Raymond in the Huffington Post argues that while it's nice people are able to protect their homes, the high cost of coverage for these services is problematic. "The real injustice in this story is structural inequality," he wrote.

Raymond continued: "Wealth shouldn't mean the difference between a home that burns down and a home that doesn't. A society where wealth allows one neighborhood to be saved, while a poorer neighborhood goes up in flames because the people there weren't able to purchase the same resources, is inherently unjust."

Read more: 10 photos show the grim reality for evacuees of California's wildfires

But David Torgerson, the president of Wildfire Defense Systems, said their services aren't only available to the affluent. In fact, he told The Atlantic, nine in 10 homes they protect are of "average value" and not covered through insurance companies specific to wealthy homeowners.

"We serve nearly a dozen [insurance companies]," Torgerson said. "If anybody wants to have this supplemental response capability during a fire, they need to pick an insurance company that has it." He added that with the growing threat of climate change, private firefighting services are more necessary than ever.

A Sonoma County couple who spoke to NBC News credits the supplemental efforts of Wildfire Defense Systems for saving their home during the wine country wildfire last fall — the most destructive in California history.

The couple said they didn't know they had fire protection under their policy until Chubb contacted them to offer an update on their home. Some of their neighbors weren't so lucky. Unlike publicly funded firefighters, Torgerson said, "We're only allowed to access the properties that we're given permission to access by policyholders."

Some critics also express concern over whether private firefighters contracted by insurance companies are properly trained and adherent to plans and regulations set in place by public fire stations.