How Did Developer Rick Caruso Save Palisades Village When Everything Around It Burned to the Ground?

Billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso is the man behind iconic high-end retail and residential properties like The Grove, LA Live, The Americana at Brand, The Commons at Calabasas, and more. He ran for mayor of LA in 2022 but sadly lost to current Mayor Karen Bass. You see how that’s going.

One question a lot of people have been asking: how is it that, as the Pacific Palisades continues to burn to the ground, Caruso’s outdoor shopping and dining destination, Palisades Village, still stands?

The answer: he used private firefighters.

Caruso used a private firefighting service to fight the fire at the mall, and was able to save it. Caruso understood fire risks, having served decades earlier as Commissioner for the L.A. Department of Water and Power. And he also understood the limitations of the city’s public fire services, whose budget was cut nearly $20 million last year by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

Fire crews for hire reportedly cost between $3,000 and $10,000 a day and are mostly contracted with insurance companies or the government. Some reports indicate however that Caruso used his own employees to cast water on the property.

Rick Caruso, the Businessman Who Ran Against Karen Bass for Mayor, Saved Palisades Village Mall with Private Firefighters, Water Tankers pic.twitter.com/DwUB3zLbvF
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 12, 2025

Newsom Continues to Flail, Sends Out Cringe Email Slamming People Who 'Laugh About Gay Firefighters'

Some locals are reportedly "furious":

Billionaire developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is receiving backlash online after the New York Times reported that he had hired private fire crews to protect Palisades Village - an upscale outdoor mall owned by the businessman.
'So Rick directly or indirectly contributed to the fires by diverting resources to himself and away from the greater population. I think this needs to be investigated ASAP', one user wrote on X.
Another said: 'We cannot survive the billionaire class'. A separate account commented: 'Dystopian capitalism'.

Here's self-described "advocacy journalist" Lauren Windsor:

Angelenos deserve to know to what extent real estate billionaire Rick Caruso diverted public resources during a public emergency to protect his private business interests. https://t.co/LDnqqutLL7
— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) January 11, 2025

There are other viewpoints, however:

It's telling that Rick Caruso saved Palisades Village Mall while Mayor Karen Bass was abroad.

Most of Palisades and Malibu voted for Karen, showing how influenced they are by media narratives against alternative options.
— WhatDidYouSay (@NoFilterMeSorry) January 12, 2025

I don’t understand the fuss. Was Caruso supposed to rely on the “authorities?” We saw how that worked out for so many people. Was he supposed to stand around and watch his property burn just to virtue signal when he knew he had better options? It doesn’t appear that he took any city or county firefighters off the scene or interrupted their operations. Lastly, he wasn’t just saving his own house at the expense of other people, he was saving one of the premiere locations in Pacific Palisades—a place that benefits all residents.

Caruso blasted the powers that be over their preparation efforts and other leftist policies that helped exacerbate the flames:

"I think that career politicians have making excuses down to a fine art, and you see it rolling out and trying to explain why there wasn't water," Caruso said to FOX 11's Marla Telles and Elex Michaelson. "Nobody wants to excuse why they lost their homes, why they lost their business."
During a press briefing on Thursday, officials mentioned that fire hydrants, which experienced pressure issues, were meant to fight house fires, not massive wildfires. But, Caruso just labeled that another excuse.
"You talk to the firefighters, they were so frustrated because they didn't have the water pressure they needed," Caruso said. "They didn't have the water that they needed. They're standing with dry hoses. And this malarkey about fire hydrants are intended for homes and not for wildfires like this. My God, what an excuse to make."

While Caruso understood that the extremely high winds certainly were a problem, there was more afoot than just that:

"It wasn't breaking news that there may be a fire here," Caruso said. "And because of the negligence of our government leaders and our government officials, we have the Santa Monica Mountains, the density of that brush was fuel just waiting to explode. And that's when it did. And then, on top of the high winds, you just had everything come together. Could it have been prevented? Probably not. Could it have been mitigated? There's no doubt in my mind."

All I know is, I wish Rick Caruso had been mayor leading up to this tragedy—and during it—instead of Karen Bass.