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(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — Across the Pacific Palisades, where the current Los Angeles wildfires began on Jan. 7, homes and buildings have been reduced to rubble, the once-bucolic neighborhood left ashen and desolate.

But standing tall among the wreckage — almost entirely unscathed — remains Palisades Village, the outdoor mall owned by Rick Caruso, billionaire real estate developer and former Republican mayoral candidate.

To protect the high-end shopping center, several private water tankers, equipped with 3,000 gallons of water in each, were brought in to fend off the encroaching blaze, ABC News has reported.

“Our property is standing,” Caruso told The New York Times on Wednesday. “Everything around us is gone. It is like a war zone.”

Caruso did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. On Sunday, he posted on X that he was committing $5 million to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.

Amid the devastation of the fires, in which thousands of Californians have lost their homes, private firefighting companies have provoked controversy and ire, a symbol of the gaping disparity between the lives of the city’s wealthiest residents and those left struggling to rebuild.

The majority of private firefighters don’t actually work to serve individual customers, experts told ABC News. In most cases, they’re contracted by the government, aiding local firefighting crews, or by insurance companies, typically working to avert damage.

But some private firefighters offer their services to individuals, a practice that has shocked and infuriated many as its existence has entered the public eye. In 2018, so-called “concierge” firefighters saved Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s Hidden Hills mansion — along with several neighbors’ homes — during the Woolsey wildfire, according to reports at the time.

On Tuesday, real estate investor Keith Wasserman sparked widespread anger after posting to X about it.

“Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home? Need to act fast here. All neighbors houses burning. Will pay any amount,” he wrote in a now-deleted post.

Wasserman’s post inspired backlash, with users slamming the businessman as out of touch. He later deleted his account. Wasserman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Due to the private nature of these services, it’s not yet clear how widespread the use of private firefighters has been in battling the Los Angeles fires. Prices are not openly listed, and can vary widely, likely costing several thousand a day, The New York Times reported.

“I’ll be honest with you, we get a lot of calls in circumstances like this from private landowners who are interested in hiring some private resources to help mitigate fire risk,” Deborah Miley, executive director of National Wildfire Suppression Association, an organization representing over 300 private firefighting companies, told ABC News.

Though most private firefighting companies focus solely on work for the government and insurance companies, some openly offer their services to individual customers. Allied Disaster Defense, which the Los Angeles Times reported had sent staff to fight the recent fires, has a page on its website advertising “private client services.” The company offers to sign non-disclosure agreements for providing their services, which they recommend for “high-net worth individuals, and even celebrities.”

Aside from public backlash, the employment of private firefighters during such serious wildfires can be “extremely dangerous,” Cal Fire battalion chief David Acuña told ABC News.

“Where it becomes a problem is they don’t fall under our chain of command. We don’t know what personal protective equipment they have, and we don’t have radio contact,” Acuña said.

Acuña said he has no problems with private firefighters working in advance to prevent fire damage — but during a disaster like the one that’s ongoing, they can get in the way of official firefighters doing their jobs.

“All of those people are folks that we are going to have to come in and rescue if they stay in the area too long, and that takes away from us being able to attack the fire,” he said.

As the wildfires continue their brutal rampage, Acuña emphasized that local fire departments will remain on the ground working to battle the flames.

“We have a responsibility to the public — not to a customer,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — Rudy Giuliani reached a settlement agreement with two former election workers he was found to have defamed, a joint letter from both parties said Thursday.

The former New York City mayor had been a no-show to his non-jury civil trial that was set to begin Thursday in Manhattan federal court. The proceedings had been adjourned until Tuesday.

“All parties reached a resolution,” Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Cammarata, said outside court.

He read a statement from Giuliani that said the settlement does not include an admission of guilt.

Giuliani’s statement said he gets to keep his New York co-op and Florida condominium along with all his personal belongings. He has agreed not to talk about Freeman and Moss in a defamatory way.

Andrew Giuliani said he will retain possession of the World Series rings, which he has said his father gifted to him.

Giuliani was scheduled to be the first witness in the case, which was to decide whether he must turn over his Florida condo to the two Georgia election workers.

When ABC News asked whether Giuliani was coming to court on Thursday morning, his attorney said “I’m not going to comment on anything right now.” Asked whether Giuliani was OK, the attorney responded “yes.”

A jury found Giuliani liable in 2023 for defaming Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss by falsely accusing them of tampering with the 2020 presidential vote in Georgia, and awarded the two election workers a $148 judgment.

The former New York City mayor has already turned over a Mercedes and other assets to the women, but is fighting to keep the condo, which he claims as his permanent residence.

Giuliani has been disbarred in New York and in Washington after his law license was stripped over his efforts aiding former President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election.

He has been held in contempt twice this month by two different federal judges, and is also fighting to keep three Yankees World Series rings that he owns.

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(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — Nearly a full week has passed since Alex Shekarchian and Moogega Cooper hastily packed a few belongings and fled from the second natural disaster to upturn their lives in three months.

In October, the couple survived Hurricane Milton, which slammed the Florida coast. Now, they are among thousands of residents to lose their homes in the unprecedented firestorm continuing to burn across Los Angeles County.

“We’ve seen weather events get more and more extreme. That Category 5 [hurricane] was unprecedented,” Cooper told ABC News of experiencing back-to-back natural disasters on both coasts. “This firestorm was unprecedented.”

Shekarchian recalled driving home last Tuesday evening and seeing a “lightning strike of fire” in the hills near their home in Altadena. He said that when he got to his house, there was no electricity and he found Cooper sitting inside next to candles “like the candles we had from when we survived Hurricane Milton.”

Fueled by hurricane-strength winds, the Eaton Fire ravaged the communities of Altadena and Pasadena, destroying at least 7,000 structures, including homes and businesses, officials said. As of Monday, the fire was 33% contained after consuming more than 14,000 acres.

The Eaton Fire is one of several blazes to break during Tuesday and Wednesday’s Santa Ana windstorm, which struck during a severe drought, authorities said. At one point, seven wildfires were burning all at once across a 45-square-mile area of Los Angeles County.

The Palisades Fire in the oceanside community of Pacific Palisades remains the largest of the fires. The Palisades Fire has destroyed more than 5,000 homes and scorched nearly 24,000 acres. The inferno was 14% contained Monday as firefighters braced for a new Santa Ana wind event forecast to buffet the area through Wednesday.

At least 24 fire-related deaths occurred in the Eaton and Palisades fires, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Offices confirmed. Nearly two dozen people remain unaccounted for, according to the Los Angeles County sheriff. Many of those who died in the fires were elderly or disabled, officials said.

A third major fire, the Hurst Fire near Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley, was stopped by firefighters at 799 acres and was 95% contained on Monday.

Planning to rebuild

Cooper said the blaze that destroyed her home swarmed her neighborhood with incredible speed.

“I actually didn’t realize I was going to lose my home until we saw the news of the fire spreading far beyond where mentally I was prepared for them even to go,” Cooper told ABC News.

Even after evacuating, Cooper said she believed they would find their home still intact only to learn she and Shekarchian suffered a complete loss.

The couple said that unlike a lot of homeowners, they have home insurance to rebuild and have already decided to do so.

“I think of it as not necessarily losing a physical structure, but we lost a home, we temporarily lost that sense of community,” Cooper said. “And that’s why I want to rebuild.”

Shekarchian added, “It was an easy decision when we knew that we wanted to be part of that rebuild with restaurants we lost, the stores we lost.”

On top of everything, Shekarchian said he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer just days before the fires struck.

Shekarchian, an entertainment lawyer, said the movie “Wicked” is helping him get through the horror, which he said was choreographed by one of his clients, Christopher Scott.

“We’re just dancing through life kind of,” Shekarchian said of how he and Cooper are trying to maintain a positive attitude. “Dancing through cancer, dancing through homelessness.”

‘It was a nightmare’

Jeffrey and Cheryl Ku also of Altadena told ABC News they believe they were among the first people to see the Eaton Fire ignite at the base of an electrical transmission tower in the hills near their home at 6:19 p.m. on Tuesday.

“My husband had come home from work, and he ran in the house and just started screaming, ‘There’s a fire on the hill. We need to get out,'” Cheryl Ku said. “I ran out back, saw the fire at the poles and I immediately called 911.”

A Ring doorbell camera on their home captured the scary moments after the couple spotted the fire charging into their neighborhood. The Ring video recorded Jeffrey frantically hosing down the exterior of his home while constantly trying to keep an eye on flames advancing toward him.

“It was a nightmare,” Jeffrey Ku said. “And I think the worst part was every time I checked on the fire, it got worse.”

The couple said their home was left standing.

Neighbors of the couple told ABC News they also saw the Eaton Fire apparently ignite near the transmission tower and rapidly explode.

“There was no other fire, no flames anywhere around,” said neighbor Pedro Rojas, who recorded video of the flames near the transmission tower at 6:24 p.m. on Tuesday. “Because it was so dark that if there were flames in any other places we would have noticed it.”

Fire officials trying to determine the cause of the Eaton Fire and the other blazes told ABC News they were aware of the videos showing flames near the transmission tower at the onset of the firestorm.

The Southern California Edison company issued a statement to ABC News, saying that while the Eaton Fire started in its service area, a preliminary analysis shows “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start of the fire.” The utility company also said no fire agency has suggested its equipment caused the Eaton Fire to ignite.

But Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, told ABC News on Monday that the company cannot yet rule out the possibility that its energy infrastructure played a role in sparking the wildfires.

‘My guardian angel’

After losing their Altadena home of 25 years in the Eaton Fire, Ivan and Robyn Migel said the only thing to survive was a ceramic angel they had in their garden.

“That was my guardian angel in my garden,” Robyn Migel told ABC News.

She said that while her stove, refrigerator and furniture “vaporized” along with their house, the angel survived without even cracking.

“It was just marked by smoke from the flames. I thought that was a beautiful sign,” Robyn Migel said.

Ivan Migel said that when he saw the angel amid the rubble, he burst into tears.

“It also just gave me hope to move forward and to rebuild from this experience,” Ivan Migel said.

The Migels said their daughter was injured while evacuating their home when an ember fell from the sky and hit her in the face.

Robyn Migel said she now regrets not grabbing more family heirlooms and photos in the half-hour they were given to evacuate.

“I’ve just had to let go of that sadness of what we didn’t do in those moments because my family and my pets got out safely and that was the most important,” Robyn Migel said.

Learning his home and business were lost

Mike Geller of Pacific Palisades told ABC News that he not only lost his home, but also the jewelry store his family has owned in Palisades Village for almost three generations.

Now at age 48, Geller said he has to start over.

“Thank God I was able to retrieve my birth certificate. But every possession my children have accumulated … gone, decimated,” Geller said. “I’m in shock. I’m not even sure how I’m talking to you. I’m absolutely in shock. I’m just going through the motions. It hasn’t really set in yet.”

Geller said he has filed a personal insurance claim, but doesn’t know when it will be processed. He said he and many of his neighbors, especially older residents who bought their homes decades ago for $50,000 to $75,000, will not have the means to rebuild.

“Those people will not be able to come back. And if they do and they have insurance, will they rebuild?” Geller said. “Look, if I’m 75, 80 years old, you know, how much time do I have?”

Geller said he and his wife are considering not rebuilding.

“It’s about quality of life,” he said. “If it takes me three years to rebuild, how much time do I actually have left at that point?”

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