Hundreds of firefighters are battling the Thomas Fire in Southern California — as of Thursday morning, it’s burned more than 242,000 acres and is 30 percent contained. But not all of the crews fighting the fire work for a governmental entity.

Private firefighters have also been deployed, and here to talk about that is Dave Torgerson. He’s the president of Wildfire Defense Systems, which is a wildfire services provider based in Montana. It operates across 21 states.