If you run a business or manage commercial property anywhere in Southern California, wildfire and disaster planning is no longer optional. The 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires cost insurers over $40 billion and left thousands of commercial buildings either damaged or untouched but evacuated and exposed. The buildings that survived the fire were often hit by what came next: looters, scrappers, and squatters who knew the property would sit empty for days. This guide is for the owners, property managers, and landlords who do not want to be in that headline next year.
The Threat That Most Owners Underestimate
When I was on patrol in San Diego County, I watched it happen during the 2003 Cedar Fire and again during the 2007 Witch Fire. Within hours of an evacuation order, the calls start coming in. People in unmarked trucks pulling up to closed businesses. Crews with bolt cutters at the back of retail centers. Two and three person teams stripping rooftop HVAC units for the copper. In every major Southern California fire of the last twenty years, post-event looting and theft have followed the same pattern, and in every event the owners who fared best had a plan in place before the smoke arrived.
The same pattern shows up after floods, mudslides, and major windstorms. The disaster itself gets the news coverage. The slow drip of theft, vandalism, and squatter intrusion in the days and weeks that follow rarely does, but it is where most of the dollar loss happens for commercial property.
Why Police Cannot Cover Your Property During a Disaster
This is not a criticism of the agencies. It is a fact you have to plan around. During a regional fire or flood event, every sheriff and police department in the impacted area is operating on a wartime footing. Traffic control on closed roads. Evacuation enforcement. Search and rescue. Hospital security. Mutual aid to neighboring jurisdictions. A commercial burglar alarm in an evacuated zone is not going to draw a unit. Officers know there are looters in the zone. They simply do not have the bodies to deploy on property protection during the active event.
That is where private security comes in. Licensed private security can operate inside evacuation zones with sheriff or incident command authorization, can patrol multiple properties in a single shift, and can produce time-stamped reports that hold up for insurance and law enforcement follow-up after the event.
What to Do Now, Before the Next Event
The single biggest factor in how well your property comes through the next disaster is what you do in the next thirty days. Here is the order I recommend.
1. Complete a Property Inventory in Video Form
Walk every room, every storage area, and every piece of equipment on a phone camera. Narrate as you go. Open file cabinets. Open server racks. Open product shelves. Time-stamped video is the single most useful document you can have for both insurance and law enforcement after a loss. Save it to two cloud locations under accounts that are not tied to a single staff member. Repeat the walk every six months.
2. Build a One-Page Emergency Contact Sheet
The sheet should list, in this order: owner of record, property manager, insurance broker (with policy number), security vendor (with 24-hour number), utility shutoff contacts, key vendors for board-up and remediation, and the local fire and sheriff non-emergency lines. Print three copies. One on the inside of the main electrical panel cover. One in the manager's go-bag. One with your insurance broker.
3. Pre-Authorize Your Security Vendor
The fastest deployments happen when there is a standing emergency response agreement with a vendor before the event. The agreement spells out hourly rates during emergencies, expected response times, the geographic envelope the vendor covers, and a signed letter of authority that the vendor can show at police checkpoints. Without that paperwork, every responding officer has to verify the property and the relationship from scratch. That delay is where losses happen.
4. Confirm Insurance Coverage in Writing
Pull your commercial policy and look for a Loss Prevention or Protective Safeguards endorsement. Most commercial policies have one. The endorsement covers reasonable post-event security costs when documented. Confirm the limit and the documentation requirements in writing with your broker now, not the day the fire jumps the ridge. Some carriers require pre-approval for hours above a certain threshold.
5. Map the Property and the Threat
Mark the access points, the hidden corners, the rooftop HVAC, the loading dock, and the rear alley on a simple site map. Mark what is most valuable and most theft-prone. Share the map with your security vendor. A guard who does not know your property loses an hour just figuring out what they are protecting.
The 72-Hour Window: What to Do When the Order Hits
The first 72 hours after an evacuation order are the most dangerous window for commercial property. Here is the order of operations that has worked for every client we have walked through it.
Hour 0 to 1. Confirm staff are safe and accounted for. Activate your emergency contact sheet. Call your security vendor and authorize deployment. Call your insurance broker and put the carrier on notice.
Hour 1 to 4. Lock down access. If you have not already, board ground-floor windows on retail or street-front commercial. Move valuable inventory to a back-of-house location or off-site storage if there is time. Confirm cameras and DVR are running on cellular backup, not just the wired network.
Hour 4 to 12. Security vendor in place. Document handoff to vendor (which means contact info, site map, alarm codes, after-hours owner numbers, and the insurance broker's email for incident reports).
Hour 12 to 72. Patrol cadence established. Time-stamped photo reports delivered to ownership at the end of each shift. Any incidents, attempted intrusions, or suspicious activity logged in writing and forwarded to law enforcement and the insurance carrier.
The properties that take losses during this window almost always failed at the Hour 1 to 4 step. The owner was too busy or too rattled to make the security call before the looters got there.
What to Watch For in Real Time
Most disaster-period theft falls into four patterns. Knowing them makes you a harder target.
Pattern 1: The fake utility crew. Two or three people in vests pulling up in an unmarked truck. They claim to be checking gas, power, or water. Real utility crews after a disaster wear marked vehicles and badged uniforms. They do not knock on commercial back doors.
Pattern 2: The rooftop scrap crew. One or two people climbing the back of the building toward the HVAC units. Copper coils inside commercial HVAC are the second-most stolen item after evacuations. A patrol vehicle making one pass per hour with a spotlight nearly eliminates this risk.
Pattern 3: The squatter wave. Two or three people moving belongings into a back door or rear suite. In California, once a person establishes occupancy, removal takes a court order. Stopping a squatter at the door costs nothing. Removing a squatter after they are inside can cost tens of thousands.
Pattern 4: The post-disaster contractor scam. An unmarked truck pulling up offering immediate board-up, debris removal, or tarp work, demanding cash up front. Real licensed contractors do not work this way. Send them away and call your insurance broker for the approved vendor list.
The Reentry Phase: Days 3 to 30
When the evacuation order lifts, the threat picture changes but does not disappear. Damaged or partially functional buildings draw a new wave of scrappers, fake adjusters, and aggressive solicitors. Plan on the following for the first thirty days.
Continue overnight coverage until your operational hours and on-site staff are back to normal. Document every contractor entering the property. Run background checks on anyone you do not know personally. Keep your security vendor's reporting in writing and time-stamped for insurance.
If your operation is in a partially restored state and not yet fully staffed, the gap between contractor hours and operational hours is where most reentry-period losses happen. A two-stop overnight patrol contract closes that gap inexpensively.
Documentation That Holds Up Later
Insurance settlements and law enforcement follow-up are won and lost on documentation. From the dozens of post-event claims I have supported as both an officer and a vendor, the records that matter are:
- Time-stamped video walk-throughs of the property before and after the event
- Shift reports from licensed security with photos, times, and observations
- Written communication with your insurance broker confirming coverage authorization
- Receipts for board-up, security, and remediation services
- Police case numbers and incident report copies for every reported intrusion
- Vendor invoices that match contracted rates and dates
Carriers pay faster and at higher rates when this paperwork is clean. Adjusters with messy files reduce settlements, ask for more discovery, and slow everything down.
Special Cases: Multi-Tenant Properties and HOAs
If you manage a multi-tenant retail center, office park, or industrial property, the coordination challenge is different. Each tenant assumes someone is taking the lead on disaster security. Often nobody is. Solve this with one paragraph in the lease and one line in the CAM budget. The paragraph names a security vendor and gives the property manager authority to deploy during emergencies. The line item funds an emergency reserve that does not require board action to activate.
For HOAs and homeowner-adjacent commercial property, the same principle applies. A pre-authorized vendor with a written response time and emergency rate sheet on file is worth ten times what it costs.
How MT Security & Investigations Can Help
We have been on the ground for every major San Diego County fire since 2003. We have run emergency security for retail centers, office buildings, warehouses, and multi-tenant industrial parks during the Cedar Fire, the Witch Fire, the Lilac Fire, and most recently the 2025 events across Los Angeles County. We know how to coordinate with sheriff and CAL FIRE incident command. We know how to enter and operate in evacuation zones legally and safely. We know what documentation insurance carriers want.
For commercial owners and property managers, we provide:
- Pre-event emergency response agreements with locked-in rates and response windows
- Rapid deployment of armed and unarmed officers during evacuations
- Post-fire and post-disaster property security through the reentry and rebuild period
- Mobile patrol with time-stamped photo reports suitable for insurance and law enforcement
- Vacant and damaged commercial property protection
- Construction and restoration site security during the rebuild phase
- Loss investigation and insurance support through our licensed PI side
Our founder is a retired Chula Vista Police Department officer with twenty-four years of industry experience. Every officer we deploy is BSIS-licensed, screened to law enforcement standards, and supervised by a real human being who answers the phone at three in the morning.
Set up your emergency response plan before fire season
We will walk your property, draft a response agreement, and lock in your emergency rates inside one week. Nothing to pay until you activate it.
Start the Plan →Frequently Asked Questions
How fast can security be on site after an evacuation order?
For existing clients with a pre-arranged plan, our crews are usually on site within 60 to 90 minutes of an evacuation order in San Diego County and within 2 to 3 hours across the broader Southern California region. Without a pre-arranged plan, response can take longer because we have to verify property access with the sheriff and fire teams running the perimeter.
Will my commercial insurance cover disaster security costs?
Most commercial policies include a Loss Prevention or Protective Safeguards endorsement that covers reasonable security costs during an evacuation. Carriers want documentation of the threat and a vendor invoice. Call your broker as soon as the evacuation order hits and confirm in writing before you authorize coverage.
Can security guards enter an evacuation zone for a commercial property?
Yes, with sheriff or fire department clearance. We coordinate access through the incident command and never cross police lines without authorization. For high-value commercial property, an emergency access letter from the owner of record speeds the process.
What is the biggest mistake businesses make after a wildfire or evacuation?
Letting the property sit empty for 24 to 72 hours before posting security. That is the looting window. Most commercial losses during Southern California disasters happen in the first two days after evacuation, not during the disaster itself.
Do I need separate security for a property that survived but is closed for repair?
Yes. A damaged but standing commercial building draws scrappers and squatters within days. Plan on patrol or stationed coverage from the day the evacuation lifts through the day your crews start work. Once contractors are on site daily, you can usually scale back to overnight only.
How much does post-disaster commercial security cost in Southern California?
Emergency post-disaster coverage typically runs $35 to $65 per hour for unarmed officers, with armed coverage on the higher end. Mobile patrol contracts during evacuation periods run $600 to $2,500 per week depending on the number of properties and stops. The cost is almost always smaller than a single loss event.