If you don't pay a yearly fee. This is maybe an hour or so to the south of me. Are things really this backwards there?!? Firefighters Let Home Burn, then Tempers Flare - CBS News
If you're going to fund the service in that way, you pretty much have to let the house burn. Otherwise you might not get enough subscribers to make the service work. It probably isn't easy to let the place burn down, there isn't really any other way to discourage against free-loaders. If it was the case that the guy just missed the payment due to hard times, then I suppose it's pretty harsh. Out of gratitude they'd probably get it in retrospect. Come to think of it, even if he wasn't a subscriber maybe they could have offered to do it and bill him after the fact. That wouldn't be cheap though, and they might have a job getting a guy in a trailer to pay up. Things seem to work differently in rural areas. It would just cost more per head to provide the same services and infrastructure, so a lot of things just fall down to the individual. You really couldn't run a service like this in a city. The fire would spread quickly from one person's property to another's, regardless of whether whether they were subscribed or not.
I completely agree with how they handled it. Rural areas can be very difficult to bring in trucks and water without higher costs to the public. $75 a year is nothing to protect your house and if they saved it then EVERYONE would be pissed off. Needs of the many and all that...
Exactly. Give one a freebee and they'll all quit paying. Then again - nobody had to know he didn't pay, they could have put it out without advertising that fact. I can see both sides.
Personally, I would put out the fire first, then handle the finacial stuff after everyone and everything was safe. Yeah it would be a jerk move, but not anymore than this. I understand how business works, but when lives and property are at stake, it seems wrong to just stand by and not do anything. Thank God lives weren't at stake in this situation. (at least the article doesn't mention anyone got hurt or if anyone was in the home) But what if they were? I see both sides, but I honestly think it was just wrong to not help when they could have.
I'm sorry, but I'm betting that the money collected in $75 does not cover the operations of the fire department. Most of their funding comes from taxes, which, according to an interview I saw with the man, he has paid. I'm sure this man has "paid" for a signficant portion of the service; they should have provided assistance. While a agree that government should keep out of certain aspects of our lives, there are certain aspects for which government is necessary, such as infrastructure and protective services (police, fire, ambulance, etc). In the case of fire, such as this, by NOT putting out the fire, you can be putting others at risk. I'm sure anyone here from California knows how quickly a wild fire can spread. Hot embers can be carried on the wind for miles, starting new fires. By allowing this man's house to burn, his neighbors' properties were put at risk. I hope with the public scrutiny, these rural communities make some changes to prevent this from happening to others.
Talk about rural areas. The other day a house burned down and the firefighters stood there and watched. It happened in the County I live in. It wasn't because of not paying a fire protection fee, it was because there was no fire hydrant near by. They had a water truck at the scene, but the water pressure on the truck wasn't working.
I read this earlier today and was a little shocked. I wonder how this would have been handled If someone may have been trapped inside and lost their life. Besides the pets.
Taxes are likely paid by people who are within the city limits. Subscription fees are paid by people who are outside city limits. TOO EASY
But you add the $75 from all the homes, it would probably cover most of it. Its not like all the homes will burn down that year. Most people's $75 won't be used by them. They really should just include the $75 in the land taxes instead of a separate bill. This way, everyone is covered if they pay taxes.
So I guess our already over taxed citizens need to pay a further tax just to make sure we're protected from fire??? This is as BS and is just as bad as you being able to bribe the police! Thank you big government.
OTOH, if I don't pay may car insurance, and then cause an accident, I can't expect State Farm or Geico to pick up the tab for me. I wouldn't be happy if it happened to me, but the firefighters in question performed their job. I doubt the fee-paying neighbor whose house was saved isn't complaining about the fee right now.
That's really redundant. There shouldn't even remotely be a firefighter insurance, its why you pay taxes in the first place. Money is a fucking evil thing. All cunts want is more.
Yes, but when I lived in a rural area, our fire department received funding from the county, state, and federal governments, not just the city government. Unless the fire department is turning down sources of funding, he has contributed. My thoughts are that, as a government agency, the fire department should have responded.
