Firefighters watch house burn...

[Pril]

So i'm kind of torn on this...

http://www.indyposted.com/114773/tennes ... ption-fee/

Basically the place where these people live doesn't have a fire department so their town has an arrangement with the close by fire dept that its citizens pay a $75 subscription fee for their services. I see this a lot like insurance if you don't pay you don't get their services and I can appreciate that. Where it becomes an issue for me is that these firefighters came to the building and sat around doing nothing while it burned down. Also where do these firefighters draw the line? If the person didn't pay the subscription fee but there was someone stuck in the house do they let that person die or do they rescue him/her?

[kiryan]

Isn't this part of the vaunted services that liberals use to justify the existence of government and taxes?

I'd imagine that if they don't have a contract, they don't have a contract. I don't think it would even matter if someone died.

There was a case about a woman heard her room mates being assaulted downstairs and called 911. Like 9 hours later she came downstairs and they were still there and assaulted her. She sued because the police never showed up. She lost reportedly because police protection is applied in general and there is no specific obligation to any given person. I believe this occured in NY in the 80s.

[teflor the ranger]

Most professional and volunteer firefighting associations and companies swear a professional oath. My assumption is that they would do the minimum to preserve life, but just let the property burn.

Still, you think they could put the fire out and just bill them later.

[Ragorn]

Isn't this part of the vaunted services that liberals use to justify the existence of government and taxes?

Yes, this is the end result of privatization and the scaleback of government services. Firemen watch your house burn if you can't afford fire coverage.

[Corth]

This guy has probably saved thousands of dollars over the years by not subscibing to the fire department. If you don't pay for the service why the hell should you be entitled to it?

Granted, the subscription idea is kind of silly. Not really any different than just simply assessing them $75 on their tax bill - since this is obviously something that every homeowner should have. But it's the system they chose, and the homeowner tried to save a few bucks figuring that nothing would ever happen to him, and if it did, the fire department wouldn't just stand around.

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Mr. Cranick, the owner of the house, said:

“I thought they’d come out and put it out, even if you hadn’t paid your $75, but I was wrong.”
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And if everyone had the same thought then the fire department wouldn't be able to pay it's bills. This fire department did exactly the right thing. I would imagine that anyone else in the area who wasn't subscribing will now think twice.

[kiryan]

I don't know that I'll agree with you Corth. $75 a year and how likely is your house to burn down? I bet the statistics are < .5% of homeowners experience a house fire.

What will cause people to pay the subscription fee is their insurance policy. It would be interesting to know if he had fire insurance on his house... If he does, why does he need to pay $75 a year to the firemen? it'll be interesting to see if insurance companies take note (assuming they haven't already) and discount / raise the cost depending on whether you have a fire department.

Where did it say they were a private company?

[Corth]

This is a rural area that doesn't have it's own fire department. If they had to have their own fire department their taxes would probably increase by $750 per year or more. So what you have is a local municipal fire department that offers to provide services to people outside of their jurisdiction - for a very reasonable $75 per year fee. Note that the municipality does not collect taxes from these people who live outside the jurisdiction.

So what is the fire department supposed to do, provide free service to everyone - even people who are not paying taxes to support the fire department? That is absurd. Instead they charge a reasonable $75 per year fee - and this guy DID NOT PAY. It would be WRONG of them to put out that fire because then all the other homeowners in the area would stop paying the $75 annual fee, and the taxpayers in the local municipality would end up being put in a position of subsidizing fire department services for the entire surrounding area. This fire department absolutely did the right thing.

[Corth]

I was speaking to someone about this story and he had a good point. The town where this homeowner lives should just contract out with the neighboring fire department for fire services. And then just essentially raise the taxes of each homeowner by $75 per year.

[kiryan]

You are absolutely right Corht. I'm not arguing that the firemen shouldn't have let the home burn down. I'm arguing that this guy, especially if he has fire insurance, does not need to pay the fee. I might or might not depending on whether it cost me more for the protection or the insurance.

I also can't resist taking a jab at the oft vaunted public services that are increasingly coming with a per use fee. Fire fighting, police on the scene of minor accidents, ambulance services, paving roads in subdivisions... etc etc etc... What exactly are our taxes paying for if its not these services?

[teflor the ranger]

The obvious problem, with this being a rural county in an area of the country that is suffering the worst from the recession, is that there are many people there that are going to have an unusually hard time affording their fire subscription this year.

As a result, many will go unpaid.

Now, it's entirely possible that by the time an out-of-county fire crew showed up, the house was already too far gone to be saved even if they had paid their subscription. A possibility none of the three articles I've read has discussed. So that part is left to speculation for us.

The fact is that fire protection is a service that many in the heartland will go without in hard times. They will have to step it up and form volunteer fire fighting groups to fill the gaps if they care about their own communities and neighbors.

This is how it should be. If you're going to live in a county like that, even if you're having trouble affording your fire subscription, you would do well, be reasonable, and make sense to try to be more independent.

It's not like you didn't know what was going to happen anyway.

[teflor the ranger]

What exactly are our taxes paying for if its not these services?

Interest on increasing public debt at the national, state, and local levels. Government pretends it's competent by borrowing more money to fund services it can't afford in the hopes that they can buy your votes.