Makes sense.
I just don’t see why there can’t be a fee that can be charged in cases like this. Surely a company that provides a service can put a dollar amount on that service. So this dude forgot (or refused to pay or whatever) his cheap insurance fee ($75), so why can’t he get protection from the people who are already there for a fee that covers costs? I don’t know what it would be (maybe firefighters salaries for the response time, cost of materials, gas, truck maintenance, etc etc), but even if it’s a couple grand, that’s gotta be a better option than having everything you own (plus cats) go up.
Isn’t that how the private health insurance that this country loves so much works?
ETA: Guess I should’ve read the thread first. But it’s still like med insurance, and that “works” for some definitions of working.
Maybe I missed it being mentioned in the thread but perhaps the firefighters are prohibited by law from endangering themselves or the municipal equipment once they’ve ascertained that there’s no longer a human at risk in the “out of jurisdiction” structure.
Keep in mind that the people in this county have democratically elected officials who have chosen to govern in a particluar manner. One decision that they have made was to not have a fire department or a mandatory relationship with a township (as in, the county gov’t forks over $75 per person/house/whatever to the town and collects that money via taxes).
Decisions have consequences - and in a representative democracy, you get to elect people and have them make decisions. Sometimes they make good decisions, sometimes they make crappy decisions, and sometimes they make decisions they work out well in some cases and poorly in others.
But the people in this county were free to elect whomever they wanted, for whatever reasons they wanted - apparently this arrangement regarding firefighting has been around for a while, so, basically, it’s something that has been chosen, freely, by the residents of the county. Maybe they’ll decide it wasn’t the right choice. Or maybe not. Either way, it’s their county, it should be up to them.
Well one real world example in my area, Fresno County Fire. I don’t think anyone wants to cut the number of helmets on scene.
Fresno County Fire was created by combining like 4 other smaller departments, each of which had its own cheif, dispatch center, administrative types, inspectors, etc. Now 2-3 people are dispatching where 7-10 were, 4 cheifs became 1 cheif and 2 district cheifs. In some respects I could see where all of the cities and counties could benefit from a similar arrangement where on some level, probably county, you would get the best “bang for the buck” rather than Fresno county still having something like 28 separate firefighting agencies, many of which have their own administrative support.
Heck nowadays you could centralize 911 dispatch for damn near everyone on almost any level you want.
Benjamin Franklin started the first fire department in 1736. It was another 16 years before he was responsible for the first successful fire insurance company. I wonder if they tried to put out all fires during that 16 year period. But there have been at least some fire departments since before the Republic was founded.
Obion County doesn’t have *its own *fire department, but the small towns in the county do.
And the fire department could get into legal trouble if another place within the city limits caught on fire while they were putting out one where the owner had not paid his share. That’s what we were told when a field a hundred yards behind our house caught on fire in the dead of night. We were less than a quarter mile from the city limits. My father managed to beat out the fire, but his heart was never the same after that.
The same fire department did, however, arrive to put out the fire across the highway from us. Of course, I’m glad they did show up for our neighbors. But the problem was the inconsistent treatment.
Incidentally, our house was located about ten miles from the Obion County line.
Keep in mind that in most of these small towns, the firemen are volunteers. Almost certainly they knew the man whose house burned down. Sometimes that is to one’s benefit and sometimes it works against you. This particular owner was not terribly fond of the mayor of South Fulton. Who knows if that made a difference or not. And people anywhere can be cold and cruel or go beyond the call of duty to help a stranger out.
I believe that the 2007 fire was on his son’s property.
I just couldn’t let a man’s home burn down without doing something if I were on the scene. You don’t let something that important be destroyed just to make a point. I do think that a fee for putting out the fire when the original fee hasn’t been paid should be large enough to help people remember to pay their bills on time. $1000 should do it.
folks, this outcome of “we’ll save a few bucks and not have fire protection”* decisions plays out every 10 or so years in the US - usually in politically conservative areas.
Yes, it’s quite legal to withold services from those who have chosen not to purchase them.
And, if, as posted upthread, this twit had been “forgetting” the crummy $75/YEAR since at least 2007, had a fire put out in 2007 DESPITE having not paid, and STILL ignored the $75 option - hell yes, I’d let the moron’s place burn - if it’s not worth $75 to him, exactly how is it that it is supposed to be worth risking my life?.
For those with good search skills:
How many times have houses in that county been allowed to burn because the owner didn’t think fire protection was worth $75? How many of those cases resulted in the County voting on acquiring its own fire department or contracting with another department to cover all properties in the county? Did such a proposal make it to vote?
Didn’t think so.
This is how those people have chosen ot deal with fire protection - it is available to anyone who wants it, and available dirt cheap - we let people decide for themselves, we don’t force nobody to buy something they don’t want.
So far, I haven’t heard of any fatalities arising from thes cases.
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- wheher the decision was made by the local government, the property owner, or (as in this case), both
Intellectually, I can appreciate the “serves 'em right” aspect, and I could believe that charging, say over 2 times the cost to pay for 50% deadbeats might or might not work, but viscerally, the notion of firecighters standing there watching it burn just doesn’t sit right.
And intellectually, I can get the notion of letting a house burn as a warning to those who might fail to pay the protection fee may also be laudable in the long run, but, ugh.
Depends. If they charged him $75 after the fact the first time, then that’s stupid too (not morally bankrupt stupid, like letting his house burn down this time, but still stupid)
If they charged him the full cost of fighting the fire last time, and he paid it, then why wouldn’t they do so again? No skin off their nose how many times he sets his place on fire, as long as he settles up his bill each time. Of course HE might eventually figure out that $75 a year is cheaper than 10K or whatever every three years, but until he does so it’s not necessarily going to cost the fire department anything - unless of course they let him by not billing him properly.
I don’t really buy this “half the people won’t pay so we couldn’t possibly bill them afterwards” argument. Emergency departments all over America, and Ambulance services all over the world have dealt with this problem for decades without going bankrupt. I would have thought it was easier for a fire department to recover its costs than for the Ambulance. For starters, you know where they live…
What people don’t seem to be getting is that, while it actually costs more to put out the fire, they are really only out $75*. Everyone else’s payments, both current an previous, subsidize the rest.
So if the owner does not pay the high fee for the putting out of the fire, they can repossess the house. And if they can make more than $75 on it, they come out ahead. The rest of the purpose of a lien would be to provide consequences for not paying the $75 ahead of time–that of losing your property, which would still serve to dissuade other people from not paying the proper price.
And it would do so without the ethical questions of letting a house burn down
*Every time I use $75, I’m assuming that the guy only didn’t pay once (not including the late payment already mentioned upthread.)
I think one of the problems is for many of us (especially in urban area), paying for the fire department is hidden in the rest of taxes, levies etc. I’m not sure where anyone would get the idea that fire or police is a truly free service that is provided out of the goodness of the individual heart. Not familiar with volunteer fire departments, I’m not sure if their time and supplies are all volunteer or if some is paid for out of a city fund (i.e. taxes).
Unless the state and local laws were ammended to aloow it, most states will not allow you to reposess or sell a house at auction over such a trivial debt. And the cost to recover it would likely outweigh the cost of the debt itself.
in the debate thread someone stated they were told, that they were billed (same case for everyone) for ambulance twice the cost to account for half the people not paying.
- I dont understand your question. Someone does not buy a service, and then you are asking why they were not provided with a service that they did not buy? I did not buy cable, is it illegal for the cable company to not give me free cable? I did not pay for a plumber to fix my leak - is it illegal for the plumber to not come to my house and fix everything for free? I did not pay for a Bently, so, how come are they did not deliver a new car to my home this morning?
- Competition, associations, and free government elections have ensured that just about everywhere in mainstream America has firefighting service available, and at a competitve price. Any fire company who charged too much, would be put out of business by a new opportunistic competitor. I cannot think of any examples where the price of firefighting in America was way out of line with its cost and where the citizens were not allowed to vote.
bottom line: the guy did not buy fire protection, so he did not get fire protection. I think the guy got exactly what he paid for.
Ancient chinese curse: "May you get what you wish for "
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yes taxes are collected in a township to pay for the volunteer department. it provides for equipment, station and the cost of training. the volunteer part covers what would be the salary costs for the time on duty for those firefighters.
As others have, I’m going to challenge this. There obviously are specific situations where numerous inefficiencies exist. But privatization supporters go around claiming they always exist and private owners can always find them and eliminate them - and they’ve never come close to proving these claims.
There’s nothing magic about private ownership. Some private owners will be inefficient. And government services is not cursed - some government services are being run as efficiently as possible. So it’s hardly the case that privatizing a service guarantees a boost in efficiency. If nothing else, government services can be run at cost - an equivalent privatized service has to show a profit.
So, the asshat couldn’t be arsed to hose it down when he discovered the fire early on? He couldn’t be arsed to save his pets? How freaking hard is it to unleash the dogs and open the gate, open the door and shoo out the damned cat?
If he had kids, would they have been left in the house?
I could see an aquarium full of fish getting boiled, but ambulatory pets that could have been shooed out of the area?
You’re right, some private owners will be inefficient. There’s always a possibility an inept company could run down a single fire department. But a single case doesn’t reflect how free markets work. If you go a few posts up and read what I described about competition, that better reflects how free markets work. The inefficient ones won’t have their contracts renewed.
Here’s an interesting article about how the government took back a private contract and caused prices to soar. But like a one-off fire, privatized fire department, a single example isn’t an accusation that government always sucks.
hijack - My parents once lived in a rural area where they were so far away from the volunteer fire department that if they called the fire department and THEN set the curtains on fire, the house would be burned to the ground before the equipment would arrive. They paid their fire protection fee because their insurance was disqualified without it.
Back on track - I’m not surprised that the firefighters declined to help the non-member for the following reasons.
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Firefighting has a cost in money, equipment, and health risk for the firefighters. Risking death or injury as well as exposing your equipment to hazards is not something I would be willing to do unless other people’s lives were in jeopardy.
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setting a precedent of working for non members just encourages others to become nonmembers. Not a good way to keep the cause funded.
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Anybody who “forgets” to pay for their annual fire tag would probably “forget” to pay for any ad-hock service. Ad-hock pricing would have to be steep in order to dissuade membership loss which means the association backing the fire dept would be spending a lot of time and money trying to collect large debts from people who took the ad-hock service
Oh please. All you need to do is not move to a location where you are not covered by a permanent public emergency-response service.
I know that’s one of the things that would be on my checklist for a move – municipal water and sewers? above the 100-year floodline? no (or very weak) HOA covenants? permanent (professional or volunteer) firefighting and paramedic service? That I believe this should be an essential public service and the authorities should ensure universal coverage through taxation of all households and businesses does not relieve me from making sure that I do whatever’s my part so my circumstances will place me within the aegis of a responding entity.
The man lived somewhere where there was NO universal firefighting coverage and chose to not participate in what was offered to get him some. I’d know better than to rely upon a premise of “Oh, they wouldn’t dare let the house burn down! How could they live with themselves?” . From all reports, IF there had been human life imminently at risk they would have battled the fire so as to save any people, but they had no obligation to take risks to protect noncompliant property. Once the fire started to spread in the direction of other properties, they acted.
Besides apparently HE started the fire in his garbage bins, so extra points for recklessness if that is so. Heck, like** BubbaDog** said, in some rural locations, even if the county DID have a proper fire department or universal fire-coverage contract, they may not get there in time; I can think of a whole bunch of places near my own hometown where that would be the case.