# No membership dues, let your property burn

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-membership-dues-let-your-property-burn/344884>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [February 16, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-membership-dues-let-your-property-burn/344884 "2006-02-16T23:26:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-membership-dues-let-your-property-burn/344884/41 "2006-02-22T20:15:55Z")

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Wasn’t this how things were done in 19th century america? You had a metal badge attached to your house/building, that indicated that you had paid your fire tax. If you didn’t display such a medallion, the local fire company would just wait for your house to be reduced to ashes…after which they would loot the remains. As i recall, fireinsurance companies funded many fire compnies as well.

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**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-membership-dues-let-your-property-burn/344884/42 "2006-02-22T20:43:21Z")

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> [@ethelbert](#):
>
> Quite frankly, I would bet my lungs that this guy knew of the policy and decided to save himself some money. Volunteer fire departments are pretty aggressive in their fund raising. It would be hard to miss. Furthermore, the fact that he offered to pay the dues shows that he had the money. I might feel differently if this guy had fallen on hard times and was just delinquent in his dues, but I would be surprised if they didn’t treat that situation differently.

…as I pointed out in the [Great Debate](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7125613&postcount=28), there is absolutely no evidence to support your assertion. Rueda claims he doesn’t know, Fire Chief Myers doesn’t claim that he did. Myers also states that the department would make a greater effort to explain the policy to Hispanics in the region: virtually conceeding there are people in his district that don’t know about the policy.

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