See, that’s how a civilized operation works.
One place in Arkansas I lived, we paid a yearly fee and got the city trucks and men to come out. (4 miles outside the city limits) No pay, we could whistle up a volunteer service from about 30 miles away. (good luck)
Now we have a poorly equipped volunteer service and I would pay more t get better equipment and more personnel but the population density is too thin. We keep hoses and stuff out year round to fight our own stuff as well.
Oh, there a $125,000 pumper trucks and there are $750,000 pumper trucks.
In Tulsa OK, the last SFD structure fire I saw charged to the individual was $115,000.00 (Three trucks, the men and the time, about 1 hour.)
You really do not want to go on a pay as you burn set up.
I live in Arkansas as well, and this is how our fire dept is too. There is actually only one paid firefighter in town. The rest are voluteers, and if you don’t pay, well you burn I guess, at least that is the policy.
The fire trucks used by the FDNY cost about $400,000. My uncle is (well, was, he just retired) a captain, and his house lost their trucks on 9/11 (sadly, most of their guys as well). My parents got involved with fundraising. I believe city-wide the tab was like $40 million dollars just for all the destroyed equipment. Previously, I’d never really considered how staggeringly expensive a fire department could be. I honestly don’t know how the volunteer departments do it.
By begging for money, basically. My husband and I both belong to a volunteer station (he’s FF and I’m an EMT) and yes, the costs are staggering.
Not just the equipment and maintenance, but the mortgage, utility bills, insurance, stuff like that. Turnout gear can cost a couple thousand for one set, helmets are a couple hundred (for good ones).
We hold monthly dinners, auctions where we sell food, we do kid’s birthday parties, we have a hall for rent, and even those (somewhat obnoxious) Fill-The-Boot fund drives, where we stand at a busy intersection in our district with fire boots and literally beg for money. I’ve done two Fill-The Boots, and it’s two extremes; people either are more than happy to hand over all the change in their ashtrays and a handfull of bills, or they scream at us to get out of the street.
We also do a yearly solicitation by mail, and after every call, we send out a performance letter, asking how we did on the call. We don’t directly ask for money, but do reinforce that we’re a volunteer company and depend on donations - sometimes we don’t hear anything back, but sometimes we get a nice check and a letter praising our work.
Maybe this is wishy washy of me, but couldn’t the firefighters have helped the guy without using their equipment? I bet alot of homeowners dont’ know to aim the water at the base of the fire etc.
I just can’t see just standing there. I’m a nurse–if you are having a heart attack in front of me–I will help you. I thought that FF had the same ethic.
I am now looking at FF in a different light. It may not be illegal, but I find it unethical.
(I also think that the system sucks–you shouldn’t have to pony up in this way to protect your home. What’s next? Fees to the cops so that they’ll cruise to protect your property?).
Why not? Those of us who live in areas with municipal fire departments pay to protect our home through our taxes. If you live in an area which doesn’t fund a fire department through taxes and therefore depends on a volunteer department, who exactly should pony up the money to protect your home?
I think this or this would be more practical. Or maybe you’d like to pretend that you’re part of LA County Station 51? Or Mayberry (Virginia)'s VFD?
You missed my point (which was easy, since I didn’t type it!)–I think it should be covered by taxes-either state, local or county. At least the equipment should be.
I can’t get out of my mind the image of men standing by, watching something burn and not helping. It goes against the grain with me–what happened to bucket brigades and neighbor helping neighbor? The bucket thing is obviously archaic, but the neighbor thing is not.
You always have to pony up. Sometimes its taxes, sometimes its dues and sometimes its watching your garage burn down. Hell, sometimes you pay your taxes, pay your dues and still watch your garage burn down. That’s some serious pony.
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.
The many FFs I know are the same way - they’ll stop and help for any reason.
Please don’t change your thinking on firefighters - I agree it may not be illegal, but it’s unethical up the wazoo. I’ve never heard of a system like this. It’s terrible, IMO.
I live in a county that is serviced by both career and volunteer fire companies. I pay taxes that go to the career stations, and I make a donation to the volunteer company that services the district where I live, and in addition, I belong to a volunteer company that’s out of my district. I donate my time (and money) there as well.
As I mentioned in my previous post, there are a lot of people who refuse to give money to the volunteers, believing that the paid companies are ‘enough.’ They’re not - the volunteer companies fill in the gaps that the paid companies don’t cover. If all the volunteer companies closed down tomorrow, the county would have to open more paid stations in their places to pick up the slack, and where do you think the money for that would come from?
I belong to two subscription VFD’s. It’s incredibly cheap in my opinion, 50 bucks a year for one and 75/yr for the other.
Neither one would make it here in time to save a structure, but they might get here in time to keep the fire from spreading to U.S. Forest Service ground, for which I am responsible.
I understand the reason they can’t fight a fire for a non member has something to do with not being covered by insurance if they do.
My hat’s off to all the volunteer firefighters everywhere, for the dedication and service they give to their communities. Training alone takes huge amounts of time, not to mention all the maintenance and fire time they donate.
From what what my Dad has told me, this is not uncommon in rural Arkansas. I am pretty sure that there has been a recent story in NW AR where something similar has happened. My parents are just outside of a goodsize town and have had a terrrible time setting up services I take for granted. They see it as part of the price to pay for living on a mountain instead of a city that had 4 murders on New Years day like I did.
Dang! I remember when that style truck was the new one for LA County Station 51. You’ve likely just dated both of us.
Who’s to say they didn’t? :dubious: It is extortion afterall.
Some volunteer companies are tax supported too. I actually pay to 2 companies because my house is in one town, garage in another - even though it is about only 12’ away. (My property tax bill is itemized)
So you could ‘move’ by building and living in an above-the-garage apartment!
As a British person there is no way I would beleive the OP was a true story without the link. It wouldn’t occur to me that such things had happened since the 18th Century. I also wouldn’t particularly check out the fire service situation for any house I would buy, I wouldn’t consider a first world countr might not have quick and available fire response services for every populated location (unless the house was in a very remote uninhabitted spot). Simply it is unimaginable that a modern country would not have available fire services that were payed for out of some form of taxation.
More AR Dopers that I realized! FaerieBeth and I exchanged a few emails before Christmas about organizing a Bear State Dopefest, but nothing came of it. Maybe we should give it another try! (Anyone interested, email me!)
Anyway, I’m not terribly surprised that things like that happen around here, but the fact that I grew up and live here and had never heard of such a thing makes be believe that the guy might actually not have known about the dues. And for those who say the FD was perfectly reasonable, I think enough folks have posted with info about VFDs to indicate that there are other ways of running things–relying on donations, for example, or charging insurance companies.
I haven’t had Mynn experiences, but I have no difficulty believing that the banks and insurers could let the ball drop on this as easily the homeowner.
I’d still get taxed for 2 - the county says the plot is in 2 towns, and if they CAN tax you twice, they WILL tax you twice. All that would change is my mailing address, if I could get a new address for the garage.