ours is private as it gets, it's all volunteer... too bad it wouldn't work in the city
Posted on 07/17/2011 8:11:43 PM PDT by NoLibZone
All across America, municipal governments are awakening to the costs of overly-generous public sector compensation. In Orange County, California, the average total pay and benefits package for a firefighter is $175,000 a year. Firefighter unions say that there can be no cuts to fire department budgets without putting the safety of the public at risk. Yet for most of the nation's history, firefighting services were reliably provided by the private sector. Today, one county in Georgia is showing how that can be done again.
The history of firefighting is instructive. After the traumas of the Great Fire of London in 1666, a fledging market for fire insurance developed there. Those insurers, seeking to lessen their payouts, organized their own fire brigades to minimize any fire damage to their insured parties' homes. However, to prevent fires spreading to insured homes, the brigades responded to every fire regardless of whether a house was insured or not, so the business also benefited free riders. By 1862, only one-third of London property was insured. After much cajoling by the insurers, the municipal government agreed to pay for universal fire services in 1866. Soon after, municipalities all over the world were providing fire services as a public good.
The SSFD began in 1961 with only $10,000 and a handful of entrepreneurial volunteer firemen who bought a fire truck and offered subscription-based fire protection to the residents of the then-unincorporated southern section of the county. Today, the SSFD has a budget of $10 million and provides fire prevention and suppression services to half of Chatham County at a net financial gain to subscribers, as the discount offered on the homeowner's insurance premium from purchasing a subscription outweighs the cost of the subscription itself.
The Southside Fire Department, however, shows they are crying wolf.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
ours is private as it gets, it's all volunteer... too bad it wouldn't work in the city
I might not be on the popular side, but the government has no business in putting out fires and rescuing stranded cats.
The great power of the central government should not be called upon to solve mundane issues like robbery and murder. That's how you get the jackbooted thugs of the ATF and fully-equipped SWAT teams raiding houses looking for some joints. Let some neighborhood group maintain order -- call them Peace Officers, the way folks used to do.
So, yes, you can have lots of volunteers ~ and pros ~ and medics ~ and equipment.
Not sure it would work out all that well!
“ours is private as it gets, it’s all volunteer...”
The only one I know of like that has a perfect record, EVERY HOME THAT HAS CAUGHT FIRE HAS BURNED TO THE GROUND!
I won’t speak for rescuing cats from trees, but there’s a perfectly good reason why the government gets involved in putting out fires. If you allow private property owners to do as they wish when it comes to fire prevention and suppression, you run the risk of having property owners allow fires to burn out of control rather than pay the cost of putting them out. Entire neighborhoods can be destroyed in the process.
Who pays for the firefighting equipment?
Our Union slack Azzed FD emergency crew, Killed My Brother!
Volunteer has been working well for many of the suburbs around New York City, for a very long time. Just saying...
Nationwide, 71 percent of all fire departments are volunteer. In the city where I work, the FD is completely professional. In the surrounding county, it’s a mix of pro and volunteer, with about three volunteers for every pro, and the county pays for the equipment.
In the county next to the one I live in the FD is completely volunteer, no government money at all. All the equipment and training is paid for by subscriptions and by fundraisers.
I can’t tell any difference between the three. The city and county work and train together often. And volunteers are the main source for the pro firefighters in both the city and the county.
some tax money, some matching grant money, mostly fund raisers and donations there are NO paid positions in any of the local village FD's
sounds like the perfect mix...
guess ya need either better training, or better volunteers...
Brentwood firefighters got sham overtime
BRENTWOOD • For more than 24 years, Brentwood firefighters got hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay for hours they did not work.
In our city the unions have gamed the system so hard that guys are retiring at the age of 50 with pensions between $200k and $350k.
Their answer? They will close all libraries and community centers in the next 2 years.
Great solution, huh?
“guess ya need either better training, or better volunteers...”
It wasn’t where I live, it was a small town in Oklahoma where I flew a friend of mine to see his parents.
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