I live in a rural ‘Fire Protection District’, i.e. my taxes pay to support the buildings and the trucks, but the trucks are manned by volunteers. But before the district was formed, the volunteer fire department sold annual subscriptions. If you paid the fee, they put a sticker on your house and would fight the fire at no further charge, if you didn’t pay the fee, you would be charged for the cost of putting out the fire. In fact this system is/was an historical holdover. A city might have several fire departments whose job it was to fight fires at insured homes or prevent fires from spreading to insured homes.
There’s been a return to those days in some wildfire-prone California jurisdictions recently. Insurance companies paying private entities to spray retardant on the properties they protect. Goes around -— Comes Around.