Posted on 12/06/2011 4:33:24 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
A Tennessee couple helplessly watched their home burn to the ground, along with all of their possessions, because they did not pay a $75 annual fee to the local fire department.
Vicky Bell told the NBC affiliate WPSD-TV that she called 911 when her mobile home in Obion County caught fire. Firefighters arrived on the scene but as the fire raged, they simply stood by and did nothing. "In an emergency, the first thing you think of, 'Call 9-1-1," homeowner Bell said.
However, Bell and her husband were forced to walk into the burning home in an attempt to retrieve their own belongings. "You could look out my mom's trailer and see the trucks sitting at a distance," Bell said. "We just wished we could've gotten more out."
South Fulton Mayor David Crocker defended the fire department, saying that if firefighters responded to non-subscribers, no one would have an incentive to pay the fee.
Residents in the city of South Fulton receive the service automatically, but it is not extended to those living in the greater county-wide area.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
in this SH of a town they probably just tell the attorneys not to mess with their system or they will burn their house down.
It's like those stupid old Americans, claiming they don't have the cash to pay the bill to heat their homes come winter.
Turn the gas off, cut the juice...We'll make an example of these free loaders....
Oh, and Merry Christmas to all!
I’m sure they had plenty of property insurance to cover the fire damage..........NOT!
I agree with you. I’m on a VOLUNTEER SAR team. We get NOTHING from the government. What money we do get we have to work very hard at, and they are all donations. We never ask for payment when we are called out in the middle of the night to drive over an hour to a search area (paying for our own gas). We do what is needed. Knowing that those “firefighters” WATCHED that residence burn to the ground makes me sick. Emergency services exist to help people, so help them! Do your job or get out of the business.
Ah. They need more taxes and more laws.
I thought taxes paid public employees, at least according to our leadership. What kind of people watch a house burn and do nothing? I guess people here are advocating paying public employees through taxes... And then let’s add some um fees.. Heck why don’t we just make these tolls. I am disgusted by paying taxes, then fees, it never ends. So unless these firemen douchebags get paid no public money, then maybe. But to do nothing. Occupy a firetruck.
Did you READ the article? It says that the woman and her boyfriend knew about the same thing having happened nearby last year but “they thought it would never happen to them” so they didn’t pay the 75.00.
Frankly, I don’t feel sorry for them. They are fools. Utter and complete fools.
The deliberately, after forethought, knowing that someone else’s house burned down last year because those people had not paid the fee, CHOSE not to pay.
They knowingly chose not to pay.
I’d say they deserved what they got. Part of being an adult is taking care of your Stuff. In this case, fire protection cost all of $75.00 a year. To knowingly refuse to pay that fee is stupid beyond belief.
If they had not had the warning of the same thing having happened last year, I’d cut them some slack. But these two shack-ups deserve no pity whatsoever.
Ah. They need more taxes and more laws.
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Nailed it. I am LMAO at the libertarians on this thread who are irate and agitated at this story. But if they analyzed the issue, they would see a easy answer:
Pass laws to forces idiots to pay taxes to get fire protection services.
Not an old story. Just happened. It's just in the same county and with the same fire company as the old story. The other one happened in October, 2010. Guy's name was Gene Cranick.
anything the Firemen don't pay for themselves is ALL paid for with fund raisers, donations and grants, the trucks were all paid for the same way as well as the firehouse itself, the property pays no taxes... not one VFD in our county charges anything.
you don't have to like it, but it's the truth...
The thing that is killing such small towns and areas are government pensions and lavish healthcare plans. Then on top of it in many cases they can retire and come back to work and get paid on top of collecting reitrement and free taxpayer-paid for healthcare.
And bitch to high heaven if anyone wants to take it away, claiming any reduction will “kill them”.
“Who pays for the fire station? The fire trucks and the fuel that runs them?”
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As in my previous post, Taxes should pay for the equipment.
There was never a fee in my area, and I was a volunteer fireman, usually driving the truck.
As also posted, if there are unpaid fees for responding to the fire, a lien should be filed on the property...Problem solved.
What bothers me the most is that it was preventable. It was our own own taxpayer compensated politicians that we elected that caused this. They allowed our economy, the former example to the world, to be neutralized and squandered not for Americans, but for the globalists.
Corporations that were made successful here turned their back on the USA. We needed leaders who were true patriots and instead we got traitors with flag pins who failed to defend our economy and enforce fair trade. They are losers from both sides of the aisle. We needed tariffs and they gave them our free markets.
I think they were there to make sure no one was injured and to prevent the fire from spreading.
That’s great, Alex, but that’s not how they’ve chosen to do it there. It should be a local issue, right? Or, should those of us who know how things should be, just decide for them?
Fire departments are funded by taxes.
All should be covered, county or city wide.
Fire departments have become union thugs who sit on their fat butts and do very little while accepting the gratitude of the masses for what OTHERS have done.
In some areas they are the most overpaid, underworked group ever to draw a paycheck.
Now they want an honorarium to put out the fire. No cash, the house burns.
It’s called corruption.
But I guess it's best that I am not a firefighter in this town... If I was dispatched to a house fire, and then told while in route that the purpose was to make sure that no adjacent structure caught fire because the owners of the burning house hadn't paid $75 - well, I guess I would insist on putting our the fire anyway... If anyone said anything to me I would just tell them I would rather pay the $75 out of my own pocket instead of watching someone lose all of their possessions when something could have been done and wasn't.
This situation, to me, is akin to a doctor refusing treatment to someone hurt in a motor vehicle accident at the side of a road because he is afraid he might not get paid.
Whatever happened to compassion? Most of us will never have to make the decision between paying $75 to cover fire department service or using that $75 to buy groceries. I hope none of us ever do. And I don't know anything about this family's financial situation, either. But I would guess that if they could have afforded the $75 comfortably, they would have. But good grief... To sit and watch from the fire truck while someone's home burns? I don't think I could sleep at night if I did such a thing.
“First, the homeowners insurance should cover much of the loss and second, the fire department would have likely not saved the trailer house from being destroyed even if they had put out the fire.”
I wonder if the insurance (if any) would be voided by not having fire department protection, (or even “contributory negligence”). The town I grew up in had equipment and specially-trained personnel lesser in number but as good as any big city, because it had a (good tax-paying) industrial area. Because of this, we would get the lowest rates possible on home insurance. An insurance company would be out of their minds to insure any structure without some sort of fire protection.
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