In Tennessee, many communities ask for a fee to keep the firehouse trucks running. These are volunteer departments that are unmanned. If you don’t pay you know that you are taking a chance. People do not pay taxes in these areas to cover for fire protection. It has been this way for 50 years.
Thanks for your responses. I live in a town of 60K in CA and all our “services” are paid by taxes of one sort or another. I can appreciate the pay for services aspect of the situation, but having the capability to save someones house and not doing so rubs me the wrong way. It just makes it seem all about money. Put the fire out and we can square up later seems more appropriate. I guess if I was part of a “volunteer” fire department, You put out fires . so what happens if they just let the thing burn and it gets out of control and burns down the neighborhood or half the county of folks who did pay for the service?