Posted on 12/07/2011 7:30:34 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The last time this happened, our thread ran for more than 1,100 comments. To refresh your memory: The city charges a $75 fee up front for firefighter services throughout the year. Pay the fee and the F.D. will show up and douse the flames that are consuming your home. Don’t pay and the F.D. will show up and … watch it burn. I can understand a policy in which paying the fee gives you priority over a non-payer if your house and their house are on fire simultaneously and the department has to choose which to respond to. And I can understand a policy where paying a small flat fee discharges you from further responsibility for the cost of fighting the fire whereas a non-payer is forced to reimburse the department for all of their expenses afterward. In that case, the fee operates as de facto fire insurance. What I don’t understand is a policy where the F.D. will show up to a blaze but give the non-paying owner no option to get them to fight it. If the owner’s middle class, he’ll likely have some savings with which to reimburse the department for the cost; if the owner’s poor, he could agree to have his wages garnished going forward to partially reimburse them. Either way, the resulting hardship should be enough of a deterrent to encourage people to pay the fee ahead of time.
If you disagree, then should the fee simply be mandated as a tax? All this is, really, is an analogue for the health-care debate. We don’t let doctors opt to let poor people suffer in an emergency just because they don’t have insurance. Why let a family go homeless?
I imagine this will be an issue in this locality for a while.
What I absolutely cannot comprehend in this situation is that the fire department, ostensibly including a full complement of men and equipment, was deployed but not used. Whatever operating costs the department incurs for dispatching a crew were incurred in this case. The only thing they didn’t do is fight the fire. Somebody really needs to explain that.
No, I live in a city and pay taxes for FD.
This is penny wise dollar foolish.
The “its the princple” types are out to lunch. Way better ways to deal with this than let the house burn down to the ground.
Oh, they were definitely “sighted.”
I think you meant “cited.” :-)
Perhaps the neighbors had paid their fees and they were protecting other houses from the possible spread of the fire.
The people that paid the $75 helped, but I think they were funded primarily by another communities tax payments.
If the people outside the city don't like it they can be taxed to pay for their own fire department or taxed to pay for the city fire department to expand its coverage.
Where I live, the rural areas generally have taxpayer paid township fire departments (usually volunteer except for a couple bosses) which also serve the villages and smaller cities within the townships rather the small cities having their own which optionally cover the countryside.
And they do this how? By wishing and hoping the fire doesn’t spread? I am pretty certain that fire doesn’t really care whether you want it to spread or not. The best way to prevent the fire from spreading is to PUT IT OUT.
Any way you look at it, the fire department failed miserably.
And then there is reality... If the homeowner is unable or unwilling to pay a $75 fee, then in all likelihood the house is worth less than the first and second mortgage and tax liens, which means that when the house is sold, the fire compnay gets nothing and everyone else ends up paying for this deadbeat through higher fees and taxes. The better approach is for the insurance company to pay the fee directly to the fire company and then include the fee as part of the premium. If the homeowner fails to pay the insurance premium, then he or she is too stupid to help and doesn't deserve to own a home.
RE: Where did this happen?
_________________________
Obion County, Tenn
See here:
That's not how it works in rural areas, Slick.
You move out into some unincorporated area, and there is no fire department. You get together with other residents in the area and provide firefighting services to people who buy a sticker every year.
It's their fire department, not the people who didn't buy a sticker.
So if they fight fires of people who don't buy stickers, why would anybody buy a sticker?
Plus, fighting fires is dangerous to personnel and equipment. You run a very real risk of breaking equipment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a very real risk of a firefighter dying. The fire department buys insurance to cover these risks, and part of the underwriting of the insurance involves calculating fire risk to covered homes.
The insurance does not cover the personnel and equipment if they fight fires of non-covered homes.
You're a communist who is too dim-witted to even realize it.
Nope. They are not all volunteers - although some are through their choice.
The larger issue is that there was no issue until 2005 when Obion County decided to create one. The then Fire Chief Edmison:
“Edmison said Obion County has entered into a letter of intent with all eight fire district municipalities, so all eight departments will soon respond to county residents through subscription service only.”
Thus creating a monopoly. The Department had never run into the red before operating on the cost supported by the South Fulton area before:
7% State Sales Tax
2.75% County Sales Tax
No State Income Tax
$30 City Wheel Tax
$40 County Wheel Tax
$24 State Car License
$1.7/$100@25% City Real & Personal Property Tax
$2.2/$100@25% County Real & Personal Property Tax
When issues such as this arise, it is always important to find out the background.
Please name a few, where you enforce a contract NOT ENTERED INTO by the complaining party (the homeowner).
Remember, this is not agovernment FD, it is volunteer, and the homeowner was well informed that he had to pay the yearly fee in order to receive assistance to protect property. He chose not to.
And your solution is?
I’m in TN. Not sure about this fire hall, but we don’t get a dime from anyone except the members of the community (very rural area) and once with the Federal grant. There are no cities or towns in our zone of responsibility. So, it’s the property owners who foot the lions share of the cost. We don’t keep records on who donates and who doesn’t. If your house catches on fire we’ll come squirt water on it. We get called out on all sorts of stuff, body searches, missing children, forest and brush fires, meth labs, etc. In fact, the reason why I became a member of the fire hall in the first place way back when was so I would have a key to the fire truck and know how to use it.
“The only thing they didn’t do is fight the fire. Somebody really needs to explain that.”
They will rescue people in the house and prevent the fire from spreading to other houses. Also most mobile homes would be a total loss no mater what they did.
If they chose to fight that fire, they would be fighting it without insurance coverage.
If a pumper broke down or a firefighter got injured/killed, the fire department's insurance would not cover it.
That MAY be the best way Depends on several factors, including wind. By being there they can protect their subscribers. If they stay home, then they can’t do anything.
The best way to stop the spread of fire is sometimes controlled burn and not putting it out immediately. Depends on area of the fire etc.
I see you support the laggards and would provide them a free service that others paid for. For $75 you get fire protection for a year. Sounds like a bargain to me.
My hall has insurance on the equipment, but not on the personnel. Can't afford it. We're lucky to have turn out gear for everybody and keep gas in the trucks. Every time I respond to a fire I'm taking my life in my own hands (for free).
Most homes, not just mobile, are total losses once engulfed.
Why would they rescue people in the house? Because it’s the right thing to do? They didn’t pay the $75, so why do they get rescued? Can somebody answer me that? I also want to know how they can prevent the fire from spreading to other homes without putting it out. They can’t, of course - what you really mean is that they will fight the fire if and when it spreads to another home, but they won’t do a damn thing to prevent it.
The fact is that a deployed fire department watched a house burn over $75. The sane thing to do is to simply put the fire out and issue them a bill. Let it be $500 or $1000. It’s not hard to do and you don’t have to deal with the bad publicity of every newspaper in the country reporting that your fire department watched a house burn down because the homeowners didn’t pay their $75 fee.
I never said that and in fact I advocated for an ex post facto cost of $500 or $1000. Presumably it doesn’t even cost that much since the median number of times a homeowner will contact their fire department for a dwelling fire is zero.
It’s not a matter of “supporting the laggards,” either. It’s a matter of a deployed fire department sitting on 1,000 gallons of water and doing nothing.
“Hello, Allstate? Yeah, my house is on fire and burning to the ground. Can I buy some of your fire insurance now?”
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