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Tenn. Firefighters watch home burn to ground over $75 town fee

I believe the city is wrong to offer a subscribtion service to those you will pay. The city is using taxpayer funded equipment and employees outside its jurisdiction to provide a service. Will they do the same for snow plowing or garbage removal. How about cleaning drainage ditches or grading roads. If the city won't contract for those services then they shouldn't contract for fire either.
 
Good or bad, decisions have been made and we can armchair the heck out of this one.....Local politics have set the stage and now opportunities are present to prevent this from happening in that area again.(If the politicians think so....)

I do find a bit of irony in this situation...... Severl people have posted in the past that a home is a man's castle and we shouldn't regulate it....(residential sprinkler rant for one, window guards another, etc.) Now that the realization that government didn't regulate or control something, people are in an uproar.

This is a case where a person had the aility to control his own risk management without alot of outside interference, it bit him in the foot. If insurance paperwork was falsified ---(i.e. we have contracted service and he didn't) insurance may very well deny payment.

(Another thing about two tier payment plans ----- If you are a true volunteer FD and you are having trouble placing fuel in the trucks, how the heck are you going to pay for an accounting person to keep track of payment(s) and can you afford to wait six months to get paid to refill thefuel tank o big red? Some fire Departments in Rural America might not have 6 fires a year >>>>>>
 
mtlogcabin,

Odds are the county provides some, if not all of the services that you mentioned. It is pretty cheap to fund a road crew that can take care of ditches, plow snow etc. compared to even a trained volunteer fire department. Road graders and dump trucks are cheap compared to fire trucks.

I am all for government bodies getting together in this economic climate and utilizing each others resources. It has to be a fair give and take. If government A doesn't have a service or piece of equipment to offset the a service that government B can provide, they better be ready to pony up some cash.

I applaude any government body that is offering to provide a service to non-citizens, on a payment basis. If government doesn't do it where they can it will be provided by the private sector. Why not get more use out of the investment the City has made on Fire Equipment and fire personnel training.

And like Mule said, $75/year is cheap. Is there even a single piece of equipment that a fire man uses that $75.00 will buy outside of a uniform shirt or something. It would take a lot of $75.00 subscriptions to buy just one set of turn out gear.
 
As someone who depends upon the local all volunteer rural fire department, I make a yearly contribution to them without being asked/required. The county is covered by 13 volunteer fire districts and the city has its' own volunteer company.

Living on the frontier in CA where 75% of the land is owned by the government, our local jurisdictions have MOUs with each other plus we have CalFire, USFS, and BLM firefighters. They all work together to protect life and property.

It is too bad that they don't have something like this where this fire occurred. On the flip side, if it costs $75.00 a year for a subscription, I'd pay it in a heartbeat.

Sue, where the county wants subscription 9-1-1 for all special districts....but that's another story....... ;)
 
rktect 1 said:
I wonder if the same policy is in force with the police department.
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"If you don't pay for the laws, you're not entitled to be arrested under them."
 
As someone who depends upon the local all volunteer rural fire department, I make a yearly contribution to them without being asked/required.
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And this is how the country should be run as well.

Overall, we are a moral people, preprogrammed to help others.

IOW, we are intrinsically altruistic.

We don't need to pay taxes for full-time firefighters, law enforcement, et al. to just sit around and wait for stuff to happen.

If you want fire protection, personal protection, or garbage pick-up, hire a private company to perform those services.

IMO, everything should be privatized.

That way you only pay for the services you want........and NOT pay for services you DON'T want.

The only exception would be the security of our nation, which is the only constitutionally defined role of government anyway.

Of course, that would require a higher level of personal responsibility.
 
There are sure to be additional benefits by the county contracting with the neighboring fire department to provide fire service. I would have to believe that homeowners insurance is sky-high in an area without fire service. It is even likely that one would not be able to obtain insurance if fire service isn't provided. It seems archaic that a fire department would be receiving 75.00 from various homeowners for fire protection and before leaving the firehouse, researching who has or has not paid the fee.
 
If government A doesn't have a service or piece of equipment to offset the a service that government B can provide, they better be ready to pony up some cash.
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Agree and the cities contract should be with the county and the county should be asseing the fee and paying the city not the individual property owner.
 
I've read most of the replies here and the only thing I have to say is why in the hell would the firefighters even drive to the structure knowing that they weren't going to put the fire out. If you're not going to put the fire out why waste city or county tax dollars in fuel and man hours to watch the fire. If they knew that this fella didn't pay the fee they shouldn't even have left the station but, then to show up and watch it burn only says ha ha stupid I guess you should have paid the toll. What if someone had died in this fire and all because of a measly $75.00? I guess you can't fix stupid now can You?
 
beach said:
They showed up to protect the neighboring homes (that paid the $75.00) from exposure
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They showed up to make an example of the person who didn't pay.

The most effective way to protect those homes would have been to put out the fire.

If it had been a wildfire, they would not have let it burn.
 
Didn't read all the posts but saw the story the other day when it hit the media. This event is appalling and personally, I hope they get their asses handed to them in court when the guy files a lawsuit. A sad day and situation for all fire service personnel out there. Really, $75.00....... ah crap...I'm ticked and wish I was in front of the so called Chief right now..........sivilance...sivilance......
 
Yep, this situation should have been handled like many would if faced with similar one. Suppression and then leave it up to the courts to settle the payment schedule. This is how it will most likely be handled suring the civil case in the near future.
 
I think that you really have to be careful in this litigation day and age ----- Wouldn't it be considered freelancing if they started operations at a building where basic liability insurance would not cover the employees since they did not have a mutual aid contract? (A subscription service is a mutual aid contract between property owner and the agency providing fire service when NONE is provided.) This contract legally bounds the workman comp, death benefits, and other insurances to cover the FF’s and the equipment.

If is a big word - IF he had paid, IF a firefighter got hurt, IF a Firefighter was killed, If the fire apparatus hit a car while responding, etc.................

HOWEVER, I am tired of bailing everybody out for making poor choices..... Banks, Motor Vehicle Companies, etc. He failed to pay $75.00 ---- If you had a business, I am sure that you would give your time freely and not expect payment for the services provided, much less from the next 100 or so jobs you did because they heard you did the work for free. If times were good, donations would have been sufficient so that subscription services would not have to be used in the first place.

The local politicians did not want to raise taxes... for fire protection in the unincorporated areas of the county. Don't blame the fire chief who was following orders from City Council's legislation and/or directives from Town Mayor.

I am truly sorry about what had happened to this gentleman and his family….

Not a popular position to be in with this discussion, But I have to speak out when we use to take money out of own pockets to put fuel in big red at the vollie department...
 
It seems harsh but the homeowner had a decision to make and he chose to save $75.00. Its a pity but the chouce was his. If he would have had half a brain he might have said something like "I think my kid/grandkid is in there" and made an "attempt" to get back to the dwelling.
 
BB,

I totally understand the points made. I could only speak for operations in the regions I've worked in. When we would roll up for a fire in a neighbor's area even without a MA agreement, we would at least go defensive. Regardless, it's still a sad state for the fire service as it pertains to this jurisdiction's operations and policies.
 
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