Tennessee Firemen Ignore Burning House Over Unpaid Subscription Fee
 

Good call by the firemen.

*At work, and can't read the full article*

I hope that $75 is per month. If that's the annual fee, I'd put these people on par with folks that drive without car insurance and get into a wreck. Very preventable.

I have zero problem with what happened. You live in the middle of nowhere and you aren't going to get the same service you'd get in a major metropolitan area. Them's the breaks.

I bet quite a few people will be writing out checks now.

Throw them in your preventable bucket- it's $75 per year.

Why would anyone expect a service that they refused to pay for?

I wonder if home owners insurance would refuse to payout since the extent of the fire was preventable? I wasn't sure if not paying the $75 would negate the fire insurance portion of home owners insurance.

The story says that the $75 is an annual fee.

I live in an area that has a very similar set-up and we pay $108 a year. We had never heard of such a "pay-for-fire-service" prior to moving to this area 3 years ago. It was made crystal clear that you pay the annual fee or else your house will burn, so I watch for the renewel notice each June VERY carefully! If people only had to pay the $75 if there was an actual fire, then what incentive is there to pay? There would be no money to fund the program. As it is, in our area many of the firemen are volunteers. The story makes the chief seem heartless, but if exceptions are made then no one would actually pay.

It is sad that these people lost their house, but this should not have come as a surprise to them.

ETA:
We have to show proof that we subscribe to the fire service for our home insurance. I suspect that if we didn't pay one year then it would invalidate the policy. However, you are also assuming that this dumb family actually had home insurance! If they won't pay $75 for fire protection I can't imagine that they are paying homeowner's premiums!

This works much better than how services worked in ancient times--your house would catch on fire and the fire fighters would show up and let you know how much it would cost you for them to put the fire out.

I'd bet it was actually hard on the firefighters to watch the house burn. I don't think most people are that cruel, but I can see why that had to do it. I wonder if they would rescue someone who was trapped inside though? I live in an area where my taxes cover this service, so it never occurred to me that there were places like this.

Very true!

As a sister of a firefighter, and the wife of a future firefighter, I feel bad for the firefighters! You know they probably were in angst over not being able to do what they were trained to do, save lives, homes, etc. If there were still people or animals in the house, they would have attempted a rescue, no question, and water would have been applied by the others in whatever capacity was needed in order to get their guys out safe. I'm not saying what the homeowners did was right, but if they had fallen on hard times, and getting that $75 in by a certain date, they should have communicated that with the fire department.

Why isn't that $75 fee tied in with taxes? That's how ours is done.

That's what I wonder. It's one thing to let a house burn, but I don't think they'd let someone die.

Nope, not a single firefighter that I know would let someone stay in a burning house just because a $75 fee wasn't paid. There's nothing that would stop them from going into that house.

Because they lived out in a rural area where they relied on a municipal fire service. Since they don't live in the town, they don't pay municipal taxes. Lots of counties have arrangements like this -- rather than trying to maintain rural fire departments that they can't afford, they arrange with municipal fire departments to serve residents outside the town or city limits, provided those residents pay a fee (in lieu of paying taxes that would support the fire department).

I was thinking that too.

This is done between some cities around here HOWEVER, the money is included in city/county taxes and then is transferred by that entity to the municipality who performs the fire service. Making it optional is insane to me.

The saddest part is that their next door neighbor's house caught on fire because this house was on fire. The neighbor had paid the $75 fee so his house fire was put out. In making it optional, it endangers others even those who do choose to pay. Can that neighbor now sue this clown for not paying for his fire service and having his house catch on fire as a result? Even if he did sue him, he probably wouldn't get anything since this guy now has nothing.

There are definitely better ways to implement this.

Well, there's that whole thing about small government, reducing the consumer burden by eliminating non-essential or overly-cost-ineffective services, potential issues with what are essentially government-run insurance programs, etc.

You can certainly see why some people would want to opt out - similar to other forms of insurance, the majority will never have a fire event and thus are "wasting" the $75 to subsidize others. You might even argue that making it optional is the most sane thing - it's the only option that allows the individual to make their own rational decision. Surely you like making your own decisions, right?

This is more "bad luck" than "sad" - after all, that's why the neighbor paid the $75: you never know what will cause a fire in your home. It might even be the neighbors.

Presumably, the majority of folks who live in rural areas don't live all that close to their neighbors, making this a very low-level risk to "endanger others." That's why it is perfectly reasonable to levy taxes in cities to pay for municipal services (assuming risk), and also perfectly reasonable to not do the same in rural areas (markedly lower risk).

He can attempt to sue him, sure - whether or not that suit has merit and/or will be successful is, of course, a completely different matter and depends on approximately seven hundred and twenty factors we really don't know.

It seems this method worked perfectly to me.

For the want of 75 dollars someone is now homeless. Which ultimately costs society more? It's not small government it's pigheadedness and stupidity.

Having fees be voluntary instead of mandatory is ridiculous.

How?

My husband is a volunteer firefighter; the way he explained it to me (a nearby fire department has a system like this one, only it isn't rural) is that should someone's life be in danger the firefighters will save said person, then let the building finish burning to the ground.

Note that it wasn't the neighbor's house, but their field.

No, it's not just rural - the southside of Savannah's fire department is run by a private company and operates this way.

*sigh*.....why does every tragedy have to become a reason for conservatives and liberals to fight over whose side is better? These people lost their homes, now's not the time for a political debate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...logical-debate

I am a Volunteer Firefighter. Interestingly enough, on a firefighter discussion board I frequent, the guys there are pretty horrified that the department did not put out the fire. The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF, the firefighter union) has spoken out against this city's policy and believes that firefighters should not have to check who has paid and who hasn't before responding to a call.

And yes, rest assured, if there were people inside the home, I know in my heart that firefighters would go in for the rescue. I just couldn't fathom a firefighter letting a person die for lack of a subscription fee.

.....Kelly :)

Because the result is a homeless person. (or people) The destruction of property and the risk to neighboring land/property/people is also dumb.

It doesn't make sense not to just assess the "out of area" people the same fee via taxes or some other mandatory fashion. Particularly since the firefighters were completely capable of showing up quickly and doing something about it.

We all pay for policemen even if our house is never broken into. All property owners (in most areas of the country) pay for schools even if they don't have children. All drivers (and others) pay for roads even if they swear they're never taking the interstate anywhere. Having firefighting services be the exception to that rule is dangerous and stupid.

None of your examples are on point though. None of the folks in those situations have the ability to opt out. In this case, the "victims" opted out of paying a pretty cheap annual fee to have protection. They consciously made that decision.

When I lived in the middle of nowhere, TN, we had a tractor catch fire. The nearby town's firefighters came out - and then sent a bill. Our homeowner's insurance paid for it.

You missed the point or made it for me? No, you can't opt out of those other services because society has deemed them important. It wouldn't make sense for us to pay an optional "police fee" and have the police refuse to show up/investigate crime/arrest an intruder/do their job if you haven't paid your fee.

The guy's a victim no matter what. No scare quotes needed. He's homeless because his house burned down. And if you read an article where they interviewed him he actually says that he thought they'd put it out anyway and tried to pay them on the scene. Can you imagine watching your home and everything you own being destroyed in front of your eyes? The guy was a stubborn idiot when he wouldn't pay the fee, no doubt. But it's an illogical and counterproductive for society to let him opt out in the first place.

There's no logical reason for it NOT to be required. We pay for a lot of things "just in case" no matter how unlikely the outcome is. It's like people who complain about how their taxes shouldn't go to schools because they don't have kids, or to hospitals because they never get sick, and so on. Allowing it in the case of the fire dept. is dumb.

Honestly that's the only way I could see something like this working. They provide the service anyway and then bill for the cost. I mean in this case the firefighters showed up anyway... I don't get it at all.

The firefighters showed up in case the next house, which did pay the fee, caught fire. Will I agree in theory, nobody would pay the fee if they only had to after the fire was already put out. And as for your earlier point, who would the taxes go to?

Someone previously mentioned they paid taxes to the city/county and then that entity paid the appropriate municipal provider of services.

Thus the county contracts with the city to provide service to the outlying community. It's pretty common with other services and not crazy in the case of fire fighting services.
And I'd expect a post-service bill to cost more than the pre-service fee, if it were arranged that way. So, now instead of providing a service at a cost you have a homeless couple. How is THAT a better outcome in any way shape or form?

This is ridiculous logic - "for want of sharing 80% of profit, xxxxx is yyyyyyyy."

Where does it end? The American ideal is all about allowing people to make poor decisions - this person is homeless due to their own choice. That choice, in the vast majority of circumstances, would have been "correct" under a strict cost/benefit analysis. They lost the bet. Nobody is refunding me my nest egg when I bet on Kmart, right? It's literally the same thing.

That's fine.

Society makes city taxes important because there is a real risk for a large number of people. You're missing a fundamental difference between the city and the country - one I addressed in my original post, and I think fairly completely.

Contrast it with public safety then? Why should someone who lives in the country subsidize county sheriffs when they're probably never going to need their services? Being in the country vs. the city brings different issues to play but doesn't change the fundamentals behind it. There are reasons why hospitals provide care to anyone who shows up and needs it. Those same reasons behind police and emergency care apply to fire departments. They're emergencies. Their definition means that no one thinks it will happen to them and that it's unlikely for it to happen.

This person's homelessness is now a separate societal burden. His country/state/federal goverment will end up spending how much to help him get back on his feet? It's entirely counter productive. Charging everyone a fee, possibly a lesser fee because it's spread out amongst more people, would make sense for all involved. This doesn't even address what would happen had people been in the house or had minor children been involved.

When lives are at stake, we don't generally allow people to 'bet' on everything working out ok. This isn't stocks and Kmart. And it's silly to compare the two. There's no profit-sharing here.

You don't protect people from every bad decision, but plenty of other areas, city and country, suburban, or otherwise have made fire department service a required inclusion in their county/city/state tax or fee structure. It's not as if this is a crazy concept only promoted by socialists, fascists, hippies or whatever the scare word of the day is.

There's a fundamental difference, however, in two key areas:

1 - Police presence (and hospitals/EMTs, to a separate/different extent) can't easily separate out one citizen's issues from another's. Restated: basically every police issue is a public issue; many rural fire issues are not a public issue.

2 - There are significant changes in the "fundamentals" when you fundamentally alter the concentration of people. Delhi deals with different issues than Denison, IA right?

[quote]This person's homelessness is now a separate societal burden. His country/state/federal goverment will end up spending how much to help him get back on his feet? It's entirely counter productive.[quote]

It might be. You don't know that, though. This person may have booked the $$ saved and can afford to rebuild. You're essentially arguing that a correct assessment of a cost/benefit analysis is the wrong decision - you realize that, right?

None of these points are persuasive - minors? Really?

No, it's not - this is the same as spending the kids' food money on Powerball. There's no law against that, right?

It's not a crazy concept, and in a massive number of situations, I agree it's the correct thing to do. That doesn't mean it's correct across the board, right?

Unless you think popularity of an idea equates to utility?

I think that allowing someone's house to burn down for the lack of a 75 dollar fee is a stupid one. I think allowing people to "opt in" to fire department services is a stupid one. And I think that lives don't come down to cost/benefit analysis answers (which ignores the fact that the guy didn't actually make the "right" analysis nor did his local government.)

Not sure how every police issue is a public issue yet essentially no fire department issue in a rural setting is.


And yes, it's illegal to starve your children. Stupid comparison.

So is not paying the 75 dollar fee in the first place.

Life is about taking responsibility for your own actions.

Never said the guy wasn't stupid. But we don't generally provide public services only to those who pay an opt-in fee. We call people stupid who don't plan for retirement but we don't let them starve. In the society I want to live in, we might call this man stupid for not buying homeowners insurance, but the firefighters would try to save the house because that's what they do.

No one's going to convince me that having an optional fee is a good idea for either the locale or the individual (whether it was this guy or someone whose house didn't burn down) so I'm afraid we're at an impasse. I fail to see how "well it gives him the choice and cost/benefit analysis means he tried and whoops he was wrong so he was dumb" makes any of it make sense.

Well, we may have found our disagreement. Let's try this:

If someone offers you $400 if you win a coinflip, but you lose $100, a cost/benefit analysis says you should always take the flip, right?

And losing doesn't mean you made the wrong decision - it just means you hit the short side.

Obviously, risk of ruin (ROR) issues do factor in, but to pretend that this is a $75 issue is ludicrous. It's a $75/year/house issue - and instead of looking at this from a fanciful viewpoint, let's look at it from a strict economic viewpoint, based upon incentives: there's no incentive to pay the fee (which is MUCH more than $75/incident, again as I pointed out before) if you receive benefits at the end. This is NOT an acknowledgment that you should charge - just that charging forces the behavior you're supporting.

In low-risk scenarios, it makes perfect sense to allow people to "opt in" - in fact, it makes so much sense that governmental organizations like the NFIP do the exact same thing. Societal issues aren't local, they're global.

The very point of law is that your rights end when they infringe upon the rights of another, right? Criminal acts generally have a victim, after all - and rural fires will generally only affect one property. Even in this "extreme" case, it didn't burn down two houses.

But the mechanism that forces them to starve isn't illegal. Parental issues are wholly unrelated - as is your ridiculous assertion that "spreading the cost" is an issue since the $75 should do that already.

Similarly, it's illegal to live under a bridge with your kids, but the things that put you there aren't (and shouldn't be) illegal.