You mean services cost money?
It’s often shocking to my more urban friends who live in larger cities that we crackers have to actually pay for fire protection and emergency services. We pay an annual fee of a few hundred bucks (i think) to the rescue squad. In exchange for that fee, they agree to come put my house out if it catches fire. Or to give me an ambulance ride if I need one. Some people in The City (My The City) opt to not pay that fee. So, when the fire truck comes and puts their house out, they later get a bill in the mail that I am told is tens of thousands of dollars. Being a gambling man, that’s a no brainer. You pay the fee merely because the loss is something that matters to you. Just like insurance, which is legal gambling.
Now, an interesting situation occurred in a TN town with a similar structure. The fire department showed up and didn’t put the house out because the man did not pay the $75 fee. His neighbor did and they put the fire out in the neighbor’s yard. I find that a bit strange. See, in our town, they’ll put the house out but will send you a sizeable bill for it. The fire department in this case is actually one from another city, since the county doesn’t actually have a fire department (also not uncommon here). And the homeowner offered to pay whatever it took but they didn’t put the fire out. I do find it odd that the fire department would not simply contract with the guy to put the fire out and then bill him later. I mean, that’s a guaranteed customer right there. But, being government employees, I guess that’s not something that occurs to the City of Fulton Fire Department.
When I was a kid, there was a barn fire up the street. Where we lived was not covered by fire protection and, IIRC, there was a lot of fighting between the city and county about whose responsibility our stretch of road was. While they argued about it, the all volunteer fire department of New Market, Tennessee drove further than the county or city fire department would have had to and came to put the fire out.
More discussion at the VC.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:45 am
The correct answer to your street would be to have both departments dispatched to the fire.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:45 am
Uncle,
What I find disturbing about this is that a number of commenters claim that Mr Cranick ‘opted out’ of fire protection. The news report here in GA had Mr Cranick saying that he simply forgot to pay it, much as I did one year while living in a rural area.
Like you mentioned, the volunteer fire department would have gladly put a fire out at my house, but the bill would have been much bigger than the $125 subscription rate.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:05 am
As I said over at VC, unwavering commitment to a fire department’s payment structure is a crappy reason for someone’s house to burn down.
I believe the reason the fire department doesn’t offer to put the fire out for cost is that they have no way to be assured of that large sum payment. It’s a city department that also serves a county outside its jurisdiction on a contractual basis. The default rate on that large sum payment is something like 50% and without jurisdiction they can’t do anything to the defaulters other than ask nicely.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Wow I’m hearing more and more of these stories with police and fire sending a bill, which is hilarious because it’s basically illegal for the free market to provide these services that are basic to everyone and that poor people can’t afford. I’m pretty sure insurance companies will start picking up this exposure if they haven’t already. I write commercial policies and the Liability coverages will pay for bail bonds and certain fines and fire damage to other property that you cause. If the socialist services refuse to do even less than they do now, the free market will step in. AIG had a whole fleet of private firefighters in california. http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akG9v3rOnWsE
Just think about the incentives between your home insurer and a local FD. You are a paying customer with probably a package of policies that has $300,000 of value at risk so if your house goes they lose a lot of money. Local FD: Uhm they didn’t pay the fee and we don’t lose a dime if this house burns! Break out the marshmallows!
October 5th, 2010 at 10:48 am
I think in most urban areas these fees are part of our basic taxes. I guess if some areas want to separate these out and charge for them specifically that is ok but I would expect to see and equivalent drop in property taxes.
Makes you wonder what the local cities/counties are spending our money on. Usually, fire and police services are some of the first ones mentioned when people ask what their tax money is used for.
October 5th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Three words: Pre existing condition.
This is a microcasm of what is happening in healthcare right now.
Its kinda hard to make the case that he should have been able to stand at the curb and say “here is my $75 dollar fee, I need that fire dept coverage now”, but they should have put the fire out and then given him a bill for the full cost (like 5-grand or whatever) of what it actually took to put the fire out. Thats the moral thing to do.
I’m not saying that they should have done it for free or that he should get an insurance pay out if he didnt already have fire insurance, but I dont really like the idea that the fire dept is checking their accounts receivable list before they head out to a call.
October 5th, 2010 at 11:07 am
“The news report here in GA had Mr Cranick saying that he simply forgot to pay it…”
The news report I read makes that claim difficult to believe. Apparently they send out reminders to pay more than once a year, and the guy NEVER took it out in 20 years. Or something like that.
Uncle, it’s not that they wouldn’t put the fire out and bill him, it’s that they wouldn’t roll the fire trucks to his property in the first place. They didn’t roll out until the neighbor called to say that his yard was burning, and by then it was too late to really do much for Cranick. I read another comment elsewhere that makes sense and goes something like this: the resources of the fire department are limited, and they have to be reserved for the needs of contributing members. Suppose they did roll for Cranick, and then suppose a tax/fee paying member needed the services but was denied because they were busy putting out his fire.
And further, they really need to encourage the folks out there to pay the fee. The more of those people who pay up, the more resources available to the county. Tough love is needed sometimes. Or in this case, tough shit.
October 5th, 2010 at 11:10 am
BTW – Local news video here:
http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Firefighters
October 5th, 2010 at 11:17 am
But what if Cranick had paid his bill, and then there was that other fire? So what? Does $75 make that big of a difference? Are the people of the other home gonna be OK with their house burning down if they are able to tell them that Cranick did indeed pay his bill?
They need to put the fire out and then force them to pay the very large bill to cover the cost. Sock it to them.. make them pay a ridiculous fine as a punitive damage. Just put the fire out and then work it all out.
October 5th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
First off, no one on the truck or at 911 had the authority to contract with the homeowner. If he wanted to make an emergency agreement he should have called the mayor. For the firefighters to use city equipment for a non-sanctioned use would render any workers comp or equipment insurance void, making the firefighters liable and most likely get them fired. All because some smuck didn’t want to pay for a subscription and started a fire in his backyard at the end of a drought. So before we condemn the fire department, ask yourself if you’d risk your kids going hungry to save an object owned by someone who took a conscious risk.
Second, perhaps the city, county or state should enact the subscribe or pay scheme with no opt out but it wasn’t in place in that county at the time of the fire. If it goes that way, the state should underwrite the fee to keep the fire departments from struggling with collection. Then the state or county could take the property if the fee isn’t paid within 60 days of the fire.
Third, the homeowner may be in for more bad news as my homeowner’s requires I carry the fire subscription. So he may have trouble collecting on his policy.
Also, bear in mind, that this isn’t the city. Out in the country, a house will most likely be mostly destroyed by the time the fire trucks arrive simply due to distance and back roads.
October 5th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Psh. Clearly one should be allowed fire protection for free once one’s house is burning down. Isn’t that what Obama just did with healthcare?
October 5th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Lack of common sense. The obvious thing to do when the fire department lets your house burn is to go to the post office, bribe a clerk $100 to post date your envelope, and mail them the money 2 days ago with proof of delivery. Hire a lawyer, get your million dollar settlement.
October 5th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
While there’s a lot of circles on the Venn diagram already, one that we need to recognize is the group that doesn’t want the protection and shouldn’t have to pay for it at the barrel of the state.
A parallel is the “highway safety” trucks you sometimes see around here in MN. Bright yellow with lights that pull up behind you changing a tire or whatever. My brother was fine, had the situation handled, but the truck was there with an occupant twiddling their thumbs for an hour an wouldn’t leave. Truck “service” bill came in the mail two weeks later.
Risk is mine to manage. I want the option to manage it with systems other than insurance, forced payments to the state, and trucks rolling to my situation.
October 5th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
This is one of the things that makes libertarianism a hard sell, because this is where the libertarian rubber meets the hard-knocks road. (And I say that as a libertarian. Just recognizing the rough patches.)
If he’s never paid into the system, fine, he never paid in. But if this FD accepts federal grants and funding, or state funding, then he has paid in — just not as much or in the form that they would like.
October 5th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I have some experience with firefighting. A journeyman’s experience, but my two cents mirrors JKB. The guy scoffed at paying this modest fee for years, and got burned(pun very much intended)
To paraphrase a favorite saying here: when seconds count, firefighters are only minutes away. They will be hard pressed to respond to any fire-rural or metro during that time, and will have neither the legalese nor the authority to negogiate any such arrangment with someone not previously covered. In Knoxville, stations are so positioned to respond to most normal conflagrations within four minutes, and reserves can be called in when needed. In short, they have pre-fire planning and strategy like other modern departments.
You can’t do that in the county. If Rural-Metro in Halls is overwhelmed, you can’t very well expect assistance from south Knoxville since the service area is radially oriented around the perimeter. Hell, company 31 in Powell would be hard pressed to get to Halls in that scenario. Country roads aren’t made with multi-ton, water laden pumpers in mind so you can’t haul ass in a top heavy truck so in many cases even subsribers would be losing precious minutes. And to state that there wouldn’t be hell to pay for a fee-paying customer getting shafted for a irresponsible homeowner is very wrong. At least if one property burned under subscription while another brewed up, you have a small sense of legal protection.
I suggest that you all look at the KNS article about firefighters that gave their lives in the line of duty. Not every firefighter dies when a beam falls on them in a burning, smoking house. Sometimes inhalation, heat exhaustion in protective gear, high blood pressure, heart attacks can all come after the fire. Legal and health costs will surely follow. To voluntarily expose yourself to those risks to cover a non-compliant property owner would be insane.
October 5th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Police and Fire costs usually take up 2/3 of any city budget. We are really running the whole deal just for them.
October 5th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
The homeowner should file a complaint with whatever agency licenses firefighters in TN. I am willing to bet that the agency will not look kindly on the firefighters.
October 5th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Take the last five years of fire calls for any metropolitan department. Calculate the appraised value of the properties involved versus what the taxpayers pay for fire departments. It would be cheaper BY FAR for a city to pay off the property owners 100% than to run a fire department.
That’s where we are in civil governance these days.
October 5th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Bet they were union boys….
October 5th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
I am a firefighter/paramedic with 22 years of paid and volunteer service. Let me give you my insight:
1 The policy is not made by firefighters. It is made by law. I can no more deviate from the law than you can. If the law says “no pay, no dance” then I have no authority to go.
2 How is this any different from demanding that a car insurance company cover your car after you get in an accident? Or health insurance after you get cancer? Sure, bill me. See how that goes. No one ever pays FD bills or ER bills.
3 This was a fire department who makes special arrangements to respond outside of their normal jurisdiction for a fee. That fee buys them much needed equipment, equipment that is used to fight fires. If no one pays until there IS a fire, who will buy the equipment?
4 Yes, the cost of a fire department is usually more than the value of lost property. That is because the fire department nearly always puts the fire out BEFORE the building burns down. There is also the fire insurance rating (called ISO rating) of the department that is reflected in insurance rates. As with most things, there is a lot more to this than most laypeople understand.
I understand the position of the FD in this case, and say that the guy should have paid the fee.
October 5th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
To add: We get people here who get out of paying ambulance bills all the time by simply not paying, or by denying that they wanted to be transported. Sure, we can try to refuse to take them unless they sign a form, but if they refuse to sign, the law says we still have to take them. Only 40% of ambulance transports are paid. Do you think bills for fires would do any better?
October 5th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
I grew up right next to New Market in Jefferson City…with all the Jefferson County politics. I know where you’re coming from…
October 5th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
dave, i lived in talbott.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
In a Tennessee county about as far west and south as you can get, you CAN’T forget your county fire protection assessment. It shows up on your monthly utility bill.
Fail to pay THAT, and they also cut off your lights and your wa-wa.
Works for me.
October 6th, 2010 at 1:08 am
Some of you haven’t read the full story. Mr. Cranick lives in Obion County. The fire department is in the city of South Fulton. The fire department gives full protection to city residents as they pay the taxes to support it! It merely offers service to county residents as an option. It is not obligated to provide the county residents service at all. I watched the actual video and Mr. Cranick does not say he forgot to pay, he says he didn’t pay, which implies he made a contentious decision not to pay. I live in Knox county and I pay for Rural Metro fire protection through my homeowner’s association. Mr. Cranick never indicates he is indigent which causes me to ask how why I should have any sympathy for a tight ass who won’t put up 75.00 a year for fire protection? I pay more than that a month for a downtown parking garage.
Unfortunately, far too many Americans think they can get some other sucker to pay their bills for them. But my guess is that a lot more Obion county residents will now find a way to cough up 75.00 a year for the service. Either that or they can put up real money and time to start a volunteer fire department.
October 6th, 2010 at 8:25 am
LKP, this is why the Copperheads are quite confident that O!care won’t be repealed and government won’t be limited. Somehow, when principles start to actually cost, lots of people lose them.
October 6th, 2010 at 8:50 am
LKP: Why would I want to pay for a service that I am receiving, when I can just get the government to force someone else to pay for it? It is mean to make me pay for fire protection, when there are others who could easily provide it. After all, allowing my house to burn down because I didn’t pay $75 is a little harsh.
Allowing me to perish because I can’t afford health insurance is harsh. Allowing me to go hungry because you won’t give me food stamps is harsh.
I have a house, a cell phone, and a big screen TV to pay for. I cannot be expected to buy food, health insurance, and pay for fire protection to. What do you think I am, one of those evil rich people?
October 6th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
In one news video it is like “expected them to show up anyway even if I didn’t pay the $75” in another it is like “forgot to pay” and in another it is like “we were traveling and just never got to it” and “the fire station is clear the other side of town and we never get over that way”
So that reads more like the nonpayment was an oversight.
According to the SF mayor in one video “if they don’t pay we phone them up to make sure they really intend not to pay” “It’s their choice, we can’t force them”.
The homeowner’s family had a chimney fire a few years ago and the fire department did show up, put it out, and accept the subscription after the fact.
So they kinda looks like they should have been aware of the importance of paying, but maybe thought they wouldn’t need to.
Funny thing is, if it is a brush fire the South Fulton fire department will put it out, to keep it from spreading. If it is a life-safety issue, they will come to rescue and control the fire. County-wide 75% of structure fires and 80% of total fires are outside of fire-district jurisdiction. So even if they do get federal or state money, the town taxpayers are massively subsidizing the service to the rural parts of the county.
If you watch the videos, the responding pumper is a Ford with a “Budd” cab, which in theory could be as recent as 1990 but is probably a few decades older than that. The water tanker looks like a surplus 2.5 ton with an agricultural tank on the back. A photo on the town website shows the fire station with a second similar pumper and another newer piece of equipment, and claims a small tanker with pump.
I’d say the South Fulton fire department probably isn’t therefore loaded up with the latest kit courtesy of the FedGov, and that they aren’t really even set up well for structure fires where there aren’t hydrants.
If you’ve got people to rescue, you will aggressively fight a fire at least to keep it from spreading in the direction of the victims or rescuers. Beyond that, if a fire is confined to a structure then fuel depletion is one of the safer ways of putting it out.