Firefighters refuse to put out housefire

[AngusJS]

...because the owners didn't pay a $75 fee.

http://www.wsmv.com/video/25290103/index.html

http://thenewsoftoday.com/south-fulton-tennessee-fire-department-refuses-to-put-out-house-fire/3265/

Ignoring repeated 911 calls, the morons finally did respond to a neighbor's call asking them to protect his house. There, they stood and watched as the other house burnt to the ground, in a fire that also killed three dogs and a cat. But hey, what's the prevention or alleviation of suffering to these heroes?

They wouldn't take the $75 when the homeowner offered it to them on the spot.

They apparently couldn't act like human beings and try save the house, and then bill them the 75 bucks later, either.

What if the neighbor hadn't been home? That house might have been damaged or destroyed as well, and these morons wouldn't have done anything about it.

I for one look forward to living in the libertarian utopia where all emergency services will be privatized and pay to play - and emergencies will become much more severe, as "responders" will not respond immediately, when the situation can be controlled, but only when a customer makes a call.

:damn:

*edit*

What if someone had been in the neighbor's house, but was a child or incapacitated, and thus unable to call the fire department? They might have been injured or killed while the firefighters did nothing.

[Skybird]

I read it in the German news today, too.

I'm divided on this story.

On the one hand, there could have been danger to innocent third parties.

On the other hand, the "victim", if one can call him so, repeatedly refused to pay the yearly fee of 75 dollars that is mandatory for fireprotection outsiode the city parameter, something like this. At least that is how nthe German news repoirted it to be: a yealry, mandatory fee for getting firefighter's support even when being outside their official engagement zone

If you do not sign in to a fire insurrance, you hardly can sue any insurrance company for compensating you if you do not have a contract with them.

If you do not pay your taxes for stateservics like road maintenance, police protection and emergency service, you have noit call to m ake that they owe you to come to your service for free.

And if the rules were known to this man (and they were, since he was asked for the payment) that there is a yearly fee for getting protection by the fire brigade while staying outside their official engagement zone, then he has no call against them when he does not pay that fee and thus they did not come to his rescue.

Many people are in perfect knoweldge about theikr rights, and what they can legally claim. They are always the first ijn the line to gain beenefits from these rights. But when it is about them to give back in return, they mysteriuously are gone , all of a sudden.

If you want protection by a public service, you have to give back - for exampel by paying according fees, taxes, etc, money that is needed to maintain suchz services. It's not for free, it does not maintain itself. If you ive outside ther tax district, and want to benefitr from said services nevertheless, and when you therefore get asdked to pay a certain fee for that, I wondfer how anybody can demand said services if he needs them - when he has not payed for them, as was asked of him. It was my understanbding from the German report that the man was not so poor that he could not afford to pay taxes or said fee.

[Takeda Shingen]

I can understand requiring a service fee for an emergency service, espeically if not a volunteer service. I can also understand being irritated at those that will not contribute an emergency service fund. At the same time, arriving on the scene only to watch the fire burn in an act of reciprocity is about as low as you can get if your calling in life is to serve those in danger.

Extinguish the fire, then collect the fee. Give them citations, order them into court, but put the fire out.

EDIT: It is not as though any money was saved by not acting. The fire department arrived on the scene, and the department staff would then be paid accordingly. The trucks were used, fuel was burned. This was just spite.

[mookiemookie]

Conflicted on this one. The bleeding heart in me says "put the fire out you heartless bastards!" but then again, the owner made the bet that he wouldn't need fire protection by not paying for it and lost.

It doesn't really work to put the fire out and collect the fee then, because then everyone would stop paying knowing that they could pay only if they actually used the service.

I find it more appalling that the county has outsourced basic services needed for the public good, like fire protection.

[frau kaleun]

Extinguish the fire, then collect the fee. Give them citations, order them into court, but put the fire out.

^^This.

Suppose the fire had spread to the property of someone who'd paid the fee, or even worse, human lives were lost. I realize pets were lost, but I don't think that would carry the same weight legally if someone, say, sued for damages and/or negligence. Which I could totally see happening.

[razark]

It doesn't really work to put the fire out and collect the fee then, because then everyone would stop paying knowing that they could pay only if they actually used the service.
Yeah, that's the basic problem I see with putting out the fire and then billing the $75.

Perhaps they should have put the fire out and billed them $750, or even more.

[SteamWake]

Put out the fire and not only make them pay the fee but make them pay a substantial surcharge on top of it.

It is a shame that they have to result to vield threats but I'll bet alot of those service fees showed up all of a sudden.

Keep in mind that this was in a rural area and dident even have ANY fire support prior to the fee being inacted. In fact that is exacly what the fee was for.

Too bad the house dident have cancer that would have been treated?

[tater]

I'm fine with it I think.

Most people are forced to pay property taxes to support fire departments—there is no opting out allowed. If people are allowed to otp out, they need to face the consequences.

You need a system where you either force people to pay, or let stuff burn. That or as has been suggested, you put the fire out, then send them a bill for the actual cost of putting out the fire—and put a lien on it if they don't pony up.

[RickC Sniper]

Extinguish the fire, then collect the fee. Give them citations, order them into court, but put the fire out.

I agree, but collect the fee, plus the cost of responding to the call.

[AngusJS]

I'm fine with it I think.

Most people are forced to pay property taxes to support fire departments—there is no opting out allowed. If people are allowed to otp out, they need to face the consequences.

You need a system where you either force people to pay, or let stuff burn. That or as has been suggested, you put the fire out, then send them a bill for the actual cost of putting out the fire—and put a lien on it if they don't pony up.

Again, what if the fire had spread to the paying neighbor's house while he wasn't there - or worse, while he was asleep?

Sad day for him, I guess?

[Task Force]

Hmm, would really sucked if it would have spread to the next house.

[Bilge_Rat]

the linked story says the homeowner "forgot" to pay the $75 fee, not refused to pay it.

Here the perceived remedy, namely letting the house burn and the owner suffering ten of thousands of dollars of damages is totally out of proportion to the $75 fee.

I smell a huge lawsuit...:arrgh!:

[GoldenRivet]

I think so far everyone's comments have been dead on accurate.

1. it was chickenchit of the fire department to protect one home and watch another burn.

2. The guy should have paid the $75. For God's sake is only $75! I know of a lot of people out there who say they cant afford to pay the ____ bill and then they go get a $60 manicure and pedicure or they go and finance new $2400 wheels for their car or whatever. this guy should have known better.

Im thankful for Volunteer Fire Departments here in the rural areas of Texas such as where i grew up.

We have about 2 all volunteer fire departments within 3-5 miles of my childhood home.

they have responded to our home twice on false alarms when i was a kid.

both times i took notice of the fact that they were:

polite and courteous

every bit as well equipped as a city funded fire department

every bit as professional and quick to respond as a city funded fire department

As many of you know i had a real house fire in '09. It is a very frightening thing to experience, and if the fire department had been delayed by another 3 to 5 minutes... i probably would have lost nearly everything. When you have a house fire... the feeling is indescribable - its the most powerless and probably the most confused i have ever felt in my life.

Powerless because there is really little you can do about a house fire once it grows past a certain point - even if you have a good fire extinguisher.

confused - as in my case - because you wake up at 4 or 5 am and wonder why your house is on fire.

sadly for the guy now he is pretty much homeless. but i promise you he has learned not to take fire protection for granted.

[Jimbuna]

I can understand requiring a service fee for an emergency service, espeically if not a volunteer service. I can also understand being irritated at those that will not contribute an emergency service fund. At the same time, arriving on the scene only to watch the fire burn in an act of reciprocity is about as low as you can get if your calling in life is to serve those in danger.

Extinguish the fire, then collect the fee. Give them citations, order them into court, but put the fire out.

EDIT: It is not as though any money was saved by not acting. The fire department arrived on the scene, and the department staff would then be paid accordingly. The trucks were used, fuel was burned. This was just spite.

Precisely....so much for protection of life and property. I'd never have believed it if somebody told me about this without seeing the video :o

[razark]

the linked story says the homeowner "forgot" to pay the $75 fee, not refused to pay it.
If it was me, I'd be saying I "forgot" as well...

It's horrible what happened, but if I forget to pay my insurance, or my electric bill, or my rent, there are consequences.

There should be some recourse for a situation like this. However, that solution shouldn't encourage people to not pay until their house is actually on fire.

Edit:
EDIT: It is not as though any money was saved by not acting. The fire department arrived on the scene, and the department staff would then be paid accordingly. The trucks were used, fuel was burned. This was just spite.
It seems the fire department did not respond until a paying customer called. So if the second call had not come in, the trucks and fuel would have been unused.

[Takeda Shingen]

It seems the fire department did not respond until a paying customer called. So if the second call had not come in, the trucks and fuel would have been unused.

Oh. Well then it's all good.

[Skybird]

It doesn't really work to put the fire out and collect the fee then, because then everyone would stop paying knowing that they could pay only if they actually used the service.

^This.

It also would mean to accept that the community, all people paying for such services, would need to accept that they additonally come up for the costs of maintaing the administrative structures and court proceedings to force somebody to pay afterwards.

I am reminded of two things in this context. First, that courts are totally overburdened and deadlocked with bagatelle cases becasue every bagatelle today, every little sucker thinking he must file a case against this ticket here, that minor offence penalty there, anmd then go to the next instance, and the next higher court, and many just do that becasue they eiother do not accept certain laws to be valid for them as well, or because they simply have the right and opportunity to do so even when they are guilty.

Second, it reminds me of what in German we call "Mietnomaden", people who rent a flat, but never pay asingle cent and have all protection and rights by the law, causing immense stress and loss of income and damage to the house owner. Such disputes see all advantages on side of the nomads, with the owner of the house needing to follow a dozen different waiting periods, and having to pay additonally for all services the court allows in order to keep formalities. The mean time of conflict in such cases is 15-18 months, and the average damage that has to be payed by the house owner all by himself, is around 25-28 thousand Euros. Much longer proceedings and higher damages are possible and not rare.

The German article IU read said that the guy did not forget but refused to pay even after beign asked several times. That would mean he did not forget it, but he resisted to it. And maybe that is the reason why the fire departement was so pissed.

[GoldenRivet]

it reminds me of what in German we call "Mietnomaden", people who rent a flat, but never pay asingle cent and have all protection and rights by the law, causing immense stress and loss of income and damage to the house owner.

This exact thing happend to us with one of our properties back in 2008.

The guy did not pay November's rent.

he then avoided numerous phone calls, visits to his door, mailings etc.

December rolls around, same thing.

2 months now... $1,900 in rent now lost.

We got legal advice as we had never been in the situation to evict anyone before.

at any rate the way it all worked out we had to start the eviction process all over in January and do certain things after the passage of so many days for it to "stick" where he couldn't sue or make false claims against us etc.

Finally at the end of January, under threat that he could leave the property voluntarily by XXX time or else the sheriff's department could remove him from it by force, he left.

This translates to $2,850 in lost rent over the period of 3 months not including the cost of legal advice and the petty expenses involving the eviction process one could tabulate given a few minutes time.

[Skybird]

This exact thing happend to us with one of our properties back in 2008.

The guy did not pay November's rent.

he then avoided numerous phone calls, visits to his door, mailings etc.

December rolls around, same thing.

2 months now... $1,900 in rent now lost.

We got legal advice as we had never been in the situation to evict anyone before.

at any rate the way it all worked out we had to start the eviction process all over in January and do certain things after the passage of so many days for it to "stick" where he couldn't sue or make false claims against us etc.

Finally at the end of January, under threat that he could leave the property voluntarily by XXX time or else the sheriff's department could remove him from it by force, he left.

This translates to $2,850 in lost rent over the period of 3 months not including the cost of legal advice and the petty expenses involving the eviction process one could tabulate given a few minutes time.
By German standards you still would be lucky, after three months the thing still would not be even at court. Having the police kicking him out would not be a legal option over here, and he would be able to call adozen legal formalities to delay untilt he final verdict, which, as I said, usually is not before 15-18 months. German laws protect Mietnomaden very intensely. We own a holuse and rent 4 big flats ourselves, and we know two other houseowner where it went like this - one of them suffered so much financial damage that it existentially ruined him. But the social balance, you know, and rights for the offe nder and weighing the good guy's interest versus the legitimate interests of the bad guy. I could vomit all day long about such BS.

This leads to a very special declaration of bancruptcy of the legal system over here that looks like this: that lawyers often recommend to try to convince the scumbag to voluntarily leave and offering him some thnousand Euros cash if onjly he would disappear. This advise is part of the game over here - and many take it in despair, knowing that even under optimal conditions the legal dispoute will run for over one year and cause finacial damage in the 5-digit range .

I a case like this I would wish to be a friend of Don Vito whom I could ask for a favour.

To be clear about one thing, I am talking about people who move in with the clear intent to steal and betray and who lie from beginning on. Criminals. Some years ago we had a women who became ill and jobless and all life collapsed around her without it being her fault - she simply had plenty of bad luck striking her, and a private tragedy. We helped a bit to ease her financial dispair by lowering the rent and accepting long delays. We lost m oney that way, but we could afford it and we knew she was not cheating. A case like this is something very different than a fraudster with criminal intentions from beginning on. We also asisted her to find a cheaper, smaller flat that she could afford, and get her furniture moved. You know, not everybody with small or no money is all guilty by himself for that. There are people who deserve a little help and a new chance.

It's just that this gets massiovely exploited by the real mean guys - with laws being so socially emphatical that they often provide assistance by making acceptance of such cheats and crimes legally mandatory, in a way. And that is where the system has lost me.

I think I described that case with that woman in a thread some years ago, didn'tI!?

[tater]

Again, what if the fire had spread to the paying neighbor's house while he wasn't there - or worse, while he was asleep?

Sad day for him, I guess?

The FD was already there. Protect the neighbor's house. Bottom line if you fail to pay, you should be on the hook not for the lapsed taxes, etc, but for those AND the actual cost of the firefighting (gotta be thousands per hour).

[Schroeder]

They should have extinguished the fire and presented him the bill for it. That would have been fairer in my opinion.:-?

[August]

The fire department cannot abrogate it's responsibilities because of an unpaid fee. This will go to court and the owner will win a new house plus pain and suffering for the lost pets. Then depending on the amount of damage they may also get a second lawsuit from the guy onto whose property the fire was allowed to spread.

This is going to be a very expensive lesson for the mayor and the town.

[CaptainMattJ.]

oh please. this is just inhumane and wrong. letting somebodies entire life burn down because of 75$? Cold heartless bastards. They even said they would pay whatever it took if they put out the fire. thats just insanity. the owner wouldve been more then happy to pay the 75$ from then on plus whatever else he could give. But because of 75$ they let his house, his memories, his belongings, his PETS burn to death for SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! this is disgusting. it makes me sick to the core. theres no excuse for this. i hope he gets whatever he sues for, and i hope the mayor and fire chief have their wn houses burn to know what it feels like.

If they pay their dam taxes then there shouldnt be any sort of extra "fee" AFTER hes paid his taxes.:nope::nope::nope::nope::nope:

[AngusJS]

The FD was already there. Protect the neighbor's house. Bottom line if you fail to pay, you should be on the hook not for the lapsed taxes, etc, but for those AND the actual cost of the firefighting (gotta be thousands per hour).No, they weren't. They only arrived when that neighbor called.

Again, if that neighbor had not been there to call, or had not been able to call, we could be looking at two houses lost, and serious injuries or deaths.

All over 75 @%*#& dollars.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

As a resident of the Great State of Tennessee, I have a little insight into this issue.

First, the fire department will not be held accountable. Part of the deeding process is a clear declaration of the fee and the homeowners responsibilty to pay it for future possible services rendered.

There is another side of this story. One that is conventiently overlooked.

One of the differences:

When I lived in Florida, things like emegency services were INCLUDED in that high property tax bill you got once a year. Yes, there is a lot more than just that, but it was an inclusive tax levyed upon the homeowner if you are in or out of an urban area.

In Tennessee, if you are OUTSIDE of an urban area, they are not required to provide ANY emergency services. It is up to the local goverments to determine the quantity and quality of the emergency services. In my community, the local 'fire service fee' is 250 bucks a year. It is TOTALLY optional to me. I can choose to pay it or not. It is my choice. If my house catches fire, they will NOT resppnd. They send me a letter STATING that I would be on the non-response list when they did not get the payment by a certain date. They take payment at the courthouse OR the firehouse and remove your name immediately. It is an easy fix.

In Florida, my property taxes were about $1300/year for a small house. Here, it is $225/year for a house TWICE the size.

This is one reason why property taxes in Tennessee are so low. They do not levy an all inclusive tax upon a homeowner.

He forgot?? BS. This guy gambled. Pure and simple.

He lost.

[razark]

If they pay their dam taxes then there shouldnt be any sort of extra "fee" AFTER hes paid his taxes.
The fire department was paid for by the city. This fellow lived outside the city. He paid no taxes to the city, meaning he did not pay for the fire department.

The city made the fire department available to people living outside the city for an annual fee of $75. This fellow did not pay the fee. He was not entitled to services he did not pay for, and seems to be willing to pay only when his house was on fire.

[Zachstar]

A libertarian's wet dream. For profit police and fire departments fleecing people and then refusing to put out fires for the poor.

Now don't get me wrong. The man moved out there to avoid taxes and should have been given one HELL of a fine (500-1000USD) but the libertarian view of just letting it burn to save taxpayer funds is beyond wrong.

Heard there was going to be a lawsuit on this. Glad to hear it.