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The town has fire coverage. They voted on fire protection, that's why they had a fire department.
The county doesn't have a fire department. They have repeatedly voted not to provide one. In 2008 they voted on a plan to pay the various town fire departments a fee to provide coverage, and they voted no.
The town used to stop its trucks at the city limits, because their charter was to put out fires in the city. No one wants a truck to be putting out a fire in the county when two or three city houses burn, since the city pays taxes for the fire department and the county absolutely refuses to pay its share.
Because the county begged, the city fire department changed its laws (yeah, people are overlooking the fact that there were laws involved here laying out the jurisdiction of the fire department) to allow residents of the county who wanted it to pay $75 a year for fire protection, just as people pay for homeowners insurance or health insurance. The city for most of its history refused to do that because they knew that if they got called to a fire for someone who hadn't paid, people would expect them to put it out. The country residents promised they wouldn't have to, so the city gave in. Now they are being blamed for exactly what they feared being blamed for.
How would you feel if a fire started elsewhere in a region covered by the fire department and someone died because the fire department was putting out a fire for someone who refused to pay for fire protection? They knew there were no people in the structure. If there had been, they would have had to get them out, anyway, since it would be illegal to not render aid to save a life. That was never an issue.
It was never, ever, ever about $75. No one except those wanting to blame the fire department is arguing that this is about $75. It's about half a million dollars. It's about whether the fire department stays open or closes, maybe. If the fire department puts out fires in the county for people who didn't pay, no one will pay again. That's not about 75 bucks, it's about 75 bucks a year from 20K households, or however many have to pay. Year after year. It's about the difference between a new truck or not a new truck. An extra fighter to cover the extra area or not. It's about how the fire department is funded.
If we tell Republicans they only have to pay for schools or health care or the military if they want to, but they can still use the services, how many will pay?
My dad was a volunteer fire fighter, too, first in Hancock County, then in Harrison County (Orange Grove), Mississippi. I've ridden on fire trucks. I've peed on grass fires. I've helped swat them out. I've dressed in his boots and coat and stomped around as much as a ten year old can stomp around in boots and a coat. I have friends now who are firefighters. One of my closest co-workers is a volunteer firefighter, and we provide a service to most of the fire departments in the city of Austin. We sell tires. Do you know how much a tire for a fire truck is? I get checks for $1400 dollars all the time. I get checks for $10K dollars for a single department at a single time. And we offer a huge discount to the fire departments, and they are tax free, so that's a better price than the South Fulton Fire Department is going to get. Those are just tires, which last maybe two years if nothing goes wrong, on a truck. I have no idea how much hoses cost. Or boots, or anything else.
Lives are at stake. Lives would be lost if the fire department isn't funded, or has to spread its coverage out to areas it isn't budgeted to cover, and that refuses to pay for coverage. You take away the funding from the voluntary payments from the county, and the fire department can no longer afford to put out any fires in the county. That's when people might die. That's when the fire might spread to the neighbor's house.
I feel sorry for the homeowner. I actually agree, as much as I know it's a bad idea, that the fire department should have tried to stop the fire (there isn't much realization here of the fact that they would have wasted their time--it was a mobile home, and the water would have done as much or more damage to it as the fire). But all these disingenuous or completely clueless arguments that it's about $75, or even that it's about money at all, are infuriating.
And insulting as hell. No one on DU is so callous that they'd support letting a house burn for $75. That's offensive. That's as disgustingly offensive an accusation as I've ever seen leveled here. The issue was never about that for those who are arguing that the fire department was the least in the wrong of anyone in this equation. It's about the entire funding system of the fire department. If there had been a life involved, it's a completely different subject, and would have no doubt been handled differently. But there wasn't.
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