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makare
Their inaction will probably bite them in the ass in the long run. Maybe not legally but socially.
Didn't Pay Annual Firefighter's Fees? Burn, Baby, Burn!
- Thread starter ThatNickGuy
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Chazwozel
It already is making an impact. It seems like the community is pretty pissed at the fire station over the whole thing.
Well the son did put the Fire Chief on his ass the next morning.
There's no political purity issues here, other than with the homeowner. If anything, it's the Spock test. "The goods of the many, outweigh the goods of the few, or the one".[/QUOTE]
Like makare said, the negative impact of the incident will affect far more than this one homeowner, and will add up to far more than one paltry $75 fee.
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Chibibar
Tin: I thought the firefighter were at the house and let it burn. They were there to put out the fire if it spreads to the neighborhood.
There's no political purity issues here, other than with the homeowner. If anything, it's the Spock test. "The goods of the many, outweigh the goods of the few, or the one".[/QUOTE]
Like makare said, the negative impact of the incident will affect far more than this one homeowner, and will add up to far more than one paltry $75 fee.[/QUOTE]
The impact will be more people will pay for fire protection because they'll recognize the risks associated with not paying. That's not a negative. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only negative that came out of this whole ordeal is that a man, quite sadly, lost his house and a few pets over his conservative philosophy of avoiding "big gub'mint".
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makare
People sympathize with people not businesses. Especially in instances of disaster like fires. The outcome for that fire house is going to be, let's just say, not good.
It appears that the town has little sympathy for Mr Cranick. At last report, no one had set up a fund to help him out.
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makare
That doesn't mean they don't hold the fire fighters responsible.
The guy was burning trash in barrels near flammable bushes and near the house. He almost burned down his house three years ago doing the same thing. It was a double-wide manufactured home, which does not burn slowly.
One can hardly hold the firefighters responsible for Mr. Cranick's actions.
However, I'm sure that when the county asks voters to pass a tax increase to ensure universal fire protection across the county, the residents will readily pass it, right?
Maybe they'll realize that their conservative utopia isn't as great as they thought it was. It's often said that a 'conservative is a liberal mugged by reality'. Now a liberal is a conservative who was too cheap to pay a fee.
Yeah, I'm not sure why people are so against the one-time monster fee thing. It's kind of how an ER works for the non-insured.
Will the fire department collect the entire monster fee? Doubtful, but they'll collect enough through collection agencies that it will be more than the $75 that the guy would have paid otherwise, and if the kept his house, even damaged, it would have had some value which could have been cashiered, re-financed, or at least sold at land-value which would have netted far more than the annual fee.
Either way, they'd get paid.
Will the fire department collect the entire monster fee? Doubtful, but they'll collect enough through collection agencies that it will be more than the $75 that the guy would have paid otherwise, and if the kept his house, even damaged, it would have had some value which could have been cashiered, re-financed, or at least sold at land-value which would have netted far more than the annual fee.
Either way, they'd get paid.
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Mountebank
A contract signed under duress would be extremely easy to dispute in court.
And as for a theoretical negative impact on the firefighters, I don't see it. As far as I know, they're not voted into their jobs. The mayor may suffer in that regard, but I would hope that the community would see beyond a single case where someone set their own house on fire, and then expected a service they had refused to pay for (and I'll use the word refuse, because it's difficult to forget something for so many years in a row - especially when your house nearly burning down should have reminded you 3 years ago) to come out and save their stuff.
Eh, the guy might have difficulty retaining a competent lawyer.
The county/city could easily bill him without a contract. That he called 911 would be indisputable. There might be wrangling about size of the fine, but it would be considerably more than $75.
Or they could chalk it up to the cost of doing business, since they were there already.
A contract signed under duress would be extremely easy to dispute in court.
And as for a theoretical negative impact on the firefighters, I don't see it. As far as I know, they're not voted into their jobs. The mayor may suffer in that regard, but I would hope that the community would see beyond a single case where someone set their own house on fire, and then expected a service they had refused to pay for (and I'll use the word refuse, because it's difficult to forget something for so many years in a row - especially when your house nearly burning down should have reminded you 3 years ago) to come out and save their stuff.[/QUOTE]
I don't see how it would be any different than paying for an ambulance ride. Charge them for the fees incurred by dispatching a fire truck and putting out the fire, those that pay the $75 get fire service for free. Even if they don't get all their money back, they prevent the fire from spreading to other areas.
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Mountebank
A contract signed under duress would be extremely easy to dispute in court.
And as for a theoretical negative impact on the firefighters, I don't see it. As far as I know, they're not voted into their jobs. The mayor may suffer in that regard, but I would hope that the community would see beyond a single case where someone set their own house on fire, and then expected a service they had refused to pay for (and I'll use the word refuse, because it's difficult to forget something for so many years in a row - especially when your house nearly burning down should have reminded you 3 years ago) to come out and save their stuff.[/QUOTE]
I don't see how it would be any different than paying for an ambulance ride. Charge them for the fees incurred by dispatching a fire truck and putting out the fire, those that pay the $75 get fire service for free. Even if they don't get all their money back, they prevent the fire from spreading to other areas.[/QUOTE]
Because as others above has said, then more people would be willing to make the gamble. Less people paying for coverage, less firefighters, less fire trucks, more people burn.
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Chibibar
After reading this thread, I will have to side with the fire fighter.
This is not the first time (thanks to everyone for the links) and thus, other people will pay the fee so THEIR home won't get burn to the ground or figure out a way to get everyone covered (assuming there are others who don't pay the fee)
This is not the first time (thanks to everyone for the links) and thus, other people will pay the fee so THEIR home won't get burn to the ground or figure out a way to get everyone covered (assuming there are others who don't pay the fee)
The fire department is already funded by the city, this would just cover the cost of fighting a fire they normally wouldn't. I'm guessing they're not making much at all by charging the $75 anyways.
A contract signed under duress would be extremely easy to dispute in court.
And as for a theoretical negative impact on the firefighters, I don't see it. As far as I know, they're not voted into their jobs. The mayor may suffer in that regard, but I would hope that the community would see beyond a single case where someone set their own house on fire, and then expected a service they had refused to pay for (and I'll use the word refuse, because it's difficult to forget something for so many years in a row - especially when your house nearly burning down should have reminded you 3 years ago) to come out and save their stuff.[/QUOTE]
I don't see how it would be any different than paying for an ambulance ride. Charge them for the fees incurred by dispatching a fire truck and putting out the fire, those that pay the $75 get fire service for free. Even if they don't get all their money back, they prevent the fire from spreading to other areas.[/QUOTE]
Because as others above has said, then more people would be willing to make the gamble. Less people paying for coverage, less firefighters, less fire trucks, more people burn.[/QUOTE]
As it is, $75 seems overly generous. I don't know the number of homes they are covering outside the city, the distances involved, or the operating budget of the FD, but it costs more than a few thousand dollars just to do one fire run. This includes amortization and maintenance of all firefighting equipment, pay for the team (travel, during the fire, and the equipment restocking/storage/cleaning/drying/etc after each run), benefits for the team, fees for the various communications systems in place (phone, radio, alarms, etc), etc, etc, etc.
Over twenty years, if this dude had been paying, he would have paid only $1,500 total, and would have had the fire department out twice to cover his inability to control fires he himself started.
I strongly suspect that the city is providing this service significantly below cost. It would only take a few responses to completely eat up the $75/resident charge for a few hundred residents.
If the county enacted a county-wide fire protection program and taxed everyone the actual cost of operations it may well end up costing more than $75 per residence.
Which is likely the reason the people haven't been clamoring for it for the last 20 years.
Comparisons have been drawn between charging for a fire run and charging for an ambu,ance run, ex post facto. One very salient point: in general, EMTs and Paramedics aren't putting their safety at risk when they make their (admittedly more frequent) runs. More food for thought.
Necronic
Staff member
I wouldn't quote safety with regards to this situation, because what they did was far more dangerous than putting the fire out. Who's to say the guy didn't have a propane tank in the back yard? By letting that fire burn they increased the risk of the situation. That's part of what I find inexcusable. Here's my list of the idiocy that sprang out of this
1) Guy should have paid his fee
2) City should have expected a situation like this and created an ex-post facto rule
3) The County and City should have worked together to find a better solution to this
4) Letting the fire continue to burn, when they were on the scene, is inexcusable.
The latter is what bites my ass. I'm not necessarilly saying this from a 'that poor dude' perspective, because you can look at it either way. But what is indisputable is that wild fires are insanely destructive, and clearly this city barely had the resources to maintain service to the county. By letting the fire continue to burn they were increasing the risk of a wild-fire.
It's kind of like helping your roommate get viruses off his computer. You keep telling him to stop going to those russian websites, and to keep his anti-virus up to date, but when he gets a virus it is in your interest to get it off, because you share a network.
But yeah, please please please don't quote safety as any part of this. What they did was very dangerous.
1) Guy should have paid his fee
2) City should have expected a situation like this and created an ex-post facto rule
3) The County and City should have worked together to find a better solution to this
4) Letting the fire continue to burn, when they were on the scene, is inexcusable.
The latter is what bites my ass. I'm not necessarilly saying this from a 'that poor dude' perspective, because you can look at it either way. But what is indisputable is that wild fires are insanely destructive, and clearly this city barely had the resources to maintain service to the county. By letting the fire continue to burn they were increasing the risk of a wild-fire.
It's kind of like helping your roommate get viruses off his computer. You keep telling him to stop going to those russian websites, and to keep his anti-virus up to date, but when he gets a virus it is in your interest to get it off, because you share a network.
But yeah, please please please don't quote safety as any part of this. What they did was very dangerous.
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Mountebank
Their job is very dangerous.
They weren't on the scene until the neighbor called because their house was being threatened by the fire. By that time there was likely nothing they could have done anyway for the trailer home this guy owned that had already been on fire for some time.
Cajungal
Staff member
Huh. While I understand their reasoning, it kinda takes the nobility out of one of the few professions that remain pure in many people's eyes long after childhood ends. Chaz and Tin pretty much said what I'm thinking. I understand, but I don't like it. And it would be a good idea to either get the whole area on board--all or nothing. That way we don't have any more of this, "we'll save your home and precious memories, but not yours because you owe us the equivalent of a Pizza Hut's petty cash box.
You don't have to pre-pay to get care. If someone comes into an emergency room (or calls for an ambulance, I think) they get treatment. They'll have to pay afterwards, often more than they can afford, but emergency rooms aren't legally allowed to leave someone untreated just because they don't have health insurance (which has recently led to at least one hospital in Houston closing because they were getting too many patients who were unable to pay).[/QUOTE]
If you are in risk of immediate death the firemen will also come to your aid. But if you aren't, they won't if you don't pay, just like you won't get healthcare.
What about policemen? Shouldn't they stop protecting people from robberies and only protect their lives?
I understand the difference is the police is payed through taxes, and I have two angles on this: Apply the previous question only to people who don't pay taxes. The other one is: why is it right to pay for the police and sometimes firefighters with taxes, but it's wrong if you do that with healthcare?
---------- Post added at 06:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:18 AM ----------
More directly on topic, I guess what they did was right in their context, but I think (as some people have already said) they should have put out the fire and charged the guy later.
A contract signed under duress would be extremely easy to dispute in court.
[/QUOTE]
Actually i was thinking more along the lines of an officially offered one time service costing a fixed fee, which should be perhaps 20 or more times then the monthly thing...
From what I can understand the fire house never got the call as it didn't make it past dispatch. I don't see why everyone is so upset with the firefighters for not using their spidey sense and going to fires they never got called to.
I think that part of it is that it was reported as if the firefighters had been called out when the fire started, checked his paperwork when they got there, and then fiddled while his house burned down.
Now it appears that only the dispatch was fiddling.
There are no fire hydrants in the country. If you're lucky there's a pool, lake, or pond within 100 feet. In other words, if they spent the remaining water in the tanker on a house that didn't pay, and someone else's house caught fire but they ran out of water, they'd be in even hotter water both publicly and legally than they are right now.
GasBandit
Staff member
Let me get this straight... There's a city. That city has firefighters. They put out fires in that city, like normal firefighters. If you DON'T live in the city, say, you live way out in the country... the CITY firefighters will take SPECIAL PAINS to come out to your rural McMansion so long as you pay an annual fee of $75, which probably doesn't even come close to mitigating the added expenses incurred to the fire department for fighting fires out in the boonies. Guy doesn't pay his $75, firefighters don't come.
I don't see the problem. In fact, I have a problem with the guy whose house burned down.
I don't see the problem. In fact, I have a problem with the guy whose house burned down.
Because we didn't pay all those radioactive spider taxes so they can ignore their spider sense dammit...
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