Tennessee family home burns while firefighters watch

[DCal430]

You guys are all over the place on this one. As a firefighter this is my take.

The house burning in the pic, as an example, would never be allowed to burn out of control if firemen were standing by if they paid or not. Why? Because a fire that large burning next to other homes (seen in the background) would quickly spread to other homes if left to burn. A house of that size can also burn for a long time compared to a mobile home. A house can also flare back up over the course of several hours after it is put out, too. So the firemen will have to stand by for a while after it appears out just to make sure it stays out.

Now, in the actual story, it was a trailer burning. Mobile homes tend to burn VERY fast in a fire. Most of them that get fully engulfed are reduced to a pile of smouldering rubble in 10 minutes or less. And depending on how long it took the nearby city to respond, let's say 10 minutes, by the time they arrived there was nothing left to save. At that point, all they had to do was monitor the burning remains and make sure it didn't spread to other properties, since the home owner refused to pay their fee.

This scenario is 100% the fault of the homeowner (especially so since they most likely caused the fire somehow) and since no lives were in danger and they didn't pay the fee, they got what they deserved, which was nothing.

Like I said before, here fire fighters allowed a wild fire on an island to burn out of control for more than week causing 5 homes (not trailers
) to burn to the ground. Causing thousands of acres of wild life area to be destroyed, countless animals to die, and throwing tons of pollution into the air.

 

[dmcowen674]

Like I said before, here fire fighters allowed a wild fire on an island to burn out of control for more than week causing 5 homes (not trailers
) to burn to the ground. Causing thousands of acres of wild life area to be destroyed, countless animals to die, and throwing tons of pollution into the air.

That is a completely different issue than this $75 fee.

Was the Island supposed to pay a fee?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Everyone is focusing on the $75 Fee.

If this FEE is so critical as you all say then anyone that does not pay this FEE should be immediately eveicted from where they are and the premises bulldozed.

It essentially is a "Certificate of Occupancy" FEE.

If a home does not have approved running water and other essential "Services" running you can not occupy a dwelling.

The same applies to this $75, without it you do not have an essential service and can not live in the home.

Problem solved

/thread

Fire protection coverage is not essential to live safely.

 

[matt0611]

I haven't read this whole thread, so this may have been answered, but why couldn't the firefighters just put out the fire if the guy wanted to and bill him for it later (for the full amount and not just for the fee) ?

 

[dmcowen674]

Fire protection coverage is not essential to live safely.

You spent quite a few posts saying otherwise.

Sounds like a personality disorder to me.

If you use that argument there would be no one here in the U.S.

Back in the day all settlers had was a well or creek/lake etc and brought in pails of water and they occupied their homes.

Your safety issues crumble just as the excuse of those saying speeding and red light cameras are for public safety.

Everything now is all about the money especially by Republicans and is destroying the country more and more everyday.

You are one of them.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I haven't read this whole thread, so this may have been answered, but why couldn't the firefighters just put out the fire if the guy wanted to and bill him for it later (for the full amount and not just for the fee) ?

1. It's unlikely that they'd be able to collect.

2. The $75 every year is needed to fund the city firefighters working on county fires. If they allowed "only pay when you need it" coverage, no one would pay the fee and the few with fires would often fail to pay the full cost.

The obvious fix is for the county folk to either fund fire services by collecting taxes or to start a volunteer fire department. They refused to do either of these.

 

[EagleKeeper]

You spent quite a few posts saying otherwise.

Sounds like a personality disorder to me.

If you use that argument there would be no one here in the U.S.

Back in the day all settlers had was a well or creek/lake etc and brought in pails of water and they occupied their homes.

Your safety issues crumble just as the excuse of those saying speeding and red light cameras are for public safety.

Everything now is all about the money especially by Republicans and is destroying the country more and more everyday.

You are one of them.

I am stating that there is a thing as personal responsibility that the government does not need to spoon feed you.

These people had the option and chose to not take it. That was their choice - the option was presented to them. It was not filtered out by stating that their home was not eligible.

In the olden days; people would fill barrels of water for use in fighting a fire.
If you did not have the water available when needed, your domicile would burn. When the cities developed FD, then the FD had the responsibility to protect the community and the cost was paid by the community.

Here, there is no real community and the chose to not fund a FD; either by taxes or subscription fees.

As to your other straws:

Speeding is dangerous to others beside ones self when one interacts with the public. At that point, the safety of the public becomes overriding. You want to by an acre of land; feel free to drive around it as fast as you can. Just do not try it where your actions interact with the public. The public may not be as "skilled" as you and an accident is created.

If red light cameras deter red light running then that is worthwhile; cuts down the potential for accidents which is involving the public other than the individual.

The use of cameras for funding purposes is a different story and I do not approve. It is just another voluntary fee imposed by a government that feels they need to take money from citizens to be used for other purposes than intended.

Please identify what posts (in their entirety) that I am flip flopping on this FD issue.

 

[matt0611]

1. It's unlikely that they'd be able to collect.

2. The $75 every year is needed to fund the city firefighters working on county fires. If they allowed "only pay when you need it" coverage, no one would pay the fee and the few with fires would often fail to pay the full cost.

The obvious fix is for the county folk to either fund fire services by collecting taxes or to start a volunteer fire department. They refused to do either of these.

Why would people not pay the fee? That's like saying people won't bye insurance. All you have to do is overcharge them for putting out the fire to cover your other amounts. Take a CC or have them sign something. Seems like it should be possible to work something out.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Why would people not pay the fee? That's like saying people won't bye insurance. All you have to do is overcharge them for putting out the fire to cover your other amounts. Take a CC or have them sign something. Seems like it should be possible to work something out.

The $75/year was the equivalent of insurance. Your method is waiting until you have cancer then asking the hospital to treat you and try to collect.

What if the cost is $10,000? It's not just the 2 hours of work, it's the days on standby, buying and maintaining the trucks and gear, paying rent and upkeep on the firehouse, and operating the 911 and dispatch services.

If you get 2,000 people to pay a $75/year fee, that gives the fire department $150,000. If people are too broke or too cheap to come up with $75, odds are you won't easily collect $10,000 from them. They'll declare bankruptcy, skip town or just ignore the bill.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Why would people not pay the fee? That's like saying people won't bye insurance. All you have to do is overcharge them for putting out the fire to cover your other amounts. Take a CC or have them sign something. Seems like it should be possible to work something out.

The problem is that if they only paid the fee when needed; people would not voluntarily pay the fee.

So instead of $300K available to cover overall costs for service outside the city limits; they might have $100K in actual payments.

So the county residents are expecting that the city people pick up the additional $200K costs by taxing those people. That is not fair.

 

[mattpegher]

This is just dumb, on the part of the county authorities. Sure these yokals were given the opportunity to forgo paying a "fee" that should have been a tax. Thats what property taxes are for. I bet the asshole that owns the trailer park is the one who chose not to pay it in taxes.
I dont blame the firefighters one bit. They cant be expected to give away their services for free, but it shouldnt fall on them to make the decision.

 

[waggy]

I wonder what will happen when (it will happen in time) when they let a house burn down and the owners paid the fee?

 

[dmcowen674]

Here, there is no real community and the chose to not fund a FD; either by taxes or subscription fees.

There you go, since you admit there is no "community" the tenants should be evicted and homes bulldozed immediately.

Rest of bullshit stripped