Fire sale: Fire Department lets home burn over $75.00 fee.

New information - White Paper revision

Following the release of the Bushfire Royal Commission on 31 July 2010, the Government announced that it would accept in principle Recommendation 64 to abolish the Statutory Contribution from the insurance industry that partly funds the fire services and replace it with a property based levy.

In accepting the recommendation, the Government released a new set of policy principles around which the new funding model would be formed and revised terms of reference for the White Paper to assist in developing the most suitable model for funding Victoria’s fire services based on a model similar to option six of the Green Paper.

http://www.dtf.vic.gov.au/CA25713E0002EF43/WebObj/FireServicesGreenPaperOct09/$File/Fire%20Services%20Green%20Paper%20Oct09.pdf

the above gren (discussion) paper gives some possible options from page 16 It may be worth reading these reccomendations to see if anything is suitable for US based administration.

The cost of the fire department is certainly a valid one, but even if the man had paid the fee, the cost issue would remain. It cost far more than $75 to get the FD to respond to a fire or even a report of a fire. If $1000.00 isn't enough, it was only a arbitrary number thrown out, substitute it for a cent by cent bill, whatever the actual cost is. My concern here is that a fire department becomes a policy office. That should not be their concern or focus. Their focus should be civilian safety and putting out fires. Sort the rest out later.

If in the end this starts to mean that people stop paying their $75 dollar fee, then it probably was a bad system to fund a necessary service. Either way, fires need to be put out. If we get to the point where a fire is in any way optional to put out, then we're already in trouble. The fire department needs money, and fires aren't optional to deal with.

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Taxes aren't evil, and hope the community learns a lesson about cost.

I don't know about Ky but if you didn't put out the fire in many parts of the country you would risk a fire that spreads and ends up costing more in time and dollars to fight.

Let it burn and then you end up with 10,000 acres going up in flames. Yeah, that will teach him to pay $75.

they came out to keep it on his property....

One assumes that non city residents do not pay taxes to the city supporting the fire department and that the city has no means of collecting a fire service levy via a rate or tax scheme.
It would definitly seem unfair economically to city residents who do pay for the fire service to have to support non city residents especially when the option of making a contribution exists for non city residents.

I'm a person who is trying to imagine how I will pay my next very soon property taxes, so I can grasp sluggardlyness. I assume I speak for many, perhaps not on a2k.

Could we let righteousness out of this discussion - lots of people are in money trouble, and fire is fire.

Oh boy, I can see this is going to be a hot (no pun intended) issue no matter what I say.
Now, I am going to preface my response by saying that I cannot speak for other depts, and I am sure we dont know all the facts.

First off, that FD was WRONG to not fight that house fire.
By allowing it to burn down, they violated the very oath they took.
And no firefighter I know would have stood by and allowed that house to burn.
Having said that, let me explain how it works here.

Yes, I am a Lt on a volunteer FD, and yes we bill people for fire fighting service.
However, we just get the homeowners insurance info and send the bill to the insurance company.

As for why the city dept didnt act, there could be several different reasons.
INSURANCE is one.
Depending on the FD in questions insurance policy, maybe they cannot repsond to homes that havent paid the fee.
That system sucks, but I know of places where it still exists.

There is also the issue of liability.
If they had responded to this fire, even though it was out of their area, (and the homeowner not paying the fee qualifies) then they could have been held liable for any damaged caused by a fire they couldnt respond to.

What I am having trouble understanding, and the article doesnt address, is why there is no county FD to handle calls outside of the city limits.
We have a county FD here, and we cover everyplace the 3 city depts dont cover.

Of course, my next question is this...
Even if the FD had attempted to fight the fire, what assurance did the homeowner have that the FD would have been successful?
Sometimes the best way to fight a structure fire is defensive.
You simply let it burn and protect surrounding structures.
If the IC (Incident commander) at the scene deemed it to dangerous to fight, then he would not have ordered his men to fight it.
That is a tough decision for an IC to make, but sometimes its the only safe decision.
No structure is worth a firefighters life.
Of course, the article doesnt go into enough detail for me to answer that question, but I would like to see a copy of the run report.

So, based ONLY on the article, I will say that the FD was wrong in how they responded.
However, without knowing all of the other factors involved in the decision, I will say that there may have been a valid reason to not attempt to fight the fire.
IF it was strictly a money issue, then the FD was wrong and they should be sued.

I dont suppose you have a link to any of those blogs so we can read what was actually written instead of taking your word for it,

You can certainly blame the community for not having a public fire department, but you cannot blame this private fire department any more than you can blame an insurance company for not paying for the treatment of a non-client who gets a terrible disease. Would you expect United Health Care to pay for the treatment of people who are not their clients who get cancer?

Well. that's the problem. Good works should not be put into private hands for the sake of profit. When money is the motivation we sell our humanity to the highest bidder. It makes a few of us very rich, but in the end it makes most of us poorer.

I do.


Change "insurence company" with "doctor," and "disease" with "gunshot wound."

Fire departments aren't analogous to insurance companies.

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I wondered about this too. We have a community FD, but only within the last 10 years. The first major fire that occurred after getting the new FD was deemed "too dangerous to fight". Some in the community questioned why we'd just levied a tax to pay for a FD that wasn't going to fight fires. It was a learning experience for all of us that sometimes you just have to let the structure go.

How would this story be different if there were people trapped in this burning house?

You didnt read the article carefully.
This was a community FD, but they were responding to a call outside of their community.

Then the FD would have done everything in their power to save anyone inside.

corner.nationalreview.com

redstate.com

I don't have time to search for the exact links, but I will try to later. Suffice it to say that these guys all seem to think that, well, this is just the way life should be, and it will teach a lesson to the other 'freeloaders' out there.

Cycloptichorn

Here's Glenn Beck mocking the guy whose house burnt down:

http://www.angryblacklady.com/2010/10/05/more-on-gene-cranick-and-the-fire-that-firefighters-wouldnt-put-out/

And explaining that he thinks life should absolutely be this way for everyone, on every issue.

Cycloptichorn

I have said it before, and I will say it again, Glenn Beck is an idiot.
His opinion regarding this issue is worse then useless, because like most things, he has no idea what he is talking about.

I gave a quick scan of the 2 sites you list, and I cant find anything about this one way or another.
So either I missed them or they arent there.
I will wait for you to post the exact link.