From the sound of things this is a rural area, with a population too small to support their own emergency services. As a result individuals contract (or not) with the nearby larger town for that sort of thing. Sort of like when a town is too small for its own police force, so they contract with the State Police to cover them.

In the community it was probably part of their taxes; these people weren't IN the "community" proper, rather, they were outside the community and the fire department offered to extend these people fire protection when they had none prior, for a fee.

The insurance analogy made earlier was an accurate one.

Say we have the same scenario without the "pay to play" thing. Person's house catches fire and the fire department comes out and puts the fire out but the house is damaged in the process. Say said property owner failed to pay his home owners insurance but still tries to make a claim. Would eveyone be all upset at the insurance company who denies said claim because of lack of premium payment?

The only thing that will come of this in regards to the rest of the country is: "Dumb southern fireman let a house and 4 animals die over 75 bucks. And they call themselves "Christians"."

Negative publicity only works in Hollywood.

So if he paid 75$ yearly for the out-of-range service, the firemen should then have at least once a year training to improve response time to his address, learning the local and confusing rural roads, etc. But you know that is not the case, they simply sit there and collect the money and hope they dont have to drive out to butt-fuck egypt.

It goes both ways, and they are not an insurance company, the insurance company is his insurance company. You think that there should be more insurance companies, or that other companies or god forbid community services should adopt the disgusting, scummy practices that insurance companies love so much? fuck that, Insurance is one of the oldest scams in the book. The less , the merrier.

Obviously rural areas need to have their own FDs or be included in larger metro areas and that would solve it going forward.

Soooo, who's going to pay for that fire department in a rural area? Even volunteer firefighters have to be paid occasionally, plus all the equipment they need, plus the vehicles, and the first aid supplies, training, etc etc.

The federal govt isnt going to pay for it. The locals would have to, and if they dont have the funds, as they usually dont because they are a rural community, not a booming city, then where do they get money to run it?

How do you propose they include a rural area in the regular service area of a metropolis FD? Who's going to take care of the city fires and emergencies while the FD is off 30 miles from town fighting a ditch fire that someone set off with a cigarette?

Just asking...

Judging by some of the costs I've heard for medivac, if the fire call is in the same range, he could end up owning more than his house was worth.

There are plenty of arguments to be made about what "should" be included for the $75. What actually was included was their coming out to fight a fire if one breaks out. This guy didn't take advantage of that for whatever reason. Rural areas sometimes don't want their own fire departments because they cost a shitload for the number of residents that will be serviced and most of the time will be underutilized.

Just about all the departments in my county (pop- 1,512,224 over 2,373 sq mi ) are all volunteer. Funding is through grants and donations (I think)

True. How about this, they pay a flat $75 if they want fire service and that way they can choose to be covered for a reasonable fee.......oh, wait.:lol:

:lol