http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/ posted:

Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.

Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. 

"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

CRUSTY MINGE posted:

There are, and they're loving terrible.


http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/

Ika posted:

Is that the story where the put out a fire two times and each time said "next time you really have to have paid first" or a different one?

DandyLion posted:

Yeah this was my though as well.


Microburst. I doubt they would have been able to touch down smoothly at the end if they had a hydraulic failure.

PainterofCrap posted:

The tragedy is that most homeowner's insurance will pay a fire department fee as part of indemnifying a homeowner's claim involving fire dept/EMS.

These fuckwad fire departments should know that.

quote:

Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out.

His offer wasn't accepted, he said.
...
South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.

KoRMaK posted:

I'm kind of wondering what kind of person doesnt pay the fire dept fee if you are in a county like that tho

quote:

The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.

"We wasn't on their list," he said the operators told him.

Cranick, who lives outside the city limits, admits he "forgot" to pay the annual $75 fee.
...
"Insurance is going to pay for what money I had on the policy, looks like. But like everything else, I didn't have enough."

KoRMaK posted:

I'm kind of wondering what kind of person doesnt pay the fire dept fee if you are in a county like that tho

CRUSTY MINGE posted:

Tennessee is a loving shithole on par with Florida and Mississippi. Don't ever move there.

quote:

South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.

KoRMaK posted:

I'm kind of wondering what kind of person doesnt pay the fire dept fee if you are in a county like that tho

Peaceful Anarchy posted:

I think that article paints a good picture:

Old man who's losing it and can't keep track of bills and doesn't know how much a dollar is now, or just plain idiot? Probably a bit of both.

Uthor posted:

My coworkers keep telling me that they want to move there because it's "the #1 state in the country", by which I assume they mean has the lowest taxes. They never bring up what those taxes could be paying for.


What if, hear me out, we made it a law that everybody automatically paid into a general fund that would pay for the fire department for the entire community.

zedprime posted:

Opt in fire protection is one of those ideas I can't even fathom. It's intrinsically social, fires spread. Poor socialized fire protection has leveled cities. You can be the freest market motherfucker around and should still think "oh hmm maybe we should socialize fire protection." You can't buy an absence of fires on a market, I don't even understand how it becomes a question.

Bad Munki posted:

Holy poo poo. I was going to just post the pics from this dump that I hadn’t seen in this thread yet, but then I had like two dozen pics to post and, well, just go look, there’s a lot here, some really ace work:


https://imgur.com/gallery/hTB8tx1

Bad Munki posted:

PurpleXVI posted:

Who gives a gently caress, though? He could be the Prince of rear end in a top hat Mountain, but whoever has the means to put out his fire and just sits there while his pets and property burn is the loving King.

SelenicMartian posted:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ra-89078#238a2952

Toggle the satellite map, zoom in on the destination airfield really hard, and scroll through the last few seconds of the flight. Observe the state of the runway.

Iron Crowned posted:

Scrolling from the top down on this it just keeps getting worse

Cyrano4747 posted:

For the same reason that people don't think they need health insurance: "I'm careful, I'm responsible, I'm not going to be the idiot who burns down his house."

People in this thread are aware that poo poo just happens. Squirrels chew up your electrical. A kid does something dumb. You have a human moment of failing and gently caress up with a grease fire and make it way worse.

There's a certain sort of person who believes that pretty much everything bad in the world can be prevented by being smart or clever enough, that all misfortune is ultimately deserved because the person was dumb or negligent.

This is dumb and idiotic, but I've met way too many people who don't think they need liability insurance because they're too safe a driver to hurt anyone or don't need health insurance because they're young and a non-smoker etc.

Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:

I don't know this guy's set up seems pretty structurally sound. Maybe there's a chance he slips or something, but I don't see it collapsing like so many of the others are at risk to.

Cyrano4747 posted:

This is dumb and idiotic, but I've met way too many people who don't think they need liability insurance because they're too safe a driver to hurt anyone or don't need health insurance because they're young and a non-smoker etc.

Ornamental Dingbat posted:

I'd like to know how he got the ladders in there in the first place.

Ornamental Dingbat posted:

I'd like to know how he got the ladders in there in the first place.

zedprime posted:

Opt in fire protection is one of those ideas I can't even fathom. It's intrinsically social, fires spread. Poor socialized fire protection has leveled cities. You can be the freest market motherfucker around and should still think "oh hmm maybe we should socialize fire protection." You can't buy an absence of fires on a market, I don't even understand how it becomes a question.

Uthor posted:

I listened to a story about a town that went full libertarian, removing garbage cans from parks and turning off street lights, etc. The more affluent areas paid to bring those things back on a street by street basis. They ended up paying more than they ever did in taxes (plus covering only their street, not the entire town), but were happy cause it was their choice and "freeloaders".

Uthor posted:

I listened to a story about a town that went full libertarian, removing garbage cans from parks and turning off street lights, etc. The more affluent areas paid to bring those things back on a street by street basis. They ended up paying more than they ever did in taxes (plus covering only their street, not the entire town), but were happy cause it was their choice and "freeloaders".

Iron Crowned posted:

That town is called Colorado Springs

CRUSTY MINGE posted:

No, this is the one where the fire department comes to put out the fire on the fence because the neighbors were paid up, but let this familys' house burn because of a $75 fee that wasn't paid.

Sagebrush posted:

Anyway re. the fire, I'm sure that if Tennessee wants to stay in their libertarian hell world of paying no taxes and hiring private fire departments,

Uthor posted:

I listened to a story about a town that went full libertarian, removing garbage cans from parks and turning off street lights, etc. The more affluent areas paid to bring those things back on a street by street basis. They ended up paying more than they ever did in taxes (plus covering only their street, not the entire town), but were happy cause it was their choice and "freeloaders".

Phanatic posted:

FWIW, the town changed things so that their department will respond to all calls within 5 miles of the city limits. If it turns out you don't have the subscription and they need to put your house out, they will, but it'll cost $3500:

Phanatic posted:

Left unsaid was that this fire occurred outside the the town being serviced by the volunteer fire department. The town had long said to areas of the surrounding county "If you want to subscribe to our volunteer fire department, you can, it's $75/year to cover the additional costs of responding to calls that aren't even in their area of responsibility."

Given that they'd already responded to the call and were *right there* it's pretty dumb and totally indefensible that they didn't put the fire out until it spread beyond the property boundary, but it's a volunteer force, it exists to serve the town. It costs money to respond to calls, and if the firefighters are out responding to a call out of town what happens when the'res a call in the town? To cover a larger area costs more money, the pool of money and volunteers comes from the residents of the town. The town can't just tax the people who don't live in the town to pay for fire protection and hire more dudes, because those people don't live in the town. What would you rather the town do? Just withdraw the offer completely and stop offering the subscription service?


Again: This was not a private or for-profit fire department. It was a volunteer fire department, just like most of the rest of them in most of the towns across the country.

FWIW, the town changed things so that their department will respond to all calls within 5 miles of the city limits. If it turns out you don't have the subscription and they need to put your house out, they will, but it'll cost $3500:

https://www.npr.org/2012/03/18/148858042/tenn-town-fights-fire-with-money

CRUSTY MINGE posted:

Yeah that still doesn't make any sense, because they're still within a boundary that determines that their house was within X township. Even when I lived 8 miles from a town in Buttfuck, Illinois, we were still considered part of the closest township in terms of emergency services and general mapping. Our fire departments were volunteer. Yeah, they'd have a hard time making it to the fire, but when you live that far out, you shouldn't expect much to be able to be done.

My grandparents' house burnt down in the late 80s, about 9 miles from town. Everyone and all animals escaped fine, but by the time the fire department got there, wasn't poo poo to save. That town got a cut of the taxes paid to the county to service rural properties, just like every other little town around it. But Illinois isn't Tennessee.

And if you're worried that there won't be a truck to respond because the main truck is on a farm somewhere putting out a grain bin fire or whatever, that's why there are more towns. It wasn't uncommon to see pump trucks come from other townships to help put poo poo out, because the county had the tax revenue to hand out. It was especially common to see multiple township departments during crop fires, but then, it was also common for all the local farmers to see the smoke and haul rear end over to help put it out, or harvest what could be pulled before the fire eats it.


Tennessee as a state is just a bunch of greedy fucks with an annoyingly misinterpreted as friendly accent.