You've got to be fucking kidding me.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39535911/ns/us_news-life/

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Okay, I get that they wouldn't let him pay the fee on the spot since then other homeowners wouldn't pay unless their house was on fire. But why not make him pay the fee plus a fine?

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

I posted this on my FB page yesterday. As someone who used to volunteer to fight fires, this made me sick. I can't understand how these men, who took an oath to protect life and property, could just stand idly by and watch an entire home burn to the ground. 3 dogs and a cat died in this fire on top of everything else that was lost.

It's just disgusting.

Yeah, it's like a doctor seeing a guy have a heart attack or something in a restaurant and just watching him die.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

You'd think this kind of thing would have happened before though. Or at least someone would be smart enough to at least posit the hypothetical that hey, some dude's house may catch fire that didn't pay the fee. What can we do in this situation besides watch his house burn down? Then some other dude, who also isn't a complete idiot says simple, they're charged the fee plus the fee* number of years owned the house + late fee. Fire Dept. gets their money, saves face by following policy. The money is strong enough to discourage other people from not paying and this guy's shit doesn't burn.

Everybody wins!

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Wow. I had no idea this kind of "Opt-in Govt" shit was happening. I mean I just had the Fire Dept over the other night when some idiot neighbor smelled smoke and knee jerked a phone call to them which was actually a small contained fire in my patio burner. They had some homemade chilli, a couple marshmellows with the kids and took off. This shit here though is fucking sick. Just sitting there watching the fire burn. What a joke.

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That was exactly my reaction, I expect almost nothing from bureaucrats, but firemen standing there watching a house burn, not doing a thing?! Fucking shame on them, that is disgusting and unconscionable.

That's retarded, I can't believe they would allow that to happen.

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Is this fire department unionized or something?

And what the hell do they do with tax revenue in Tennessee that they have to charge an additional fee for fire protection?

And what did this guys mortgage company and homeowners insurance think about him not paying the fee?

Freakin bizarro land down there.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

This sounds a lot like a hypothetical argument I had with another poster (maybe slesh I think) who said that taxes were unfair and unfounded. Of course I never thought such a situation would, or could play out in real life. It's definitely pretty disturbing to think about firemen sitting by and watching a house burn down.

That's pretty cold. The kicker is when they kept the neighbor's house from burning because he paid the fee. Thanks, assholes..

Is it an American thing to pay a fee for fire service, or is it State/County by State/County? Shouldn't it be included in your property taxes?

Is there a fee for police service? Wouldn't that be terrifying; "Sorry sir, but you didn't pay up this year. If you survive the home invasion, come down to city hall in the morning and we'll see what we can do for you."

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"Let's just trap Sekera in the caverns underneath HSBC arena." -BlueandYellow

Reporter: "Steve, you guys now lead the league in defensive scoring."
Montador: "It's probably because of how good-looking we are."

its the city/borough/town thats in charge of it

where i am, its all part of taxes

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PSA: I am an overly sarcastic person. If you take me at my word, then i will most likely anger and offend you.

In most non-bankrupt municipalities, emergency services are included (and bloody well assumed) with your property taxes.
That's about 95% of us.
This is the exception, not the rule, which is why we're all flabbergasted.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

The details of it are like this.

The fire department was formed to service the local city. It's all volunteer, allegedly, and funded from city taxes.

The area where the fire occurred was outside the normal protection area of this FD. These rural areas are offered the subscription service because they don't have a fire department of any kind covering those areas. However, if the FD is busy on another call, they may not make it to yours.

This is apparently a common scenario down that, but there is lots of fault. The county governments don't charge any kind of tax, and are not bothering to setup fire protection services for their residents.

Up here, every square inch of our counties is covered by a fire department. If the fire department that covers your area is tied up, someone else will respond to your emergency and cover it. In Sanborn, where I grew up, we received $120,000 a year from the Town of Lewiston for our share of town fire taxes. It's not much, especially considering that we cover the entire Smokin' Joe's gas complex, Niagara Wheatfield Senior and Middle schools, a large propane dealership, and the entire campus of NCCC. We supplemented our income with bingo on Fridays, chowder sales, and other fire company type fundraisers. One of the businessmen on the reservation donates free diesel for all our equipment.

We covered calls outside our district all the time, and others covered us when we needed it. It was NEVER about who was going to pay for it. If there was an emergency, you dealt with it. Thats what we were there to do.

It saddens me to think that these callous assholes couldn't have just put the fire out and sent a bill. That does happen in other rural areas of the country when a similar scenario occurs. These people should be ashamed to watch a family's life go up in flames like this, when they were standing by with the tools to do something to prevent it.

Fuck the politics, fuck the rules. Help first, figure out the rules later.

In the military when a crisis comes up (domestically or something with one of our troops or family members) we make sure the shit gets dealt with despite any kind of petty bull. There is a type of bond that an emergency creates between people and I have a hard time wrapping my head around how these fire fighters could just stand there. How did at least one of them not just say fuck the rules and regs, let's do our job?

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