30 replies to this topic

[Faval]

No pay, no spray. Firefighters let home burn

Now that's some f-ed up shit right there...letting a house burn just because he forgot to pay his 75 dollar fee.

Just thought I'd share some f-ed up US news.

[Gee]

Greed and money brings out the worst in people and in society.
Thats some f-ed up shit.

[Risey]

Wow. This is the most retarded shit I've ever heard.

[Waser Lave]

You've got to be pretty stupid to forget to pay for something so important, my bet is that he just wanted to save the $75 because he figured it was hugely unlikely that he'd ever need to use their services. Aside from the pets dying I have no sympathy at all that this guy lost his house and belongings.

[gemificus]

that's disgusting people shouldn't have to pay for a public service full stop

[Salamanda]

You've got to be pretty stupid to forget to pay for something so important, my bet is that he just wanted to save the $75 because he figured it was hugely unlikely that he'd ever need to use their services. Aside from the pets dying I have no sympathy at all that this guy lost his house and belongings.

I completely fucking agree, does anyone have any idea how much it costs to put out a fire?
Or how much firefighters get paid? Because it is not much at all and clearly theres a reason a fee needs to be paid. This redneck should have just paid his fee instead of skipping out and hoping for a free pass. People piss me off :|

[Naded]

Still, they should have put out the fire and charge them for the total cost. Just deduct it from the insurance claim. Might not be as simple as that but still, thats a bunch of lazy ass firefighters if you ask me.

[Waser Lave]

Still, they should have put out the fire and charge them for the total cost. Just deduct it from the insurance claim. Might not be as simple as that but still, thats a bunch of lazy ass firefighters if you ask me.

But that sets a precedent where nobody bothers to pay the $75 until their house catches fire...

[Faval]

But that sets a precedent where nobody bothers to pay the $75 until their house catches fire...

They don't necessarily have to charge only 75 dollars. He did say over the phone he'll pay whatever they charge. And I believe they could have definitely charged way more than 75 dollars since there's an actual fire and he didn't pay. Maybe like 1,000 as the fee or something of the sort for a penalty charge.

The fact is...his house burned down and the fire spread to neighboring homes and even then they didn't put out the fire on his home when they got there. They could have at least put it out while they were there putting out the fires.

[WakaWaka]

reminds me of a song.
Let it burnnnn...gotta let it burnnnn.

[Torque]

You've got to be pretty stupid to forget to pay for something so important, my bet is that he just wanted to save the $75 because he figured it was hugely unlikely that he'd ever need to use their services. Aside from the pets dying I have no sympathy at all that this guy lost his house and belongings.

agreed. they should've saved the animals though. shitty to lose pets over $75.

[Derriere]

dem rednecks shudda bin melting smores when da fire been 'appening.

redneck impersonation? chyee dude.

[Sumgirl]

This is so sad. What if he had an elderly parent or young child in the home? Those lazy firefighters would just let them die because of a freaking $75 dollar fee?!?!?!?!?! I am really sad the way the world is going...

[Token]

Still, they should have put out the fire and charge them for the total cost. Just deduct it from the insurance claim. Might not be as simple as that but still, thats a bunch of lazy ass firefighters if you ask me.

Never call any firefighter lazy, as luck would have it you would get in a car wreck in that city and it would those lazy ass firefighters extracting you from the mangled car you were in. Remember what they do for a job and a living then reconsider them being lazy since they made the news for this one incident but don't make the news for all the crash extractions, flood rescues, other fires, and any other time they had to show up anywhere when 1 person in a city of thousands dials 911 they have gone to throughout their career.

The way I see it is unless we were there we have no idea exactly what happened. We are reading the news that will put whatever they want into the story that is the "truth" to outrage people so they will make money. The news is a for-profit business that hires people who can sell stories for them to make money. I can almost guarantee that this does not show how the whole thing panned out, but at the same time I cannot be sure either. Now unless you are a firefighter or in the process of becoming one, more than likely you will read this story and think "oh man these firefighters are fucked up". Well I for one hope that is not the case. From what I gather from the story the house resides outside city limits therefore whichever city they are in should have enough funds to pay for some type of fire department (which isn't the case here), that is why they have to pay $75 to the city that has the fire department as a type of tax that everyone in the fire protected city pays for. Now the firefighters had to get to the house to make sure the fire didn't spread, which depending what stage of the fire they got there by it might have already been too late to save anything from the house, if not then it is disappointing to see that they let the fire burn the house down. On a side note when it comes to the pets dieing in the fire no one should be upset about that, because once again depending on how the fire was rescuing pets is an internal operation and if you think that going in a raging fire seems as harmless or easy as they show in the movies then I urge you to put on turnout gear and take a walk inside. The only time you can really do a rescue without endangering the life of a firefighter is when the fire firsts starts or barely started, which would be hard to do depending on how far out of city limits these guys lived. On top of that what type of house were they living in, because depending on the material the house was made of could cause the house to burn faster and larger than houses with tougher building standards, because the lower the standards the faster it will burn due to housing companies wanting to make more money. Anyways this huge block of text is probably all disorganized and probably won't make any sense... But what I'm trying to get at is unless we for sure know the whole situation we cannot jump on either side (media or firefighters), but what this all comes down to is why the fuck was the idiot burning trash anyways, and if the grandson was a little kid why were they letting him play with fire?

[iargue]

They don't necessarily have to charge only 75 dollars. He did say over the phone he'll pay whatever they charge. And I believe they could have definitely charged way more than 75 dollars since there's an actual fire and he didn't pay. Maybe like 1,000 as the fee or something of the sort for a penalty charge.

The fact is...his house burned down and the fire spread to neighboring homes and even then they didn't put out the fire on his home when they got there. They could have at least put it out while they were there putting out the fires.

You seem to misunderstand the point. Say they saved his house, and charged him 200 dollars. Would you want to pay a 75 dollar annual fee, or 200 dollars in the kinda unlikely event your house catches on fire? Lots of people would just not pay the fee, and the firefighters wouldnt get paid, and therefor they wont work.

agreed. they should've saved the animals though. shitty to lose pets over $75.

Have you ever ran into a burning building to save a pet? Firefighters are 100x braver then you are. Why would they die for free?

This is so sad. What if he had an elderly parent or young child in the home? Those lazy firefighters would just let them die because of a freaking $75 dollar fee?!?!?!?!?! I am really sad the way the world is going...

Sure. You run into a burning building and save shit for free. Go. Do it. Then come back and talk shit about firefighters.

Where to people get off telling people that risk their lives more then anyone, that they are lazy? I'm sad of the way the world is going...

[Sumgirl]

Where to people get off telling people that risk their lives more then anyone, that they are lazy? I'm sad of the way the world is going...

Why the heck did they sign up to be firefighters then? The WHOLE thing is risky. There are plenty of firefighters that would go into a burning building to save someone and they may not even be on duty. This is one isolated incident in a hick town. Whatever they were being there is no way to justify it unless the guys home was a shack not worth $75. I wouldn't have risked my life for any animals, but if I knew that there was a person in there that could be saved I would do it. Because when you care about life you do what it takes to protect it.

[iargue]

Why the heck did they sign up to be firefighters then? The WHOLE thing is risky. There are plenty of firefighters that would go into a burning building to save someone and they may not even be on duty. This is one isolated incident in a hick town. Whatever they were being there is no way to justify it unless the guys home was a shack not worth $75. I wouldn't have risked my life for any animals, but if I knew that there was a person in there that could be saved I would do it. Because when you care about life you do what it takes to protect it.

They signed up to save lives. And there were no lives to save. Very few people would risk their lives for a pet.

You condemn them because he didnt pay his 75 dollar fee. But I ask you why someone should risk their life for someone else while gaining nothing in return? Firemen make meager pay, and without that 75 dollars, there would be no fire department at all.

Its not a matter of greed, its not a matter of hate, its a matter of needing that money to survive. This mans house would have burned if there was no fire department, and there is no fire department without the fees. Its pretty simple logic. This guy screwed himself over.

[Mishelle]

That's pretty dumb to let his stuff burn. They could've saved his house and charged him later. Hell they could've added up all the months he didn't pay his fee and charged him that. People's homes, pets, pictures, heirlooms are priceless so whatever they charged he would've paid it. IMO they made an extremely unethical decision.

[luvsmyncis]

I think it's unfortunate they did nothing. I don't think it's right for someone to stand there and do nothing when they are perfectly able to help. HOWEVER, the man knew that living out in the country meant paying a fee for his safety, and STARTED A FIRE knowing he wouldn't be covered if things went wrong. I feel neither sympathy for the victim, nor anger towards the fire department, I just find the whole situation 'Meh' worthy.

[MiladyM]

Well that would definatly motivate me to pay if I didnt already. Pretty harsh!

[jcrdude]

Likely city residents pay a city tax (if you work, you do. Check your shit. It might be lumped in with State or County taxes). So by living in the city, they already paid the fee.

If you choose to live outside of a city, you understand that certain amenities you will have to pay for directly... i.e. garbage collection, well water, septic tank, and apparently in Tennessee, Fire Services.

OF COURSE THE HOMEOWNER SAID "I forgot to pay." Everyone denies liability for their stupidity at least at first. "I didn't know it was suspended," "I didn't know that was a crime," "I had no idea that was there."

I would have considered this an abandonment of duty had they ignored a life in danger. Likely they would not have, as there might be a case for Negligent Homicide.

But seeing as how this is simply a situation that would cause loss of property, I feel no particular disdain for the firemen who did what they were legally obligated to do... aka "Not risk life unnecessarily"

One Last Point... Sorry, animal lovers, animals count as property... and if the homeowner cared about their pets more, they would have gotten them off the property. Unless the animal was completely retarded, they were likely restrained, as that's the only reason I can imagine they would remain in danger. It would only have taken a couple extra moments to release your favorite coon dog from his tether so he can escape to safety

[Osuna]

I have to admit that first made me do a WTF ? In the UK that would have been unheard of.

Emergency services are covered/paid from both government funds and local "council taxes" that every resident pays to their local council ... so yeah we "pay" in a way but ... if someone was out of work and not paying income or council tax there would be uproar if the emergency services refused to respond .... Even if someone is in work but has not paid taxes (they will eventually end up in court over it) there would still be a huge outcry if a property was left to burn down

In fact I am 99.9% sure that it would be the fire fighters that would be facing prosecution for "neglect of duty"

Just goes to prove how different things are in different countries

[jcrdude]

Emergency services are covered/paid from both government funds and local "council taxes" that every resident pays to their local council ... so yeah we "pay" in a way but ... if someone was out of work and not paying income or council tax there would be uproar if the emergency services refused to respond .... Even if someone is in work but has not paid taxes (they will eventually end up in court over it) there would still be a huge outcry if a property was left to burn down

In fact I am 99.9% sure that it would be the fire fighters that would be facing prosecution for "neglect of duty"

If they are out of work, then their income(US)/State/County/City tax would be negligible. Also if they are out of work, they are likely collecting unemployment insurance and would thereby be able to opt in to the necessary optional services I outlined above.

As a rural area, the tax is necessary to cover the costs of the trucks, the cost of water, and the cost of transporting the water (making a vehicle heavier increases its fuel costs. The reasons these costs are necessary is that rural areas do not have hydrants in place to source the water.

Consider it an optional insurance (he obviously thought preparedness for fire was at least somewhat important as he had fire insurance on his home).

IN ADDITION... this would not be neglect of duty at all. They are legally not obliged to help this person whatsoever. If he hadn't had fire insurance, would the insurance company have paid him his losses?

While it can be argued that this is a violation of the Firemen's Code of Ethics, I would still argue that according to the code of ethics,

I will at all times, respect the property and rights of all men and women, the laws of my community and my country, and the chosen way of life of my fellow citizens.

1. They did not intentionally set his house ablaze to punish him for not paying the tax. That was the fault of the grandson who was burning garbage in a manner that can at least be deemed "unsafe" in retrospect.

2. The laws of the community and country nowhere state that a fireman would be responsible for the burning property of a citizen should they not be honor-bound to protect it.
3. The lifestyle choice of the citizen was to save $75 by not paying his tax. This frees them of obligation.

The fire was a result of negligence, they are legally absolved of duty, and no lives were in danger.

If there were another fire burning nearby where a child was in danger, this would not even be on the news. The firemen would be heroes that did their duty.

[Osuna]

.... stuff ......

What I was saying is how different it is in the UK .... even a rural area has fire services paid for by central/local funds and the emergency response to a fire is not effected in anyway by an individuals payment into those funds.

Over here .. if a fire team showed up and refused to put out a fire because the property owner had not paid their council tax (our equivalent, or nearest thing to, your local taxes) then there would be a huge public outcry and I still stand by the comment that I am 99,9% sure they would be in neglect of duty.

The concept of what happened in that news report is basically unheard of over here in good old UK .. and so is what made me go ... WTF

[iargue]

What I was saying is how different it is in the UK .... even a rural area has fire services paid for by central/local funds and the emergency response to a fire is not effected in anyway by an individuals payment into those funds.

Over here .. if a fire team showed up and refused to put out a fire because the property owner had not paid their council tax (our equivalent, or nearest thing to, your local taxes) then there would be a huge public outcry and I still stand by the comment that I am 99,9% sure they would be in neglect of duty.

The concept of what happened in that news report is basically unheard of over here in good old UK .. and so is what made me go ... WTF

Yeah. Your still wrong.

If you live outside of a city, you have to pay for fire services in the Uk....


Taxes pay for fire services in cities, if you live outside the city, you dont pay taxes.