Whoddathunk a subscription based fire department would turn out badly?
Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won’t respond, then watches it burn. That’s exactly what happened to a local family tonight. A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.
The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning. Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay. The mayor said if homeowners don’t pay, they’re out of luck. [...]
We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception. “Anybody that’s not in the city of South Fulton, it’s a service we offer, either they accept it or they don’t,” Mayor David Crocker said.
Kicker: A neighbor who paid for the firfighting service himself saw his house damaged by fire due to the untreated fire at the Cranicks. It’s almost as if the free market* isn’t always more efficient than government. Probably would be better just to tax everyone and provide the firefighting protection without checking individual receipts and invoices.
Just sayin.
(In this instance, some hybrid “market-based solution” that are all the rage)
October 4, 2010 at 12:44 pm
This might be a more common situation than many people realize. A close reading of the story indicates that the house in question was located in the county, while the fire department responding was a city department. The county undoubtedly did not wish to contract with the city to provide county-wide services and left it up to residents to pay for the service, and the city, in fairness, might have been liable to suit by city residents for providing services to the county for which the county was not paying.
The answer to this, of course, would have been a county taxpayer-funded contract between city and county, and with complete participation of all county residents through taxation, the annual cost likely would have been far less than the $75 fee charged to individuals. The other alternative would have been a county-subsidized volunteer fire department for the county, although the initial outlay for equipment in the latter instance would be high.
Either way, it should stand as an object lesson for all those innumerate clods that think public services taxes are just a drain on the wallet. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when this guy goes to his insurance adjuster and has to explain that, no, he didn’t pay for fire department services, even though his policy required it….
October 4, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Crassus made his fortune with a fire-fighting company. They would show up at your house if it was burning and negotiate a fee to put it out. Since they didn’t have fire insurance in ancient Rome, this was definitely a seller’s market situation.
Bets on how long until this business model, sparked (as it were) by this news item, emerges as the next big thing on the investment front? They can’t securituze mortgages anymore. Been there, done that, got out of town right ahead of the sheriff on that one, can’t go back for seconds. There was talk of securitizing life insurance policies, but that was too ghoulish to get off the ground, PRwise. They need a new pyramid.
Privatized fire departments could be the next big thing, they just need to refine the business model to behave more like Crassus. Probably help if they can get rid of fire insurance — more of a seller’s market for their services.
October 4, 2010 at 2:32 pm
The industry slang for this would be ‘sparkles’, I’m thinking. Which would explain why fire insurance would be called ‘sprinkles’.
October 5, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Maybe not while there are so many bank-owned homes around!
October 4, 2010 at 8:44 pm
This is clearly a case of excessively strict regulation.
A market-based fire department would have provided an on-the-spot payment option consisting of a flat 2 grand per square foot, plus the necessary call-out fee, water consumption charge, fuel surcharge, legal overhead, standard administration and billing recovery, out-of-hours labor recovery excess, plus applicable local taxes. Once the credit approval went through, and the liability waiver forms were signed and notarized, the department would then put out the fire, and everyone would be happy.
I know there is an obvious problem here – the onerous local taxes may crush firefighter’s morale and distort the market. But by privatizing the fire department completely, the government tax burden could be reduced significantly.
October 6, 2010 at 6:57 am
…and no doubt they take VISA.
Priceless.
October 4, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Having nothing intelligent to add to the discussion (as usual), I’ll just post a youtuber.
~
October 5, 2010 at 10:37 am
[...] In the words of The Poor Man Institute, a for-pay fire department in Tennessee let “the motherf*cker [...]
October 5, 2010 at 2:54 pm
“…the United States did not have government-run fire departments until around the time of the American Civil War. Prior to this time, private fire brigades compete with one another to be the first to respond to a fire because insurance companies paid brigades to save buildings.[citation needed] Underwriters also employed their own Salvage Corps in some cities.”
October 5, 2010 at 4:38 pm
This is what you get from 30 years of people being told that it’s evil to pay taxes, and that all problems can be cured by tax cuts.
Sure, the poor bastard lost everything he owned. But, man! He musta saved a couple of hundred bucks over the years in reduced property taxes! And HE didn’t have to support those other slobs who had housefires during all that time by subsidizing having THEIR fires put out.
It’s a GOP paradise!
October 5, 2010 at 10:19 pm
A late addendum–the guy said he’d been paying all along, but simply forgot this year. So, the money he’d put in previously was wasted because of an oversight.
More to the point. There’s another town in the county with its own fire department and the chief of that department said the county had done a study in 2008 which found that fire service for the entire county could be funded by raising everyone’s property taxes thirteen cents per year, and the county supervisors opted to continue the subscription-only fee system.
That’s almost the definition of criminally stupid.
October 6, 2010 at 6:22 am
I wrote this elsewhere:
This incident is INSANE! It’s the antithesis of a civilised society, it’s contrary to every precept of humanism and I cannot believe that it’s being debated as to whether or not any circumstance justifies it. To let a family’s home burn down over a $75 dollar fee is so illogical, so stupefyingly stupid, it defies description.
Over the last ten years I’ve felt like a witness to the national mental breakdown of the US and incidents like this are further confirmation that diagnosis. Every public official involved should have their asses kicked all over the county.
.
October 6, 2010 at 7:03 am
It brings this clip to mind.
October 6, 2010 at 8:15 am
Wow – when I apply for homeowners insurance I get asked how far away the nearest hydrant is – it affects my rates. Wonder what happens to the insurance rates in that county when the insurance companies decide that the fire coverage is inadequate – as shown by the fact that a neighbor’s house took damage as a direct result of the fire department standing around. And will the neighbor’s insurance company use this to deny claims??
October 6, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Imagine subscription cops watching a rape/murder.
October 7, 2010 at 9:36 am
I don’t understand the problem here. From a utilitarian perspective, everyone in that county will be writing a $75 check now and they’ll have flying firetrucks by next year.
October 12, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Thunderbirds!
October 13, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Hooray, the free market worked! …just not for Mr. Cranick.
Now, if they can only think of a way to put a fee on breathing….