Pay and Spray

I heard about this on the radio this morning, and a buddy of mine just sent me this link. There's lotsa hubbub about it. Some people think what the fire department did was wrong, what do you think?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101005/pl_yblog_upshot/rural-tennessee-fire-sparks-conservative-ideological-debate

I think they were wrong once they were there not to fight it. I understand their theory of if you only pay when you have a fire no one will pay theory, but if it was an honest mistake that is another thing. Once they were there fighting the neighbors fire, they should have fought the house fire, they were there, what extra would of it taken to fight it. Also why don't they just charge a huge fee if they fight the fire, like a grand or something. People will pay $75 rather than having to pay $1000 in the case of a fire. The best way would to set it up with the property taxes.

I think they absoulutely should have put out the fire. Fire departments are considered emergency services, and similar to a hospital emergency room, no one should be refused service based on their inability to pay. Bill them for it and let it go through the collections process. Keeping your credit good is the incentive to pay these types of fees. Hypothetically, what if these firefighters sat and watched it burn and it spread to other homes or someone was burned up in the home. They would pay out huge in all the civil suits to follow.

It was the CITY fire dept paid for by CITY taxpayers. The people in unincorporated COUNTY were too damned cheap to fund their own fire dept. The CITY offered to protect COUNTY homes for the absolutely reasonable fee of $75 a year. This "victim" homeowner was simply too cheap to spend $75 for protection...and he had refused the protection the past 10 years.
Maybe the right thing to do was for the CITY FD to put out the fire and bill him the estimated $3500 it would have cost but there is a high possibility that he would not have paid that either...I actually envision him arguing that since his house was uninhabitable after they put out the blaze that he's not liable for the bill. In this case we have just another freeloader whining for benefits he has not paid for; a symptom of America.

Good points all around gentlemen. I can safely say that this is one topic I am truly torn on what my opinion is.

Not me, fatbass is right. $75 a year is nothing and would of maybe saved this mans home. If there was a person inside the home I'm sure they would of taken action. But this man refused to pay and was told that if his home caught fire the fire department wouldn't respond. So he knew.
Secondly the nieghbors must of paid because the department responded to protect there homes.

ScottyP wrote:

I think they absoulutely should have put out the fire. Fire departments are considered emergency services, and similar to a hospital emergency room, no one should be refused service based on their inability to pay. Bill them for it and let it go through the collections process. Keeping your credit good is the incentive to pay these types of fees. Hypothetically, what if these firefighters sat and watched it burn and it spread to other homes or someone was burned up in the home. They would pay out huge in all the civil suits to follow.

I don't think it was the inability to pay that this man didn't pay the fee. It was because he refused to pay. I think if it was the fact that he couldn't afford $75 a year things might of been different but to think he could afford $75 a YEAR is just absurd.

fatbass wrote:

It was the CITY fire dept paid for by CITY taxpayers. The people in unincorporated COUNTY were too damned cheap to fund their own fire dept. The CITY offered to protect COUNTY homes for the absolutely reasonable fee of $75 a year. This "victim" homeowner was simply too cheap to spend $75 for protection...and he had refused the protection the past 10 years.
Maybe the right thing to do was for the CITY FD to put out the fire and bill him the estimated $3500 it would have cost but there is a high possibility that he would not have paid that either...I actually envision him arguing that since his house was uninhabitable after they put out the blaze that he's not liable for the bill. In this case we have just another freeloader whining for benefits he has not paid for; a symptom of America.

Do you have a source to confirm he had refused to pay the fee for the past ten years? I read an article that quoted the homeowner as claiming to have paid the fee the last few years but the latest fee had slipped his mind. I will try and find the article and post a link to the article I read yesterday.

Here is the link to the article from yesterday where Mr.Cranick says he had forgot to pay the fee.

http://www.comcast.net/news/newswrap/6218652/becauseofunpaidfeefirefighterslethomeburn/

As quoted from the article:

"I just forgot to pay my $75," Cranick told ABC News. "I did it last year, the year before. ... It slipped my mind."

luv2fsh&hnt wrote:

fatbass wrote:

It was the CITY fire dept paid for by CITY taxpayers. The people in unincorporated COUNTY were too damned cheap to fund their own fire dept. The CITY offered to protect COUNTY homes for the absolutely reasonable fee of $75 a year. This "victim" homeowner was simply too cheap to spend $75 for protection...and he had refused the protection the past 10 years.
Maybe the right thing to do was for the CITY FD to put out the fire and bill him the estimated $3500 it would have cost but there is a high possibility that he would not have paid that either...I actually envision him arguing that since his house was uninhabitable after they put out the blaze that he's not liable for the bill. In this case we have just another freeloader whining for benefits he has not paid for; a symptom of America.

Do you have a source to confirm he had refused to pay the fee for the past ten years? I read an article that quoted the homeowner as claiming to have paid the fee the last few years but the latest fee had slipped his mind. I will try and find the article and post a link to the article I read yesterday.

Didn't he call 911 and tell them he would pay all the back fees he owed them to come fight the fire?

Nope I was wrong he said he would pay the cost of the fire.
But he did say he hadn't paid.

Quote :

I hadn't paid my $75 and that's what they want, $75, and they don't care how much it burned down," Gene Cranick told WPSD, an NBC affiliate in Kentucky. "I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong."

mikevanwilder wrote:

Nope I was wrong he said he would pay the cost of the fire.
But he did say he hadn't paid.

Quote :

I hadn't paid my $75 and that's what they want, $75, and they don't care how much it burned down," Gene Cranick told WPSD, an NBC affiliate in Kentucky. "I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong."

"I just forgot to pay my $75," Cranick told ABC News. "I did it last year, the year before. ... It slipped my mind."

I guess the news agencies need to get the facts straights. In the article by yahoo it says he offered to pay all expenses but in the ABCnews article it says the neighbors offered $500 to have them put it out.
I guess it is a little bit understandable that he had paid in the past but missed this year.
i guess I shouldn't jump to conclusions until all the facts are in, I really thought a news agency would report all the facts!

He had paid it in the past, forgot to this one time. I can understand if he truly was trying to freeload, but I don't believe that was his intent. Like I said before, they could of at least billed him and put it out. I bet that there will be lawsuits and at the end of the day it would have been cheaper for the firefighters to do their job than it will cost them in lawsuits. My sister is a Registered Nurse, she is required to stop at any scene of emergency if she is there. She won't get paid for it, but she will still do it. These firefighters have an obligation to the citizens to protect, IMO you save the house, then work out the payment details later. This is what is wrong with our country!!!!!!!!!!

I had read in the comments of the local paper in Tennessee that he had refused to pay but it may have been misinformation. Even if I was wrong about his past payments, the fact remains he did NOT pay for insurance until he was already sick...something that ObamaCare makes legal in the medical insurance business but not when it comes to fire protection in rural Tennessee. And THAT is what is wrong with our country and why those of us that pay our own way are also forced to pay for those that don't... that's theft.