This just makes me sick!

[desertdarlene]

It's just odd that there's no county fire coverage to me because residents usually demand it. I wonder how homeowners get insured in areas with no fire coverage?

 

[chickened]

In Oregon we have FPD fire protection districts so anyone is covered and is paid by a tax levy on property tax... no co-pay. The state forestry overlaps the districts with fire protection that are timbered or outside populated areas which is paid by timber harvest taxes and general funds.

They most likely covered the decision to do a co-pay years ago as an option to a levy but regardless how they came to the present plan the owner is ultimately at fault for being stubborn or stupid of which I am thinking they are both. I just cannot believe they could not scrounge up 75 bucks, that is the cost of 15 bottles of fortified wine, 15 packs of cigarettes, 1 fill up of a standard pickup fuel tank, no idea what drugs cost but I am sure it is less than a baggie of pot. I assure you I pay more than 75 dollars for my fire protection.

 

[country lady]

Twentynine is right, these are volunteer firemen and the fees are used to buy equipment, etc. Some people will not live by rules. I live in a rural area and always pay the low cost fee for volunteer fire protection. I haven't read all the posts but I feel that sometimes the comments are from city people who don't understand; rural life is different. I have neighbors who refuse to pay for garbage pickup, and allow their dogs to run loose. Now is deer season and my neighbor saw three dogs chasing a doe last week.

I feel sure the firemen would have put their lives on the line if someone had been in the trailer. These volunteers put in many hours training. Evidently, as sad as it was, these people need to follow rules!

Edited to add: I have a neighbor who doesn't buy homeowner insurance because he has no mortgage. That may have been the case with this couple. My neighbor also doesn't pay for garbage pickup and allows his dogs to run loose. Some people move to the country to live as they please, without restrictions of city life.

 

[acid_chipmunk]

Quote:
Going to start by saying, I did NOT read all the responses.

I agree with Writer.

I work at a 911 center as a dispatcher. ALL of the fire departments in our county are volunteer. We have 3 paid drivers in our city, but everyone else is volunteer. If someone calls and says they have a fire, we dispatch and the FD goes. NO MATTER WHAT! We just had a total loss fire here over the weekend. Pretty much our whole county was there, along with departments from the neighboring counties. No one was made to pay a fee before the fire was put out.

We pay taxes on our income here that are EMS and fire taxes. It comes out to $52 a year/per person. This fee goes directly to the FD's along with some of the property taxes.

Any fireman who can stand by and watch a residence burn for $75, should be ashamed of themselves and turn in their gear. There is NO excuse for that, no matter where you live.

 

[justuschickens59]

Quote:
So just because they have a lot of information in the computer, this automatically makes it all accurate? A person had to input that information and they make mistakes. I'm sure it has happened to a lot of us here that we sent in a payment somewhere at one time or another and it was mistakenly credited to somebody else's account.

So my question is, what happens if a mistake is made and the computer doesn't show a home owner has paid the fee when, in fact, they have paid it?

 

[chickened]

I agree, what was that fellows' name that fiddled while Rome burnt?
Quote:
Going to start by saying, I did NOT read all the responses.

I agree with Writer.

I work at a 911 center as a dispatcher. ALL of the fire departments in our county are volunteer. We have 3 paid drivers in our city, but everyone else is volunteer. If someone calls and says they have a fire, we dispatch and the FD goes. NO MATTER WHAT! We just had a total loss fire here over the weekend. Pretty much our whole county was there, along with departments from the neighboring counties. No one was made to pay a fee before the fire was put out.

We pay taxes on our income here that are EMS and fire taxes. It comes out to $52 a year/per person. This fee goes directly to the FD's along with some of the property taxes.

Any fireman who can stand by and watch a residence burn for $75, should be ashamed of themselves and turn in their gear. There is NO excuse for that, no matter where you live.

 

[acid_chipmunk]

Quote:
Actually this is NOT true. When a 911 call comes in, we get name, address, phone number, municipality, and lat and long coordiantes. That's it. (In our system, it also plots in our mapping system) I have seen many, many other systems since I've been working in 911, and none of them give more information than what I stated.


Now, our CAD (computer aided dispatch) system does have more information, but we have to go and look for it. We can look by address or caller name and see all of the other times they have called. However, this is not something that would be done before, or during a structure fire. This would be done later, and usually only if requested or some dispatcher was being nosy.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Not real sure but I bet if a mistake is made, other than the bad press not alot would happen. Remember fire services even in a payed system is a volunteer system. Each fire crew chooses to volunteer how much risk they will take with the info they have at the time. Usually that choice is a safety issue but there is no law about how those choices are made.

 

[dainerra]

Sorry, sickening would have been "Grandma's in the house? Opps, should have paid your fee"
You know, the way it was when only the rich could afford to hire firemen to protect their house.
The idea of it being a public service is that EVERONE pays (making it cheaper and affordable) not "you guys pay and just bill me later"

Honestly, if they can't afford $75 you think they're going to pay a bill of thousands?

How about I quit paying my car insurance and if we get in an accident you send me a bill?

Fire service to protect your life? Apparently free since they will save human life no matter what. Protection to save your stuff? $75.

I bet they didn't have homeowners insurance either. Perhaps State Farm should pay their losses anyway and send them a bill for the back premiums,

Honestly that is what we are talking about here

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Quote:
Actually this is NOT true. When a 911 call comes in, we get name, address, phone number, municipality, and lat and long coordiantes. That's it. (In our system, it also plots in our mapping system) I have seen many, many other systems since I've been working in 911, and none of them give more information than what I stated.


Now, our CAD (computer aided dispatch) system does have more information, but we have to go and look for it. We can look by address or caller name and see all of the other times they have called. However, this is not something that would be done before, or during a structure fire. This would be done later, and usually only if requested or some dispatcher was being nosy.

Well yea, the point was that dispatch would get that info from a computer somewhere without slowing down the firemen.. Firemen would not be digging threw files at the fire hall before responding.
Our dispatch gives us a lot of info from somewhere before I could even get to the hall. We have a well staffed 911 center crewed by at least 2 all the time though.